by Rachel Reid
To his delight, it made Troy scream.
“Fuck! What the fuck? Was that you?”
Harris was laughing too hard to answer.
“Oh, fuck you.” And then Troy was tackling Harris, both men landing hard on the sand under the shallow water. Harris sat up, still laughing, Troy kneeling between his sprawled legs. Troy was laughing too, really laughing, eyes crinkled, as water dripped from his hair and off the tip of his nose.
He stopped laughing when he noticed the way Harris was staring at him. For a few seconds, they held each other’s gazes, both breathing hard. Obviously Troy wasn’t going to kiss him here, in public, in front of half of his team, but damn. Maybe he wanted to?
Instead, Troy playfully splashed water in Harris’s face and stood up. He offered Harris his hand and pulled him to his feet. There was definitely heat in Troy’s gaze, but Troy looked away before Harris could get lost in it.
Oh yeah. They definitely had some things to discuss later.
* * *
Troy was exhausted, slightly sunburned, and a little bit tipsy by the time he returned to his hotel room that night.
It had been, all things considered, a very fun and relaxing day. Ilya had mentioned to Troy that it had been Harris’s idea, getting everyone to go to the beach. Troy wasn’t surprised.
By the end of the afternoon, nearly all of the players, and most of the coaches and other staff, had joined in the fun. At six o’clock, Bood announced that he had managed to book them a bunch of tables at a Mexican restaurant, so the party had moved there.
The only stressful thing about the day was Troy’s struggle to stop himself from openly staring at Harris. He tried to keep some distance from him, especially after he’d been nearly overcome with the need to kiss him in the ocean. He’d looked so adorable, soaked and laughing with the sun highlighting all of the shades of green in his eyes. His wet tank top had clung to his chest, and Troy had seen the outline of chest hair and firm nipples pressed against the fabric.
Troy hadn’t sat at the same table as Harris at the restaurant, but he’d kept stealing glances at him. He’d been able to hear his cheerful voice and ridiculous laugh throughout the meal, and he’d been a bit jealous every time he heard one of the other guys laughing at one of his jokes.
God, Troy had such a crush on this guy.
He was determined to stay in his own room tonight. He could feel the pull from Harris’s room down the hall, but he would resist it. Harris deserved someone way, way, way better than Troy.
Which reminded Troy of his plan to start an official Instagram account, for real this time. He knew he was going to get shit on in the replies, especially if he actively posted in support of sexual assault victims, but fuck it. He could handle it. It was such a small discomfort, in the grand scheme of things.
He wondered how to get one of those little blue checks. Harris would know. He could text him and ask. Or walk down to his room and see if he—
No. Troy could figure this out.
He was several minutes into a tutorial video on getting verified when there was a knock at his door.
He opened it, hoping it was anyone but Harris, but also really wanting it to be Harris.
It was Harris.
“Hi. Am I interrupting anything?”
“Nope.” Troy, against his better judgment, let Harris into his hotel room.
When the door was closed, Troy leaned back against it. “What’s up?”
“I think we should talk, maybe.”
Troy wasn’t enough of an ass to ask about what? so he just nodded. “Okay.” He tried to keep his expression blank, not exposing the way his heart was racing, or the way he really wanted to pull Harris into his arms.
“So, about last night,” Harris said with a nervous smile. “Was that your first time? With a man, I mean?”
Even though Troy had already kissed Harris, gotten off with him, and held him in his arms all night, he still had to force the admission out. “No.”
Harris’s eyes widened. “Wow. Okay. So, um...”
Troy crossed the room and sat on the bed. “I’m gay.” He let that hang there a moment. Harris didn’t say anything, just stood in front of him, waiting patiently. “I had a boyfriend. We were together, secretly, for almost two years.”
“Oh. Jesus, that sounds hard.”
“It was, I guess. But neither of us wanted to come out, so it worked. I thought it did anyway. But then he dumped me and now he’s...” Troy sighed. “I guess I can just tell you. It was Adrian Dela Cruz.”
