Page 22 of First Puck

Though he never tried to avoid it. He lived for it, and he was a natural in the spotlight.

The only reason he’d come to Redhill was because his dad had poured so much money into the school that it would be a scandal if he went anywhere else.

“Alright, alright,” he said. “Point taken. Anyway, you know what I’m going to say.”

“And I don’t want to hear it.” I sighed. It was why I was trying to escape in the first place.

“What?” he gasped in mock surprise. “You mean, you don’t want to hear the outline of the ingenious Brad 9.0?”

I instantly shot my hand out, slapping it over his mouth. “Are you serious?” I hissed, scanning the people around us. “Can you not?”

He stuck out his tongue, licking my palm, and I instantly yelped, shooting it right back. My scowl deepened as I rubbed his salvia off on my shirt.

“Please,” He scoffed. “These guys are so intensely heterosexual, they wouldn’t know I was gay if I slapped them across the face with my cock.”

“I don’t… Um…” I trailed off as my blush took over. “I don’t think that’s a qualification for gayness…”

“Come on, Alex. No one cares right now,” he said, leaning in, his voice dipping next to my ear with a sultry tone. “Apart from me. I care… I care very much.” His palm pressed against the wall next to my other ear as he caged me in. “And you’ll love this one, I promise.”

His breath swept over my ear, just like Brad’s earlier, but there was nothing there. Not even a single spark.

I was definitely one hundred percent gay, and Lance was hot enough to be offered modeling jobs the moment he stepped out onto the street, but he just didn’t do it for me.

No one did, except for Brad.

Lance figured out my feelings for Brad the instant we met. According to both Lance and Porter, it was glaringly obvious, but neither of them would ever spill my secret.

Instead, Lance spent most of our first year crafting ‘cunning plans’ to push me into confessing to Brad. Since I froze up like soon-to-be roadkill every time I even thought about sitting Brad down and trying to repeat the conversation I tried to have in the summer, I was amazed Lance still bothered.

I never told Lance the reason I wanted to throw up whenever I got even close to confessing was because of how Brad shut me down after he sucked me off. Or the words which split me open when I was the most vulnerable. They slammed into me whenever I remotely considered talking about it with anyone and shamed me into silence. Plus, my full awareness that I was probably the biggest idiot out of all the dumbasses on the team.

To be honest, I think it was just fun for Lance to watch me struggle.

The palm next to my ear became an arm over my shoulders as Lance hugged me tight.

“This is your last chance,” Lance hummed his argument. “Come on, let me be cupid one last time.” He smirked. “You don’t want to miss out on this one.”

He said that last time, too, and being trapped in a storage locker with Brad and a giant bag of sweaty uniforms so I could tell him I loved him was not my idea of missing out. Brad fell asleep and Brad 8.0 was a total bust.

I sighed as I met his confident stare. He lived in our house, so he saw all the going-ons as much as I did.

“Or I could just leave it?” I said. “I’m going in two months. That’s nothing compared to how long I’ve been putting it off.”

Scouts had been eying Brad since we joined the Redhill Kites, but we still hadn’t heard a thing. The plan was to go home for a month before I left for training with the Wranglers. I’d alreadytaken a risk being with him for another year, but I wasn’t so good at hockey that I could ask for more time off. I had my ticket to the NHL; I just needed to get on the bus.

Lance clicked his teeth, lurching forward to press the top of his nose against mine.

“Are you fucking with me right now?” he said, suddenly throwing all the force he used to lead our freshman team out on the ice straight at me.

I groaned in annoyance, sliding my head back to knock against the ugly green paint which made the orange tapestry beside us even brighter.

“I’m not going to ruin things for him,” I mumbled under the sound of the music, my gaze darting around to look at anything but Lance’s sharp cheekbones and the cleft of his chin.

“Alex, please, come on. ‘I’ll tell him soon’ has been your mantra for, what, seven years? You’re running out of excuses, my friend.”

“I just need to wait for the right time.” I tugged at my lip with my teeth as I fully slouched back against the wall.

Lance groaned, leaning back to roll his eyes. “You’re going to be the death of me, I swear to God.”

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