Page 29 of Delay of Game

But guys like Zach and guys like Nate, it just—it just didn’t make sense. It was like a very bad teen movie where the jock had to date the nerd on a bet, and he knew how the bridge of those movies always went. Humiliation. And real life wasn’t like the movies. There weren’t happy endings waiting after a big apology.

It was really not any surprise that Zach hadn’t wanted to talk about it. Even if he’d seemed pretty into it at the time, he was probably embarrassed to wake up and realize he’d hooked up withNate. It was one thing to be best friends with a guy, but... Nate didn’t even have a pair of glasses he could take off or hair he could let down. There was no magic wand to wave that could put him in Zach’s league.

Lifewasn’ta movie.

Nate was always going to be Nate, the steady, solid, awkward captain of a hockey team, a man with more heart than talent, a guy who looked like any schlub you’d pick off of a Port Richmond street. And Zach was always going to be Zach, the handsome, charming All-Star, the kind of guy who could have anyone he wanted wrapped around his finger with a flash of his dimples.

The more Nate thought about it, the more his stomach churned, the nauseous panic he hadn’t felt for some time now rising to his throat. Of course Zach didn’t want to talk about it, because it had been—it had just been Zach being a nice fucking guy, or pitying Nate because he was such a fucking mess he couldn’t even—didn’t want to even go out and meet someone.

Nate, on the floor, thought:goddamn, I was a pity fuck.

Well. That was that.

Nate wasn’t going to bring it up if Zach wasn’t going to bring it up. He’d known he’d be risking the most important thing in his life if he went for it, and he’d gone for it anyway, fueled by alcohol and desperation and a moment where reckless bravery had won out over his own innate caution. That didn’t mean he had to ruin things again. Especially when Zach, an incredibly kind person, had given him an out to save his own dignity. He wasn’t going to ruin that. He wasn’t going to seem pathetic and desperate, even if hewas.

Nate sat up and scrubbed his hand over his face. He really wanted to smoke, but he didn’t have the ready-made excuse of his Rumspringa week, and he kept himself strictly under control otherwise. He’d hit the gym instead and maybe if he worked himself to exhaustion, he wouldn’t keep thinking about Zach’s hands. Zach’s mouth. Zach’s eyes.

Wouldn’t keep thinking about the way Zach’s voice had sounded when he’d saidcome here, baby.

It didn’t get any better at the gym, because as he changed, he looked down and saw the line of bruises Zach had left on his neck and hip and thigh, and he had to take a minute to compose himself, think particularly unsexy thoughts, andthenput his shorts on.

Lifting didn’t really help either, because he just thought about all the times he and Zach had gone to this gym together and the way he’d tried not to look too long at Zach’s straining muscles, at the sweat shining along the line of his back, and hadn’t even really given much of a thought aboutwhyhe couldn’t bring himself to look.

Nate’s head was a maelstrom of feelings he couldn’t really identify. He probably should have talked to someone about it, but who the hell would he even have talked to? He couldn’t talk to Zach, his usual go-to option, because Zach was the cause of his current suffering. He couldn’t talk to Bee, who meant well but was about as comforting as a brick wall. He couldn’t talk to Mike, who’d finally figured out his own shit, because Nate was far too fucking embarrassed thinking of the numerous talks they’d had where Nate had tried to get Mike to figure out his shit.

He hadsomepride left, even if Mike wasn’t the kind of guy to sayI told you so.

And then, a thought almost made him drop the bar on his chest. When Rachel had broken up with him in February two seasons ago and he’d asked why, she’d saidyou’re in love with someone else. At first, he’d assumed that she had meant Bee, who had told him that Rachel had been very cold toward her, for no apparent reason. But that was ridiculous: Nate had never felt anything for Bee except a big-brotherly protectiveness, and Bee had been involved with Mäkelä.

For a stupid, wild second, he wondered if this was what she’d meant. If Zach was who she’d meant. Except that was idiotic, because he wasn’t inlovewith Zach, he was just—they were best friends, and Zach was really, really hot; anyone would probably be knocked off their axis by hooking up with him.

Okay, so clearly, Rach wasn’t right about the being in love thing, but she had definitely seen something he hadn’t. He really, really wished she’d warned him, so he wouldn’t have made such an ass of himself. Nate wished a lot of things, but he didn’t have a time machine.

There was nothing he could do about it at this point except go home, shower, and pack his bags for the start of the Cons’ next road trip. And if he spent a little longer in the shower than he normally would have that wasn’t anyone’s business.

One of the few things that helped him deal with anxiety was planning, but there wasn’t really a way to plan for this. He had no idea what to expect when he saw Zach again. He had no idea whether he’d be able to pretend nothing had happened in front of the rest of the guys. He had no idea how he would be able to get through scheduled media appearances like the call-in they were supposed to do onSportsnight.

Nate sat down on the floor again. He took a deep breath.

A second.

Then three.

None of it helped.

The more he thought about it, the more that Zach realized that the difference between Life Before the Incident and Life After the Incident was like a study in going about your business as usual and then a study in slowly having your skin peeled off. Little things he normally wouldn’t have given a second thought to suddenly seemed completely insurmountable.

For example, as they were heading to the airport, he thought about how he always sat next to Nate on the plane. It was just how things went. No one else ever took his seat, even when ideal seating arrangements were in short supply. But now he felt like—okay, he had to think about this logically.

So the thing about Zach, the thing he knew was nothing to be proud of but did nothing to change, was that he didn’t reallythinkabout things. Other people considered consequences and made plans. Zach went for it and dealt with the consequences later. Generally, because he was hot and could fool people into being charmed by either his smile, his dimples, or his abs, the consequences were never that bad.

The worst thing that had ever happened to him was getting traded to Philadelphia, and that had also turned out to be the best thing that had ever happened to him, so major points to Before Zach forthatparticular fuckup.

But the point was that he wasn’t used tothinking. He wasn’t used toworrying.

Now he was going over it in his head—like, would Nate be weirded out if Zach sat next to him? Would it be worse if he didn’t sit next to him? Would that jog his memory about what had happened the night they went out together? Zach touched Nate all the time; it was second nature at this point. At first Nate had been weird about it, almost skittish, but eventually, he’d learned to lean into it. If Zach stopped now that would be weird, right? But if he didn’t stop now, would Nate realize something was wrong?

Would it be worse to accidentally remind Nate what had happened and ruin their friendship, or to keep silent and torture himself the way he was doing right now?

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