Harris’s mouth dropped open. “Wait. What?”
“Yeah.”
“The actor?”
“Yeah.”
“But when were you dating? Because I thought he said in his Instagram post that he’d been with Justin Green for months. They’re engaged!”
“He dumped me in November. So, yeah. You can do the math.”
Harris sat beside him and placed a hand on his arm. “Aw, Troy. I’m sorry.”
Troy swallowed thickly. He had never talked about Adrian to anyone before. “It sucked, seeing that post. I was in love with him, I thought. I mean, I still think I was.”
Harris took his hand, rubbing his thumb over Troy’s knuckles. “Damn. I was so excited when I saw that post. So happy for him. I had no idea he was a total scumbag.”
Troy huffed. “He found someone better. I don’t know why I was surprised.”
Harris looked at him sternly. “Don’t say that.”
His thumb was still brushing over Troy’s knuckles, steady and soothing. “I was thinking about coming out for him, if he wanted,” Troy said quietly. It was something he hadn’t ever admitted to himself, really, let alone said out loud. He’d only considered it when he’d been in Adrian’s arms, behind the safety of a locked door, but in those rare, perfect moments, Troy had felt brave.
“Do you have people you can talk to about him?” Harris asked quietly.
“No. I’ve never told anyone about him.”
Harris’s thumb stilled. “You’ve been dealing with a broken heart all by yourself?”
Troy shrugged one shoulder.
Harris squeezed his hand. “Oh, Troy. Jeez, you’ve had a rough couple of months.”
Troy gazed into Harris’s warm eyes and offered a small smile. “It hasn’t been all bad.”
Harris’s smile in response was so sweet, it took all of Troy’s self-control not to kiss him.
He straightened his shoulders. “So, yeah. It wasn’t my first time, so don’t worry about, um, that. And obviously we both needed some release after...everything. It’s not a big deal.”
Harris let go of his hand, and his smile faded. “Got it. It was just convenient.”
Troy should have been relieved that Harris understood, but he wanted to grab his hand back. Instead, he nodded and said, “Exactly. I liked it a lot, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sitting here thinking it means more than it does.” Please tell me it means more.
“Right,” Harris said. He laughed, but it sounded forced. “Me neither.”
Troy stood, because the proximity to Harris, especially while on a bed, was too much. “So, I should get to bed, probably. Game day tomorrow.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Harris stood, and Troy could tell he was hurt. Had he been hoping to stay? To go another round with him? Maybe this time with their clothes off? God, Troy wanted to throw him on the bed and just fucking wreck him. Or maybe just hold him all night and breathe in his scent.
“Good night,” Harris said. He had one hand on the door handle, but he was twisted around to face Troy, like he was hoping Troy would stop him.
“Good night,” Troy said, and turned away. The door opened and clicked shut behind him.
Chapter Sixteen
Troy was sure he looked at least as bad as Ryan Price always used to on planes.
His whole body was gripped with an intense feeling of panic that he was just barely keeping in check.
Fortunately, based on the ashen faces and white knuckles of his teammates around him, everyone was battling their own inner wars, so Troy couldn’t feel too embarrassed about it.
The plane hadn’t even taken off yet. They’d just closed the door, and already everyone was on edge.
The games in Florida hadn’t been great, but had been okay considering. They’d lost 3-2 to Tampa, and then 2-1 to Florida, so not the blowouts that people were probably expecting. Troy thought Harris’s insistence that they have fun on their day off probably helped the team mentally.
But it wasn’t helping now. Not when they were sealed inside a death trap exactly like the one that had burst into flames a few short days ago.
The silence on the plane was eerie; the absence of chatter and laughter was only adding to the tension. By the time the plane was racing down the runway, about to lift off, Troy was swallowing a lump in his throat.
