Page 34 of Game On

The truth of it was much simpler.

He’d wanted to belong. He’d wanted to have hockey connecting him to his two favourite people too.

Did that make him pathetic? Desperate? Something else?

Or maybe it simply made him human to want that tangible connection.

His spoonful of leftovers slid off the spatula, landing on top of the stove and splashing sauce all over the place, miraculously missing his white shirt with the black outlines of pineapples and his white jeans.

“Crap.”

“You okay?” Matt handed him a wet cloth.

“Fine.” Dorian nodded at the empty Tupperware. “Missed the bowl.”

“There’s stain-remover in the laundry room if you need it.”

Dorian scoffed. As if he didn’t travel with his own Tide to Go pen in his car. Besides, his clothes appeared sauce-free.

“Anyway,” Matt said, going back to his conversation with Charlie, most of which Dorian had missed. “We fly out on Thursday morning and we’ll be back in nine days. But that means I’ll miss Shore family brunch on Sunday as well as dinner next Tuesday.”

“How many games do the Orcas have on that trip?” Charlie asked. “Six?”

“Five.”

Right. The Orcas were leaving in two days for a series of away games in California and Nevada.

Dorian was about to lose his housemate. He should’ve been singing from the rafters.

Instead, he didn’t know how he felt.

Maybe there was something wrong with him.

“Are we done?” he asked, interrupting Charlie and Matt. He closed the Tupperware, put one in Matt’s fridge, and handed one to Charlie. “I’ve got to go.”

“Already?” Charlie frowned, his eyebrows pulling low over his brown eyes. “Don’t you want dessert?”

“Oh, uh. Not really?”

“But you brought it. Since when do you say no to cannoli?”

Matt leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s got you leaving in such a hurry?”

“No one. I mean, nothing.”

Eyebrows flying upward, Matt said, “Got a date or something?”

“On the same night as Tuesday dinner?” Dorian scowled at him. “I would never.”

“Well, I want a cannoli,” Charlie said, breaking into the box Dorian had brought. “And you’re my ride home, so you have to stay until I’m done.”

“Which gives you lots of time to tell us what’s going on,” Matt tacked on. “Charlie’s a slow eater.”

“So slow,” Charlie agreed, amusement making his eyes dance.

Dorian flattened his lips. “I don’t think I like it when you two gang up on me.”

Charlie waggled his eyebrows. “Then tell us who you were going home to. Oh shit! It’s Jamie, isn’t it? Unless you have other housemates we don’t know about.”

---