Page 5 of Time to Shine

Casey laughed. “I’ll bet, Slenderman.” He’d hoped the gentle teasing would get a smile out of Landon. It didn’t. “Hey, you gonna be at the gym here tomorrow morning?”

“I was planning on it.”

“Nice, yeah. I’ll be here.” Casey completely forgot where he was going with any of this, so he just smiled at Landon and hoped the other man would think of something to say.

“Okay,” Landon said finally.

“Dope.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

“For sure. Have a good sleep. You can text me if you change your mind. I’ll be up for a bit.” Jesus, Casey. “That sounded wrong. I don’t mean, like, ‘u up?’ I—” Casey pressed his lips together to stop any more words from spilling out.

Landon glanced away, clearly uncomfortable. “I get it. Goodnight.” He turned and almost ran toward the exit. Casey couldn’t blame him.

Well. Casey could do the responsible thing and go home. Alone. He really should try to go to bed early so he wasn’t exhausted or hungover for his morning workout.

Decision made, Casey congratulated himself on his maturity, and strode toward the players’ parking lot.

Casey regretted his decision to be responsible the minute he walked in his house. His large, dark, empty house.

He considered getting back in his Jeep and driving to one of his favorite bars. He considered the long list of reliable hookups he could send messages to. It was past eleven thirty on a Sunday night, but someone would be up for coming over, right?

Those would be the easy things to do. The things he always did. Last season, before he’d bought this house, he’d loved going home after games. Home had been a rented house shared with two teammates, Pete Leandros and Gio Rossi, and the evenings would be full of movies, video games, beer, weed, bars, and sex. Not with each other, though Casey wouldn’t have been opposed to that. Gio and Petey both seemed pretty committed to heterosexuality, so Casey had never gone there.

He missed having roommates. His teammates knew he’d happily share his house with any of them, no charge, but so far no one had taken him up on the offer. Casey got it. He knew he was kind of a lot.

He made his way to the kitchen, turning on every light as he went. He hated how his pulse kicked up when he was alone at night. How he couldn’t help constantly checking over his shoulder, or how he studied every door suspiciously. How he couldn’t look at the dark windows at all. It was beyond ridiculous, and there was absolutely no reason for it. Just his brain being stupid.

Why the fuck had he bought this house?

A loud clattering noise made him nearly jump out of his skin before he realized it was the ice maker in his fridge doing its thing. “Jesus. Chill out, Hicks,” he muttered as he grabbed a glass from his cupboard. He shoved it under the ice dispenser to prove he wasn’t afraid of it. It dropped two ice cubes, then made an angry whirring noise.

“Hunk of junk,” Casey grumbled. Every appliance in his house was super high-tech and none of it worked right. He opened the fridge, grabbed a plastic bottle of lemonade and a silver container labeled Sunday Night Snack. He hoped it was cake but knew it wouldn’t be.

He brought his glass of lemonade and his snack to the massive leather sectional sofa in his living room. He called out to the AI speaker thing to turn on the TV, and was ignored.

“Thanks,” he said as he searched for the remote, eventually finding it at one end of the sofa under an unwashed sweatshirt. He made a show of turning on the TV, as if the AI unit could learn from watching him. If he had to be alone, he could at least pretend he wasn’t.

He flipped through channels and ended up watching wrestling while he ate his snack (grain salad and two hardboiled eggs; disappointingly dissimilar to cake), vaped some weed, then watched a bit of one of the Mission: Impossible movies while he idly scrolled through his favorite hookup apps. It didn’t hurt to look.

A text from his sister, Brooke, interrupted his careful consideration of a dude with a nice chest and two pierced nipples: Sweet goal tonight.

Casey: made yr bf look like dogshit

Brooke: He’s not my boyfriend because SOMEONE won’t introduce me.

Casey laughed. Brooke was hot for one of the L.A. defensemen, but Casey was pretty sure the dude was engaged.

Casey: idk him just know how to deke around him

Brooke: Did Dad tell you about the Christmas plan?

Casey: yep. renting a cabin near Banff

Brooke: Lol. “Cabin.” It’s a fucking mansion. 8 bedrooms!

Casey: 2 for each of us!!!

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