He was sitting alone. He wished he was sitting with Harris, but that would only make him fall into bad habits. He knew he’d be grasping Harris’s hand right now if it were anywhere near him.
Ilya was sitting across the aisle, also alone. His head was down, eyes closed, and Troy thought he’d pre-emptively gotten himself into the brace for impact position. Then he noticed his lips moving, forming silent words, and he realized he must be praying.
Weird. He knew Ilya wore that cross around his neck, but he’d never thought of him a religious man. Troy supposed if you prayed at all, though, now was the time.
Just let us get home safe, he thought to no one in particular. His own lazy version of a prayer.
Statistically, he told himself, it was extremely unlikely to be on two planes in a row with mechanical failures. But half an hour into the flight, Troy’s muscles were aching from his tense posture. He glanced over at Ilya and saw him staring hard out the window, as if watching the engine to make sure it stayed together. There was something very unsettling about an anxious Ilya Rozanov.
Troy closed his eyes, tipped his head back, and wished he’d taken some sort of sleeping pill. That would have been smart. Since he hadn’t, he tried to think about something pleasant.
He’d been trying really hard not to fantasize about Harris, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and the sexy images in his head were extremely effective as far as distractions went.
So he let himself drift into a lovely diversion where Harris was rubbing that soft beard all over Troy’s balls while he sucked him off. In this scenario he could actually see Harris, and they’d both taken off their clothes. Damn, he wished they’d at least gotten naked for that one and only hookup.
Troy liked him way too much. He’d come out to him. Maybe in a very backwards kind of way, where he had sex with him first and then told him he was gay, but that was how he’d told Adrian too.
“All right, everyone. It’s story time.”
Troy’s eyes shot open at the sound of Harris’s extremely well-projected voice. He was standing in the aisle, right in the middle of the plane, grinning at everyone like this was a totally normal thing to do. “Have I told you guys about my sister Anna’s first date with her husband?”
“No!” someone shouted.
“Yes!”
“Tell us anyway!”
“Okay, so Anna had been crushing on this guy, Mike, for months. I can let you know now that he’s a super-nice guy and we all love him, but at the time all I knew was he was the reason I couldn’t borrow our parents’ truck that night.”
There were some scattered chuckles already. Troy would bet that Harris had the attention of every person on board. He even turned as he talked, making sure everyone at the front of the plane could hear him too.
“Anna and I never fought much, but that night it got vicious. I’d been invited to a party, and I’d offered to give a lift to this supercute boy in my geography class, so I needed that truck.”
Troy’s heart raced at the easy way Harris had said cute boy in front of an audience of NHL players.
The story went on, and everyone hung on Harris’s every word. Troy found he was on the edge of his seat for a reason that had nothing to do with fearing for his life. Even Ilya was smiling and laughing, and he groaned along with Troy when Harris told them that Anna had won the truck that night, and Harris hadn’t gotten to woo his cute geography boy.
“So Anna’s got her man in the passenger seat, and they’re driving to the movie theater, talking and flirting, and he asks her if she hears anything weird. Like, maybe something wrong with the truck. They both stay silent for a few seconds, and hear nothing, so he decides he was imagining things.”
“Harris,” Ilya warned, “if this story is about a fucking vehicle breaking...”
“It’s not! I promise. Okay, so they drive some more, and this time Anna hears it. Like a weird scratchy sound. But then it stops. The truck is driving fine, doesn’t seem to be any issue. No warning lights or anything. So she pulls over into a parking lot because she just wants to check the rear part of the cab, and when she peeks behind Mike’s seat, she sees a skunk.”
“No!” someone yelled.
“Swear to god.”
“Did you put the skunk in there? As revenge for taking the truck?”
“I didn’t!” Harris laughed. “But she still doesn’t believe me. But now she’s on this date with this guy she’s been into forever, and there’s a fucking skunk in the back, which is obviously a precarious situation because they have to get it out without, y’know, setting it off.”
