Page 55 of Good Pucking Luck

“This should be a win for the Rebels. Especially if you keep playing the way you have the past couple of months.”

I grin at my dad’s praise. My good-luck charm has definitely been doing his job.

“Last time you played Columbus, Tibbs got two minutes for clipping you high. Should have been a match penalty. I hate that guy,” Mom grumbles.

I nudge her playfully with my arm. “He better be careful, or I’ll send you after him.”

“He better not mess with my son,” she replies, and the three of us laugh together.

I get up and grab everyone a bottle of water from the outdoor fridge. “You sound like Hayes. He wasn’t much of a hockey fan before we met. He doesn’t know a lot about the sport. When I ended up with that black eye after the game in Edmonton, he was fretting like I was going to have to get something amputated.” I chuckle at the memory. He’d held ice to my headall evening, and when we fucked, he’d griped at me every time he thought I moved too much. I don’t know why he thought I was going to die over a black eye, but I enjoyed being spoiled.

As I set their drinks down, I notice my parents looking at each other in a curious way.

“What?” I sit down.

“You sure do spend a lot of time with this Hayes guy,” Mom says.

“We’re friends.” I shrug.

Dad gives me his thoughts next. “You know it’s okay if you’re more than friends, right? We’ve known you’re bisexual for a long time, and we’ve never had a problem with that. We hope you know that’s true.”

Mom continues. “We just wonder because you’ve never introduced us to a boyfriend before. We don’t ever want you to feel like knowing and seeing are two different things. And now you’re spending all this time with Hayes, yet he’s never at your games or here when we come over.”

My head spins, my body slightly woozy. “Hayes isn’t my boyfriend.”

“You talk about him a lot,” Dad points out.

I do? I guess it would make sense that I do, but that’s just because he’s become such a big part of my life. We do spend a lot of time together. “I talk about Mads, and you’ve never thought he was my boyfriend.”

“That’s because you’ve actually let us see you with Kason, and it’s obvious there’s nothing there. Plus, you don’t talk about him the way you talk about Hayes.”

I’m…not sure how to respond to that. I’m not even sure how to feel about it. I’ve never had my parents think I’m in a secret relationship with someone, and the thing is, they’re kinda right. Hayes isn’t my boyfriend, but we’re a secret, and we’re fucking, and he holds ice to my eye when I get hurt, and cooks dinnerwith me, and tells me about the times he hangs out with the Jilted Exes—while pretending he doesn’t like it and doesn’t think they’re friends. Then I remind him hedoeslike it, and theyarehis friends, and he pouts adorably, and I kiss him, and…

My stomach flutters.

Holy shit.

I have acrushon Hayes.

How did I not see this before? It’s bad…really fucking bad. He’s made it one hundred percent clear he doesn’t want a relationship, and I did the same. I’m not supposed to want a relationship with him.

DoI want a relationship with him? And how many times can I think the wordrelationshipin like five seconds? Now is not the time to be feeling this. It’ll mess everything up. Changing the rules with Hayes will make me risk losing him. And even if that doesn’t happen, the way things are now works. Am I supposed to have my first boyfriend this close to the end of the season? What if dating changes this good-luck juju between us?

“Rylan? Are you okay?” Mom asks. “You look a little pale, and you’re staring off into space.”

My mom’s words don’t compute. At least, I can’t make myself answer yet. I’ve been calling Hayes baby every time my dick’s inside him. I don’t plan it. The endearment simply falls out, and now we just go with it. I have a billion nicknames for Hayes, and apparently, my sex nickname for him isbaby, which is something else I’ve never done with anyone. Did my subconscious know I was crushing on him before the rest of me? I’d still be blissfully in the dark if it wasn’t for my parents.

“I think he’s coming to a realization,” Dad tells Mom.

That snaps me out of it, and I lean forward, resting my forehead against the table. “Oh my God. I have a crush on Hayes.”

“Did you not realize it until this moment? The last two weeks, I could tell by the way you talk about him.” Mom rubs my shoulder.

“I’m an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot,” Dad tells me.

“Oh, believe me, I am. This is a mess.” They don’t know the whole story. Of course, I’m not going to share with my parents that Hayes was a one-night stand who is only sleeping with me for sexual experience, or that I’m only supposed to be sleeping with him because he’s good luck. And that’s without even taking into consideration that he’s part of the Jilted Exes, so he has a lot of hang-ups. Hayes is right—and people will make a big deal online about him dating a hockey player from the game where he proposed to his cheating boyfriend. Even if they didn’t talk about that part, Hayes having a public relationship would dredge up the Jilted Exes stuff, which has started to calm down. It would be impossible to date me without it being public, without it becoming a think piece or a hot topic or a subject for people who like to sit around and talk about other people’s lives.

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