by Eden Finley
That’s all Jet.
He gave me courage before I’d even met him. I have to spend time with him while I have the chance.
I roll out of bed at the break of dawn and throw on some sweats to walk the hundred feet across the grass to Jet’s cabin. Only, when I step out onto my deck, I realize I’m about to go wake up a rock star who no doubt sleeps away most of the morning, and that’s not a good idea if I want him to forgive me.
I go back inside and grab my runners instead. A morning run will help get rid of the icky hungover feeling. Even though I stopped drinking last night when Jet turned up, add the few I did have to very little sleep, and I’m left seedy and gross this morning.
Where there was a breeze on the island last night, everything is calm this morning. As I take off running on the paved pathway that weaves in between all the cabins and the main house, my mind clears. For a brief moment in time, I’m at peace.
The path disappears on the other side of the small island and turns into beach. I slow down to a walk because the softness of the sand isn’t good for my knees.
Thirty-three isn’t old if you’re a normal person, but I’m a hockey player. I’m officially nearing the end of my career, and any small injury could mean it’s all over in a millisecond.
I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. Part of me—mainly my achy joints—begs for it, but the part that’s only known hockey my whole life wants to hold on for as long as possible.
I trudge through the soft sand but stall when a lean figure comes from the opposite direction.
When I left my cabin, I purposefully started my run heading past Jet’s. It looked still and quiet, and I assumed he was asleep.
But by the look of him now—skin flushed, sweat dripping down his face, his usually shaggy hair that has a bit of a curl to it—he’s been out here a while. He’s in a loose pair of basketball shorts and a tank top that shows off his full sleeve tattoo.
“Told you we’d run into each other.” He’s smiling this morning at least.
I breathe hard, only I don’t know if it’s because of the workout, seeing Jet, or if I’m just mirroring the rapid rise and fall of his chest. “I expected a rock god like you to still be asleep.”
“I’m on artist time.”
I cock a brow.
“Push myself until I pass out no matter what time it is.”
“How do you not die?”
“Drugs,” Jet deadpans.
My face falls.
“Dude, that was a joke. Don’t get your panties in a twist again.”
Instead of lecturing him on recreational drug use, I try for comedy like him. “I only wear panties on the ice.”
It’s his turn to lose the smile. “Seriously?”
I burst into laughter. “No. Jockstraps are kinda a necessity.”
“Could wear them over the top. I’m picturing red lace.”
I ignore the way his eyes scan down to my crotch. “Sure, because that’s a great idea in a locker room. Like I don’t get enough shit for being the only gay guy on the team.”
A moment passes between us where neither of us say any more.
Jet kicks at the sand lazily. “I don’t sleep well on the road. I was kinda hoping a vacation would be different, but it’s another unfamiliar bed in a random place. Makes trying to sleep pointless because I know it’s not gonna happen.”
“You don’t sleep at all while you’re away?”
He shrugs. “The tour doctor thinks I have ADHD, which can affect sleep. Eventually, I’ll get so tired I’ll pass out for sixteen hours or so, but that usually doesn’t happen unless I’m home in New York or with my brothers in Chicago. I reckon it’s more a comfort thing than a hyperactive thing.”
“That’s no way to live.”
“The life of a rock star,” Jet says proudly though I think it’s forced. “So why are you up at ass o’clock on your vacation?”
“Ass o’clock sounds a whole lot more fun than the crack of dawn.”
“Ass crack of dawn then?”
“Better. And, uh, I couldn’t sleep. Was thinking about …” God, don’t tell him what you were thinking about.
“Thinking about …”
“Tampa.” Idiot.
“Oh.”
I mentally prepare myself for the apology that’s about to come out of my mouth. “I was a dick and completely out of line.”
“You weren’t a dick.”
I pull back, surprised. Until he keeps talking.
“I like dicks, and I certainly didn’t like you after that night.”
I laugh again. There’s something about this guy that makes me lighter without even trying. His music, his personality ... It’s everything about him.
“I still stand by a lot of what I said, but I handled it so wrong.”
“So wrong,” Jet agrees.
“Well, I’m sorry.” I hesitate to ask him something I don’t want to know the answer to. “Did you at least do what I said?”
His eyes flutter as he stares down at the ground. Jet’s voice comes out soft, almost ashamed. “Yeah. I did.”
And I’m right. I didn’t want to hear the answer. “Are you—”
Jet shakes his head. “I’m not doing this with you.” He tries to charge past me, but I step in front of him.
“Jet—”
His deep-brown eyes stare right through me. “I’m not doing this.”
I let him go. There’s nothing I can do as he jogs out of my sight. It’s the third time I’ve watched him walk away from me in the last twelve hours, and each time I want to take it back. I want to tell him to stop being a brat, and I want to forget the last three years even existed.
I don’t know why I can’t act normal around Jet. Everything is heightened when I’m near him, and it makes me do and say stupid things. The natural thing to do around him is joke and touch him and have fun, but then I overthink it and what it would mean to flirt with Matt’s little brother.
