Page 13 of A Loser by Christmas
“Of course I do.” I can’t see him clearly, but he sure sounds reverent. “Hockey is life.”
I’d laugh if I didn’t feel the same way about every single video in my backlist.
“Booze, then. The strong stuff. I’ll upload a video of you washing down your Cheerios with Jack Daniels.” I touch my camera. “Zoom in on you filling your water bottle with neat vodka.”
Again, he shakes his head. “Nope. Plenty of players are already in twelve-step programmes. Alcohol won’t get me out of this contract, just get me in the player assistance program.”
“And you think I can magic up some other reason? It still doesn’t explain?—”
“Exactly why I want out?”
I nod, and Calum must see that—he nods too. Then he slowly shakes his head and lets out the kind of hopeless sound I last did whenla Sylviewas on the point of sinking. If I didn’t hear that all-is-lost noise with my own ears, I’d think his reason was weak.
“I need to come home.”
Home is the last place I ever wanted to be, unless it had my grand-mère in it. Especially at Christmas. A pang of missing her chimes so loudly I almost shout what seems an obvious solution.
“Then you need a sex tape.” I backtrack just as quickly. “I mean that I could fake a sex tape for?—”
He cuts me off. “You think there isn’t one already?”
I add witnessing a massive set of shoulders hunching to my list of unexpected events this December.
“It leaked the year I first got signed. Taught me a lot about the power of NDAs, but Mum wasn’t impressed.” His head dips for a third time. “Said she didn’t raise me to put theHoin hockey.”
That surprises me into laughing. It echoes in this narrow alley. Thankfully, he laughs too, and I catch the gleam of a quick smile even though he grumbles. “She never, ever lets me forget it. Even knitted me a Christmas sweater with it right here.” He lands a hand over his heart. “I’m aHo Ho Hofor hockey. Expects me to wear it each Christmas. Video-calls me especially to see it.”
“You don’t spend Christmas together?”
“Not unless the fam flies over, but that doesn’t always fit around Reece’s workload. Or Seb’s. We do all celebrate together—early or late, depending on my season. This will be the first time I’ll make it home for the real deal since turning pro.” He closes his eyes, and this is quieter. “Be my first Christmas in Cornwall since right before I turned eighteen.” For a moment, that’s how old he sounds instead of getting up there in his late twenties. His next growl reminds me that he’s had years to become ferocious. “Whatever we agree—ifwe do agree—that Cornish visit is completely off-limits. You’d only have the three weeks that I’ll be based here in London.”
“So there’ll be noHoin hockey for me this Christmas.”
“Nope. And no sex tape. Besides, management didn’t see anything too immoral about a rookie fucking first and thinking later. Mum did. And yes, the media team got it taken care of, but nothing online is gone forever, is it?”
“Non.”
“Trust me,” Calum all but sighs. “That video did me a favour. Gave me a head start at seeming like a serious player, yeah? A real sex tape didn’t get me out of my contract back then. Faking a new one won’t work either.” He looks up and his eyes don’t hold ice chips. They reflect the red blink of my GoPro, and that colour usually signalsstopordanger. “You can drop the subject.”
If I were smarter, I would. He’s giving me the same warning traffickers did when I chased them with my camera.
Back off or else.
That always told me I was getting closer than they wanted to the heart of their business operation. And just like every single time I got close enough to the real truth to almost grasp it, I can’t stop myself from sailing straight into the path of trouble.
“But what if your next sex tape was with a man?”
He doesn’t answer.
Or move.
If I ever needed a definition of preternatural, his stillness gives it.
I more than half expect to get mashed or crushed like one of his opponents for suggesting what comes naturally to me, even if I didn’t outright offer myself as a co-star. “I-I didn’t meanwithme. Or for real. I’d be behind the camera, that’s all. Then I’d...”
My mouth dries at him somehow looming closer to me without moving a muscle.
He’s huger than before, and again, I should bail before he can land a curled fist on me.
