Page 45 of First Puck

Was he actually serious? I could see what he was doing a mile off and it wouldn’t work—even though it was kind of working.

“No, I’m fine,” Alex replied. “What about you?” He turned to Lance, whose expression changed from a shit-eating grin to a madly in love dickhead as soon as Alex looked at him.

Lance’s hand traveled up Alex’s back, trailing small circles as he purred, “I’m good, babe.”

Alex and I both froze, our gazes clashing like some huge secret had suddenly been revealed.

And Lance laughed straight away.

“Damn, you should see your faces. It’s like I dropped a bomb or something. Have you seriously not talked about it?” Lance held Alex’s gaze as he slipped his other hand into Alex’s, entwining their fingers. “Alex said he told you we went on a date.”

“Er, yeah,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck and getting the full-on stench of myself. Not good, especially when my stomachwas dropping to my feet, and a thick weight caught in my throat as my attention zeroed in on their hands.

Alex let me hug him and take his hand and stuff, but we’d never really curled up together like that before. And it looked pretty nice.

“Yeah,” I coughed. I tried to find somewhere else to look other than my best friend and his boyfriend. “He said you went out. Glad you had a fun time. I’ll leave you guys to it,” I said as awkwardly as fucking possible as I backed out of the door and away from hell.

I didn’t want to get roped into talking or whatever when they were cuddling like that.

“Sure,” Alex replied with a smile, even though confusion was written all over his face. Why the hell was he the one that was confused when I was dealing with everything changing?

I closed their door quietly, standing there, wondering if I could hear any big secrets, but their voices were muffled as they chatted.

It wasn’t just weird that Lance was hanging out in his room; it felt wrong. And there wasn’t any space for me there. Like Alex had found a new person and suddenly, I wasn’t his favorite anymore.

Brad

I’d been at the Xbox for a few hours and I’d barely heard anything from them. I mean, they had to eat at some point.

Just because they wanted privacy didn’t stop me listening in with the game music at the lowest setting while still not acting suspicious. I was dead sneaky like that. But my stats had dropped so low I was going to need to put in a shit-ton of work just to get them up again.

Porter wandered in an hour ago and chucked himself down on the couch to play.

But he’d noticed the laughter coming from their room, commented on it, saw my scowl, and left it alone.

They laughed every now and again, but it wasn’t like it was any different from the two of us hanging out.

It was just… Now that I knew Alex was actually gay, it wasn’t like he’d found a new best friend. He’d found someone he liked, someone who might start taking up all his time because he was all wrapped up in them.

I grit my teeth as I died again. I threw my controller on the couch, looking at Alex’s blue one in Porter’s hands.

“You’re being way too obvious,” Porter sing-songed as he set up the next game.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bit back.

“Oh, sure. Denial’s probably the best way to go. It’ll make it easier when Lance and Alex get married and sail off into the sunset together.”

I knew Porter was just making shit up, but I still glared at him.

“I just want him to be happy,” I said bluntly. And I didn’t think Lance was going to cut it.

“I didn’t say anything.” Porter shrugged. “Jealousy comes in all shapes and sizes.”

I narrowed my eyes at him as he started casually humming, clicking through options on the screen.

“I’m going to bed,” I blurted out, and he didn’t even blink.

“Enjoy yourself!” He waved as I headed straight for the stairs.

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