Maybe all my mind games trying to get myself to see Jet a certain way are finally catching up to me, and now I have no idea how I’m supposed to see him.
I so haven’t had enough sleep to analyze this shit, and all I keep wondering is where it all went wrong.
Chapter Six
JET
TAMPA
Another city, another dingy club, another show. The glamorous life of a rock star that was supposed to be all parties, sex, and luxury? Yeah, that didn’t happen if you didn’t have any number ones.
Our debut album had tanked. Well, tanked isn’t really the correct term. We found minor success. Super minor. We’d done enough to do another album with the label but hadn’t hit any charts. We’d gained thousands of followers on social media and our YouTube channel. We had fans turning up to our shows. The small clubs we booked were selling out. The label was impressed enough with us to send us to Australia next month for a Joystar festival, but our stage time for that show was set for three a.m. on one of the side stages. Still, free trip overseas. We couldn’t wait, and Benji was excited to go back to his homeland to visit his family.
But we were over the seedy dive bar thing. We’d done that back in New York, and now we were getting the same benefits for more exhaustion. Being on the road was hard. Harder than I thought it would be.
Between band drama like my bass player and drummer being totally in love with each other but both too stubborn to admit it, sleeping in cheap-ass motels every night, not knowing what city I was in, and the encompassing feeling of being lost, I missed New York and the family I’d built.
My brother Matt. His husband, Noah, who I referred to as my brother. Ollie and Lennon. Heck, I even missed Matt’s weirdly overprotective friends. They all still treated me like I was a kid, but oddly, I missed it coming from them. I missed all of them.
I loved every minute of touring, but fuck, I was tired. My throat felt raw the majority of the time.
We had to pay our dues, I knew that, but the tour was putting me in a funk. I wond
ered if maybe I didn’t have it in me. Music had been my entire life, but when it became work, the love I had for it wasn’t there anymore.
I hadn’t written for about six months of the year we’d been away. No time, too tired, and no inspiration.
But as I took to the stage that fateful night in Tampa, the universe sent me a gift. A piece of home. A warm memory. No wait, not warm. Scorching hot.
I had no idea what Soren was doing in Florida—playing hockey I presumed—but even more, I had no idea what he was doing in this bar, waiting for my band to perform.
It was a fluke I picked him out of the crowd at all, and I wasn’t sure what gave him away. My eyes found him immediately upon taking my place in the spotlight. While a part of me thought my mind was playing tricks on me or the lighting made me imagine him—maybe it could’ve simply been a guy who looked a hell of a lot like my Soren wearing a baseball cap—but as soon as he broke out into a grin, I knew it was him.
The guy I’d had one night with almost a year ago and hadn’t seen since. Hadn’t even spoken to him.
Last I’d heard from everyone back home was Soren had gotten back together with his ex.
I’d like to say I wasn’t disappointed by that news, but I was. I wanted to act cool like I did the morning after we’d hooked up. Because I’d meant every word I said back then. I would’ve loved more of Soren, but it was only one night, and if he was still hung up on his ex, then he should’ve gone for it.
But after a year on the road, realizing how lonely this life was, how superficial and shallow the music industry could be, I wanted someone who was real. Not a groupie, not a sleazy tour manager, and not a musician—all of which I’d had the pleasure, or displeasure, of having this past year, and all of who had left me unsatisfied. Just like the hookups before Soren had.
“What’s up, Tampa?” I yelled into my mic.
The crowd went wild, but the object of my attention stayed cool as ever, still smiling at me with that blinding gorgeousness that was Soren.
Weren’t hockey players supposed to be roughed up, toothless, and, I dunno, grunty looking?
I wanted to talk to him. Forget the set and run into his arms. Instead, I turned to my bandmates.
“Changing it up, guys. Let’s open with ‘He’s Mine.’”
Benji looked confused for a second, but then he glanced out at the crowd and back to me. “Bloody hell, is the guy here?”
“The guy is here.”
Benji knew the whole story. So did Freya. She banged her drumsticks together, starting the count.
My eyes locked on Soren again as the song broke out, and I didn’t know it was possible, but his smile widened.
I might not have been able to call him out publicly and point and say, “Hey, everyone, Caleb Sorensen is in the house!” but I could still communicate with him. Well, technically, I could have announced an NHL hunk was here, but I didn’t want anyone to approach him. As soon as the gig was over, he was going to be all mine.
For the first time in months, I felt alive onstage. I was performing for Soren and Soren only.
I used my voice to lure him in and promise a wild, hot repeat, and if the way he stared at me with heat in his eyes was any indication, I knew it was working.
The set couldn’t have ended soon enough.
As soon as I strummed that last chord on that last song, I was off the stage and in the crappy back room which was one of the nicer “dressing rooms” we’d had on the road, but it was still a shithole.
A couch, a folding table, and a whole lot of stored junk was back there.
Our two-man roadie team was already getting stuck into some blow.
On big gigs or nights like tonight where it was fucking epic to be onstage, I’d partake, but I wasn’t going to this time.
I wanted to be levelheaded when I saw Soren. Remember every single detail.
