His dark blond hair tickles my nose and smells like the soap in the locker room with a hint of sweat. I’d rather the scent of his cedar-and-spice shampoo, but this is still good. Hockey arena and sweat. My happy place.
I breathe him in and then realize sniffing the top of my best friend’s head is crossing boundaries into creepy territory, so I slip out of bed, throw on some sweats, and head out to my kitchen to make a hangover cure of bacon, eggs, and hash browns.
It’s past lunchtime, but I don’t care. I need protein, carbs, and salt. It doesn’t take long for the smell of cooking pig fat to wake the predictably always hungry Dex.
“Is this a commiseration breakfast or a hungover one?”
“Can’t it be both?”
Dex takes a seat on a stool in my kitchen and lowers his head to the marble counter. “I can’t believe we lost last night.”
As a goalie, it’s really hard for me not to take the blame for a loss. It’s a team sport, and I know it’s not my fault, but I’m the one who let those goals in last night.
“I can’t believe I let Anton score in the last two minutes,” I say. “We could’ve gone into overtime and won it.”
Dex leans in and whispers, “Don’t tell the rest of the team, but I’m kinda happy for Anton and Ezra.”
“Of course you are.” And I am too. Dex and I won the Stanley Cup three years ago, and even though the competitive side of me is crushed, I can’t deny I’m happy for Ezra’s first-ever win. I’d still prefer it to be me, but hey, if I had to lose to someone, I’m glad it was to a team that has queer players.
Anton and Ezra are the first-ever couple to take home the Cup.
There’s only a handful of us out in the league, so we have our own clique outside of our teams. It’s good to have people to talk to who understand what it’s like to be a hockey player with all the extra crap we have to deal with as out athletes.
Dex has been there for a lot of the stuff I went through—like derogatory remarks, the media focusing more on my sexuality than playing—but he still doesn’t understand. Not completely.
The only ones who do are the guys in the Collective. It’s why we stick together.
I plate up the food and slide Dex’s share over to him with a coffee and then put mine next to it while I round the counter and take the seat beside him.
He digs right in, but I’m slower in my approach. I watch him for any signs of the melancholy he wore this morning when he climbed into my bed and kicked out … I want to say Boston? Austin? The guy I hooked up with last night. He was very pretty and not very bright. He was exactly what I needed to get a break from pining after Dex, but here I am, a few hours later, in a place I desperately want to belong but know I never will. Because being next to Dex will always come with that dreaded P word: platonically.
“Are we going to talk about why you needed cuddles this morning?” I ask and sip my coffee.
“I was kinda hoping we wouldn’t have to.”
“You know you don’t have to do anything when it comes to me, but if you want to talk, I’m here.” Even if I hate your girlfriend and think you could do way better.
It probably wouldn’t get to me so much if Dex was with someone worthy of him, but then again, I doubt anyone would meet that criteria. Jessica loves the lifestyle of being a WAG, but she doesn’t actually care about hockey. Some of the other guys’ girlfriends and wives are at every game, cheering their men on. Jessica sees it as a socialite hour where she can be in the spotlight because of who she’s dating.
I don’t want to make her out to be some sort of gold-digging villain, and I’ve taken it upon myself to tell myself something positive about her every single day to try to change my point of view of her, but it’s hard when she acts the way she does. My usual go-to is “She makes Dex happy.” Sitting next to him right now, he doesn’t look happy.
He’s had a few not-so-serious girlfriends in the last three years, and while I hated them all, in the sense they got to have Dex and I didn’t, they were genuinely nice women, and they treated Dex right. I have no clue why he’s gotten serious with this one, who is all about the drama and attention. Maybe Dex was bored with the nice girls.
“I know you don’t like her,” Dex says. “And maybe I shouldn’t have come here this morning to complain about her, but … I had nowhere else to go.”
“You could have gone to Phoebe,” I point out.
“Fine, anywhere else I wanted to go.” He pouts. “Last time I told my sister something about my love life, she ran to Sienna, who told you anyway.”
When Dex and I first started hanging out after I joined the team here in Vegas, we made the mistake of introducing our sisters. Now they’re the best of friends, just like us. They’re also our biggest supporters, and I don’t point out that maybe he didn’t want to run to his sister because Phoebe feels the exact same way I do about Jessica.
“Well, if you don’t want to talk about it, do you want to go play golf?”
“Yes, please. Anything to not think about the breakup. Or not breakup? Do you think we’re broken up?”
“Have you been home at all? Was her stuff still there?”
Dex glances away. “I didn’t want to go home. If she was there, we’d fight more. If she wasn’t …”
“You would’ve had your answer. Why don’t you message her and ask?”
He takes out his phone and stares at the screen.
I place my hand on his shoulder. “You’re scared of what she’ll say, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but … is it because I want the answer to be yes or no?”
I want to yell at him to wake up and realize how toxic his relationship is, but I can’t. Not again, at least. Dex knows how I feel about her.
“Send her a message,” I say.
“Okay.” He breathes in deep and taps away, pauses, then closes his eyes as he hits Send.
“Good boy. Now, while you wait for her to respond, let’s go play some golf.”
* * *
On our way across the road to Wynn Golf Club, Dex stops suddenly and stares at a random sign above him.
“Why’d you stop?”
He points upward. “Wedding chapel.”
Wow, he is not letting this go today. Sure, over the past six months, he’s talked about marrying Jessica, but more in the sense that he doesn’t know how to avoid it. I guess ultimatums must really work if he’s finally seriously considering making the dumbest decision of his life.
“What about it?” I ask, staring at the sign with him.
He grabs my hand and pulls me in the direction of the chapel instead of toward the golf club.
“You’re not going to call her to come meet you right now, are you?”
Dex Mitchale, officially off the market? This poor gay man needs some warning to deal with that kind of disappointment.
“No. I just want to see it.”
“We live in Vegas. You’ve seen a million of them.”
“Yeah, but I’ve never been in one.”
“Sober, anyway,” I add. “Remember when Porter married that chick he met while we were a week deep into our Stanley Cup win celebrations?”
“Nope.”