Page 121 of Brace and Chase

“You two are a riot,” Helen says from the other side of the counter where she’s stirring something awesome smelling on the stove. Lou grumbles a little but lets his arms fall to his sides. “Now get to work, we have hungry boys to feed.”

We follow her instructions like good little soldiers, and soon enough we’re bringing all the food over to the dining table in the other room.

There’s not much talking while we all pile our plates with food and get our first few bites in, but when there is, it has a different vibe to before.

“So...” Beau starts tentatively. “How’s this going to work?” He wags his fork, pointing from Charlie to me, then back.

“What do you mean?” Charlie asks with a frown. “Like every other relationship works,” he defends.

“I don’t mean that,” Beau tells him, clearly exasperated by the fact that Charlie can’t read his mind.

Same, honestly.

“He means that you’re teammates and the NHL is... not great about queer people, so what’s going on there? Are you gonna tell the world? Make a big splashy announcement on social media?” My face contorts painfully at that idea. Ihatesocial media.

Nothing but mean people in my experience.

“No,” Charlie immediately responds, which I’m thankful for. “We actually thought...” He trails off andturns to me. I pry his hand from his knife and lace our fingers together, squeeze once for support, and take it from there.

“We don’t want to mess with the team’s mood. We did that already at the start of the season.Idid that,” I amend, deciding on going full American since this is Charlie’s family and I want to be myself with them. “So we’re probably going to wait to tell them until the end of the season. And we won’t be making any announcements to the world. It’s none of their business.”

There’s a pointed moment of silence and then Finn shakes his head and talks again.

“I’m going to have a lot of questions eventually about that switcharoo you do with your accent, but is it even allowed? For two players to be in a relationship? Doesn’t the NHL have rules for that? Or maybe the Pirates?”

“There’s nothing in our contracts,” Charlie tells him easily. “And we researched as much as we could find about the NHL angle, and found nothing.” He takes a deep breath for another pause. “So we’re gonna ask you guys to keep it to yourselves, though we are telling everyone who’s going to lunch tomorrow, but no one outside the family.”

“We won’t tell anyone, honey,” Helen reaches over me and pats our still-joined hands.

“Thanks Mom.”

That small gesture from her, and those quiet words from Charlie, break something inside me. I excuse myself and askwhere the bathroom is, and walk out of the room as fast as I can.

Not because I have to go. I don’t.

But there’s something else I need to do.

I take my phone out of my pocket, and open the text thread with Max.

I haven’t deleted his messages since Charlie’s brothers came to Vegas and Beau blew up my world with one story from years ago. Charlie hasn’t told me about it, though I have to figure his actions from back then flitted through his mind at least once when I told him what Max did.

I don’t need him to tell me about it; I know he remembers because Iknowhim.

Deep down, I know who he is.

And the bitch of it is, I know who Max is deep down as well.

It might be guilt moving my fingers, but it’s something at least.

I read his texts from tonight.

Max

Great game!

You guys look amazing, love you.

And for the first time in the five years he’s been messaging me sporadically, I answer.

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