Page 119 of The Shots You Take

He wrote:You look good.

Adam: Send me a pic.

Riley snapped a photo of Lucky and sent it.

Adam: You look good.

Riley laughed, then turned his camera on himself. He happened to be wearing his silk robe with only a pair of boxer briefs covered in little pineapples. They clashed terribly, butAdam didn’t need to see his underwear right now. Riley reclined a bit and snapped a photo. It was, he had to admit, very sexy. Maybe too sexy, considering his request to keep things platonic for now.

He sent it.

A moment later, Adam replied:You bastard.

Riley smiled. Was Adam all hot and bothered in that luxury box? He wished the broadcast would show him again. Maybe this was exactly what they weren’t supposed to be doing, but it felt good, flirting with Adam.

Adam: You can’t just send that and not expect me to look up flights to Nova Scotia.

Riley laughed again, but he wrote:Not yet.

Adam: I know. Fuck, though.

Riley agreed, but he was determined to resist temptation. Because he was still too messed up to know for sure that these good feelings were the safe kind, or if they were the dangerous kind, like the ones alcohol used to give him.

He needed to be sure, before he offered his heart to Adam Sheppard again.

* * *

Three nights later, Toronto had been eliminated from the playoffs. The next morning, Riley went to console his dad about it.

He approached the grave warily, with a handful of hyacinths from his garden. His breath caught when he read Dad’s name, etched into the small, metal grave marker. He almost turned away, but forced himself to speak.

“Hey, Dad,” he mumbled. “Sorry about the Northmen. It wasn’t their year.”

“They need stronger defense,” he explained, as if Dad didn’t know. As if Dad hadn’t complained about that all the time, though never in a way that had made Riley feel guilty about asking for the trade. “They’ve got some decent young guys. I dunno. We’ll see how they develop.”

He laid the flowers next to the marker and noticed the moon snail shell that someone had placed there. Riley picked it up, turned it over, recognized the chip that was missing from the bottom.

Adam had been here.

Riley closed his fingers on the shell, holding it tight. He wasn’t sure about many things, but he was pretty sure someone who was bad for him wouldn’t have taken the time to visit Dad’s grave. To leave him something beautiful.

“I still love him,” he told his dad. “And I think we have a chance to be happy together. Like, really fucking happy.”

There was no sign; the clouds didn’t part, a butterfly didn’t land on the grave, no gentle breeze swept over Riley. But he knew, in his heart, that Dad agreed.

* * *

“Abook?” Riley exclaimed. “You’re going to write abook?”

“Well, no,” Adam said from his sofa in Toronto. He’d called Riley specifically to talk about this, but it had taken him nearly thirty minutes to finally bring it up. “I’m not actually going to write it. There’s a ghost writer. It would just be…about me.”

Riley paused from where he’d been yanking weeds out of the ground over twelve hundred kilometers away from Adam and smiled at the camera. “Sounds like a real page-turner.”

Adam laughed. “Hey, it wasn’t my idea. Obviously someone out there wants to read it because they’re offering me—Imean, this publisher thinks it would be a good seller. In Canada, at least.”

Riley went back to weeding. He had earbuds in so he could work and talk at the same time, while also leaving his actual phone in a spot that allowed Adam to watch him work. It was raining in Toronto, but in Avery River it was a beautiful June day, and Riley was wearing a tank top. Adam had always loved him in a tank top.

“You gonna do it?” Riley asked.

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