Page 55 of Friendzone Hockey
I spin in time to see Dash’s toe catch the ground, and because I haven’t gotten too far, it’s a matter of a few of my long hockey strides and a reach. He falls into my arms, but he’s quick to use them for balance so he can grab his stubbed toe.
“Fuck. Fuck I hope it’s not broken. Ow!”
That’s one way to ruin the start of your first hockey season. Bending and slinging him across my shoulders in a fireman’s carry is innate.
“Stace, what the…”
I’m around the front of the house and up the stairs with him so fast. I set him on the porch swing and crouch to take a look while his face scrunches with pain. It’s red but doesn’t appear to be swelling. Keeping hold of his heel, I sit next to him, maneuvering him so that his bare foot can sit in my lap, and I can watch it.
Slowly, he can work the toes through full flexion and extension. That means not broken.
“Oops,” he says, knowing a scolding is coming his way.
“Shoes, Dash. Especially near Hunter’s construction zone.”
“Is that tone I detect?” he says.
Probably. I might have said “Hunter” with a little too much disdain. “The shoes, Dash.”
“Yeah, yeah. Shoes,” he huffs. “Now, what did Hunter do to you?”
My nose wrinkles. I think. I don’t know. I didn’t wrinkle it on purpose. “Nothin’. He just … I don’t like him fixin’ my stairs.”
Dash crosses his arms over his chest, smirking. I’m so busted. His heel’s still in my lap, so I gently massage the sole.
“I get it. Two alpha men in one house doesn’t work so well.”
That’s not it. That can work, but not when one of those men’s people is up for grabs … who he also secretly wants … but is working onnotwanting. “Something like that.”
“Okay, so, for real? Yeah, I’ve had a massive crush on Hunter since my teenage hormones kicked in, but that’s as far as it goes. He’s a little like the big brother I never had, but Dirk came first for Hunter. Above anything. Even me.”
“He cares about you,” I say.
“He does. I’m just saying, I never made it past that invisible barrier to his heart—the deeper part of his heart. I’m not mad about it. Hunter and Dirk went through hell growing up. Hunter took the worst of it, so Dirk didn’t have to, but it jaded him. Kinda like you do for Casey, um, not that you’re jaded. But you feel harder on the inside like he does.”
“Figured that out, did you?”
“It doesn’t take long if you’re paying attention,” he says.
“And if you had made it past Hunter’s barriers?” I say, getting back to that topic. I can’t help myself. It shouldn’t matter, but it fucking does.
He laughs. “I woulda hit that, Stace. C’mon. Can you blame me?”
I’m sorry I asked. White hot flames lick my insides. Jealous flames. Goddammit. Can I ban Hunter from coming to the house?
“If it makes you feel better and wipes the murder off your face, that was past me. Sure, I find him attractive, but I’m not attracted to him anymore. He’s my best friend’s brother. That would be so weird. It would be like … like Dirk dating my dad. Ew!”
“Oh, god, no. Now I can’t unthink it. There are over twenty years between them.”
He looks around. “Yeah, but wanna know something crazy?”
Anything to get us away from this mortifying topic. It’s too dangerously close to admitting—out loud—that I can’t stand the fucking thought of Dash with anyone. Maybe he’s not attracted to him anymore, but Dash saying he would have fucked with Hunter at some point in their lives is all I’m gonna see when I look at the man.
“Always.”
“They’re so close since what happened with me that I can’t help seeing it sometimes, and I refuse to be alone about it. You’re with me now.”
“Thanks a-fucking-lot.”