“What the fuck did they do?”
“They were smart. They got out, left the doors open, and went to sit on the curb a few meters away. Eventually the skunk left on its own, no harm done. But the cute thing is that Anna and Mike had their first kiss sitting on that curb, waiting for that skunk. So the skunk is, like, a matchmaker. But man, she was still so fucking mad at me when she got home.”
“I think you did it,” a voice that was definitely Bood’s said.
Harris put his hands up. “I really didn’t. How would I even have managed that without getting sprayed? But I’ll tell you what, I’m glad it wasn’t me driving around trying to impress a boy that night.”
“Did you ever hook up with that boy?” Ilya asked, which was exactly the question Troy wanted to ask but was scared to.
“Yeah. We went to get McFlurrys after school a few days later. Then we went back to his bedroom.”
There were a few whoops and catcalls, which Harris waved away. “It wasn’t that great.”
Laughter filled the plane. The mood had shifted so drastically since Harris had begun his story, it was staggering. And really impressive. Troy felt a swell of unearned pride.
“So who else has a story?” Harris asked. He pointed to Evan Dykstra. “D, I know you’ve got a million.”
“Well,” Dykstra said slowly as he stood up, “since we’re talking about disaster dates...”
Everyone cheered. Harris caught Troy’s gaze and winked at him. Troy smiled back, easy and effortless. He’d bet he could smile all the time if he had enough of Harris in his life.
Eventually, they landed safely in Ottawa, and everyone on board breathed a collective sigh of relief. Troy caught up with Harris once he reached the tarmac.
“How’d you do that?” he asked.
“Do what?”
“Get everyone to loosen up. Stand up and tell that story like you weren’t terrified too.”
Harris huffed out a white cloud into the frigid winter air. “It was going to be a really long flight if we all sat there white-knuckling our armrests. And, I dunno. I figure, if we’re all going to die in a plane crash, then there’s nothing we can do about it anyway. May as well enjoy life while we can, right?”
“I guess.”
Something bubbled up inside of Troy. Happiness, he supposed. “Me too.”
* * *
“Holy shit.”
Gen didn’t look up from her computer. “What?”
“Troy Barrett has an Instagram account now, and it’s, um. You should look at it.”
“Okay,” she said slowly, and held out her hand for Harris’s phone. Harris walked across the office and handed it to her.
“Holy shit,” she said after she looked at Troy’s first couple of posts.
The bio for TroyBarrett17 sent a clear message: NHL player for the Ottawa Centaurs. I believe victims of sexual assault.
He’d made three posts so far. The most recent was an infographic with some statistics about sexual assault that he’d gotten from a national organization’s timeline (and, Harris was pleased to see, he had credited them properly for it and encouraged people to follow them). The second post was a graphic that listed the phone numbers and websites of organizations that helped survivors of sexual assault. The first post was a selfie, taken in the team gym. Troy’s face was flushed, and his hair was damp with sweat. You could see sweat darkening the top of his gray T-shirt as well. He was almost smiling. Almost.
The caption read: Working hard. Always room for improvement.
It could just be referring to Troy’s physical fitness, and his on-ice performance, but Harris didn’t think that was what Troy meant. Not entirely anyway.
“He’s not fucking around,” Gen said. “I’m impressed.”
“Yeah,” Harris said distantly, still staring at Troy’s selfie. He was also impressed. Impressed, surprised, proud, and a little bit infatuated.
Also, did Troy know what a thirst trap that selfie was? He must, right?
“How are the replies?” Gen asked. “Does he even have followers yet?”
“He has over five thousand followers so far,” Harris said. He hit the follow button, then scrolled through the replies on each post. They were mostly positive, some welcoming him to Instagram, showing their support as fans. A few were explicitly supportive of his last two posts. And a few fucking dickbags who seemed delighted that Troy had given them a place to trash him directly. Some of the negative replies even tagged Dallas Kent. Jesus.
