The Hat Trick Box Set

by Samantha Wayland

  At one point, Jean-Michel slid behind him to get to the sink, his hands resting on Noel’s hips for a moment, and Noel’s heart sort of sidestepped in his chest.

  He took deep breaths until the feeling went away.

  They ate in the kitchen, even though their knees tended to bump under this table. Jean-Michel had a nice dining room just around the corner, but they never ate in there.

  The conversation started out light enough, and Noel was lulled into a false sense of normalcy until he made the mistake of bringing up how much better Rhian had seemed recently. Jean-Michel went silent again, and stayed that way.

  Noel poked at it a little, wondering what the connection was there, but mostly Jean-Michel muttered quick, short answers and changed the subject.

  Now Noel was pissed again. He chewed his way through his dinner and told himself as soon as they were done, he was going to get answers, even if he had to yell. He refused, though, to ruin their meal.

  He tried to move the conversation back to the safe topics from before Rhian had come up, but Jean-Michel didn’t shake whatever had settled over his mood. By the time they were putting their dishes in the dishwasher, Jean-Michel was practically mute, and Noel was seething.

  “Come on, let’s go back to the couch,” Noel said as soon as they were done, careful to keep his voice even.

  Jean-Michel grabbed two beers and followed him, taking his usual place on the couch. At this point, if they’d been about to watch a movie or just chill and talk, Noel would normally take the far end of the sofa, but instead he took what he thought of as his “video game seat” and sat right next to Jean-Michel, turning to pull his leg up on the couch between them, so his knee pressed into Jean-Michel’s thigh.

  He put a hand on Jean-Michel’s bouncing leg to still it and left it there. “Is there something you want to talk about? To tell me?”

  Jean-Michel’s eyes widened and he swallowed. “What?”

  Jesus, he looked panicked. “What’s going on with you? You’ve been quiet and acting weird for a couple days. Are you okay?”

  Noel watched, confused, as Jean-Michel’s shoulders came down from around his ears and the panic left his face.

  “Oh, that.”

  What the fuck else would this have been about? “Yeah, that.”

  Jean-Michel rubbed his thumb over his lip for a minute, staring at Noel’s hand on his knee.

  “Are you mad at me? Did I do or say something that upset you?” Noel asked when he couldn’t stand it any longer, his stomach squirming with dread.

  Jean-Michel’s head snapped up. “What? No. No, that’s not—shit, I’m sorry. I’m not mad or anything like that. I was just sort of avoiding you.”

  “Oh, well, that makes me feel much better.” Noel pulled his hand back into his lap.

  “No! It’s not because I wanted to avoid you. It’s because I wanted to tell you.”

  “Well, that’s as clear as mud.”

  Jean-Michel sighed gustily. “You know what? I’m telling you.”

  “Telling me what?”

  “I went to see Rhian. I went to apologize about being a pain about the woman in the bar that night.”

  “Okay? I mean, I don’t think it was necessary, since he ended up talking to her for an hour, but that’s cool.”

  “Dude, he doesn’t live above Savannah’s garage.”

  Noel was having a hard time keeping track of the changes in direction in this conversation. “What? He moved?”

  “Not that I know of. He said he lived there three months ago when we were all over there for that barbeque. When would he have had time to secretly move during the season?”

  It was a valid point. “Are you sure he doesn’t live there?”

  “No one lives there. It’s completely empty. The door wasn’t even locked! I just pushed it open and there was a perfectly empty, kind of crappy, apartment. I don’t think he’s ever lived there,” Jean-Michel added, as though just coming to the realization.

  “That’s…that’s weird,” Noel said slowly.

  “Right? And also, like, not my business? But it kind of is, because he’s my friend and it matters to me that we don’t even know where the fuck he lives. And that he’s been lying to us about it.”

  Noel’s eyes dropped when Jean-Michel’s hand slid over his. Noel didn’t remember putting it back on Jean-Michel’s knee. He dragged his gaze back up to Jean-Michel’s face.

  “That’s…you’re right. That’s upsetting. And not okay.”

  Jean-Michel nodded. He looked sad.

  “But you could have told me. Right away, I mean.”

  “I know. I was being dumb,” Jean-Michel admitted with a shrug. “I guess I felt guilty that I’d invited myself over in the first place, so I wasn’t even supposed to know. And then when I found out, it was so freaking weird, I didn’t know what to do with it.”

  “I guess I get that,” Noel said, letting the relief of having this resolved with Jean-Michel soak in.

  “What if he’s homeless?” Jean-Michel asked out of nowhere.