That, and it turned out what they say about the music industry was right. That shit was everywhere. I refrained most times, only dabbling here and there. I refused to become the clichéd rock star addicted to coke before he’d even become famous.
I was going to wait until I could afford rehab to need it.
Hashtag life goals.
And our tour manager said we didn’t have any direction.
Benji and Freya caught up and stepped through the door.
“We were on fire,” Benji said and immediately took a seat at the table with the coke. He didn’t share my views on the rehab thing.
Freya stared at him with concern etched across her face.
I threw my sweaty arm around her. “He’s a big boy and can make his own decisions.”
“I know.”
My lips found the top of her head. “Now, excuse me while I get out of this sweaty-as-fuck shirt and into a clean one before the hockey player runs away.”
I tried to whip my shirt off, but my head got stuck, and then the sound of the deep voice made me pause.
“Not gonna run away.”
Unable to see, I pointlessly turned toward the voice and then realized how stupid I must’ve looked with my arms in the air, my shirt on my head, and my abs on full display.
Yep, on cue, there was Soren’s chuckle.
Freya helped me get my shirt off, and then there he was. All ten-foot-whatever of him.
His cap now on backward, a beard that wasn’t there last year, his killer smile on display, sculpted body, and all-around hotness, Caleb Sorensen was sex personified.
“Your security is shit, by the way,” he said. “All I had to do to get back here was say I knew you.”
“Well, it is true,” I pointed out. “Biblically speaking.”
Benji laughed behind me. Freya backhanded my arm.
Soren just smiled wider and met me halfway for a hug.
“I’m all sweaty and gross,” I warned.
“You’re not gross.” He threw his arms around me as if we were lifelong friends instead of what we actually were—a hookup from a year ago. “It’s good to see you.”
“Umm …” I didn’t know what to say to that. Usual me would say, “Duh, it’s always good to see me,” but my mouth wasn’t working.
The hug was short, a lot shorter than I would’ve liked, so he probably agreed about the grossness to some degree.
“Your set was awesome.”
“Yep.” Again, duh.
Still couldn’t talk, though.
Apparently, my mouth could only make sounds, not sentences.
Freya laughed beside me. “Can we adopt you? If you’ve rendered this one speechless”—she nudged me—“I would love to have you around for when he won’t shut up.”
“She loves me, really,” I said.
“Obviously,” he replied.
“Yeah. Obvs.” Oh my God, get it together, Jay … er, Jet.
With the new identity the label put on me, I was struggling to remember which name to go by. Having someone like Soren in front of me, it mixed me up even more.
“I’m, uh, gonna put on a fresh shirt, and we can get out of here.”
“Stay. Party,” Benji called out. “Jay, you want a bump?”
Soren stiffened beside me.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.”
Benji frowned. “You sure?”
“I’m good.”
I played it off casual, but I could feel the burn of Soren’s stare as I found a washed shirt in one of our bags. I wished it was the heat of lust he was throwing my way, but it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have felt two feet tall if it were.
“Yo, hockey man. You want?” Benji asked.
Soren’s hands balled at his sides.
“He can’t,” I answered for him and went to his side. “NHL rules.”
“Aww, fuck that for a job,” Benji said.
“And it’s, you know, the law,” Soren mumbled so only I could hear.
Benji turned to Freya. “Baby, you want some?”
She immediately went to Benji with a sigh of resignation.
“Hav
e fun, kids,” I said, wanting to get away from their toxic behavior.
It had been nothing but drama with them since we signed with the label. I thought it had to do with the small taste of fame we had and the groupies who followed Benji around like flies. Their on-again, off-again routine was already old, and I wasn’t even supposed to know about it because they thought it was all secretive and shit.
It was not.
I took Soren’s hand to drag him away where I could have him to myself. “Tell Wayne I’m goin’ out.”
“Dude, he left halfway through the set,” Benji said.
Of course, he did.
Our tour manager was the worst. He didn’t believe in us, in our music, or that we were good enough for the label.
And he was a sleazebag.
A convincing one.
But I wasn’t going to think about that with Soren there.
“Don’t wait up,” I called on the way out.
“Where are we going?” Soren asked over the house music.
“To get a drink. I can legally buy you one this time.”
His body shook as he laughed. “You know, I was under the impression you could legally buy me one last year.”
I gave him my best innocent face.
“You’re trouble.”
“Duh.”
Once back in the bar area of the venue, I was approached by fans all the way to the bar. I said a quick hi to each of them and took selfies. At one point, I lost Soren, but by the time I made it to the bar, he was waiting there for me with two drinks.
I leaned in close to his ear so he could hear me. “I was supposed to buy you a drink.”
“I still owed you from last time.” Soren slid the glass over to me.
“So, uh … I—”
A piercing screech echoed in my ear. “Jay! Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!”
I put on a publicity-ready smile and faced the barely dressed chick. “Hi.”
“Can I get a photo?”
I gritted my teeth. I loved my fans, I really did. But I was with Soren. The Soren.
“Of course.”
She threw her arm around my shoulder and took a selfie. But as soon as she walked away, another person approached.