  “Who? Rhian?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He makes, like, millions of dollars a year. I seriously doubt he’s homeless.”

  “Okay, then what is it? Is he a spy?”

  Noel made a face. “For who? He’s American. And didn’t he grow up in the foster program in the Midwest somewhere?”

  “So? That would be the perfect cover! Drop the kid off and let the government raise him. Like a sleeper cell!”

  “And what? Just hope he decides to grow into an agent for a foreign government?”

  “Okay, so maybe he’s a spy for America. Our jobs do require a lot of travel.”

  “To Canada. I don’t think the US government is expending a lot of effort into spying on us. Even you crazy Québécois aren’t that scary.”

  “Hey!” Jean-Michel shouted. “We’re very scary.”

  Noel tried to hide his laughter, but he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

  “And, I’d like to point out,” Jean-Michel continued, “you are Québécois, too.”

  “Half,” Noel said quickly. He liked to emphasize this to Henri and Jean-Michel every chance he got, because they always got the exact same, identical looks on their faces, just like the one Jean-Michel wore now. Total indignance.

  Noel cracked up.

  It took him a while to calm down, but he was feeling so relieved, so happy to see the smile on Jean-Michel’s face, he felt almost drunk with it. When his laughter had finally run its course, he slumped back on the couch and sighed.

  “What am I going to do?” Jean-Michel asked quietly.

  Noel didn’t think before he threw his arm around Jean-Michel’s shoulders and pulled him close. “Hey, Hey. What are we going to do, okay?”

  Jean-Michel practically melted against him, his head on Noel’s shoulder. Noel’s heart did that funny misstep again, but this time it was a lot harder to breathe through. He got there, though, back to normal except for the scratch in his voice.

  “We’ll talk to him,” he said, making it up as he went along. But really, what other choice did they have? “He’s our friend. We’ll ask him about it. We’ll do what we can to make sure he’s okay.”

  “I don’t think he trusts us,” Jean-Michel said.

  “I don’t know,” Noel hedged, though part of him agreed, and that sucked. “I mean, maybe I’m a lousy judge of character, but he seems like a good guy. He’s been a good friend. I’m sure there’s an explanation.”

  “You think?”

  “Yeah. And we’ll find out what it is tomorrow.”

  Rhian stared up at Jean-Michel from his seat on the bench in the locker room. The dude was acting bizarre, and if Rhian didn’t know better, he’d ask him if he was on something. His voice had a weird shake to it, and Rhian would swear it was nerves, except he’d seen Jean-Michel face down all manner of vindictive press and whackadoodle fans, and he’d never once heard him sound like this.

  He was babb
ling about the shoot-out drill and then the passing drills, and then Rhian sort of lost the thread. They’d just finished morning skate, and Rhian’s focus was more on his hopes to have a few minutes alone with Savannah before he went home to have lunch and a nap with Garrick.

  The last few days had been so good. He’d been making an effort to just relax and enjoy their company. He still needed to sit and talk with them, but with the road trip and another game tonight, it hadn’t been easy to find a time when they could all talk and not worry that one of them would be dashing off somewhere before they had a chance to settle things.

  Jean-Michel finally stopped babbling. After a brief pause, which captured Rhian’s attention more than the babbling had, he looked Rhian in the eye and said, “Can we talk?”

  “Uh, sure? I mean, we are, aren’t we?”

  Noel chose that moment to slide along the bench until his hip checked Rhian’s. He sent Jean-Michel a strange look and just said, “Chill.” Then he looked at Rhian. “How about lunch? We can all talk then. It will be more private.”

  A curl of unease slipped down Rhian’s spine, but he shook it off. Maybe the guys had something to tell him.

  That thought almost got a smile, because there was always hope these two fucking idiots had finally noticed that each of them was pining for the other.

  “Okay. Lunch sounds good,” Rhian said, packing away his disappointment at having to miss eating with Garrick. He got to do that all the time, he reminded himself. “Should we maybe go to one of your places, though, if you want privacy?”

  “Why don’t we go to your place?” Jean-Michel asked. His innocent tone was undermined when a nervous giggle escaped him.

  Noel kicked him and turned back to Rhian. “Fucking ignore him. He doubled up at Starbucks this morning.”

  Rhian’s eyes widened. That was just alarming all by itself, but there was something else niggling in the back of his mind. Why had Jean-Michel asked about his place at all? They never went there, obviously.

  Before he could sort that out, Henri walked up. “You three okay?” He graced Jean-Michel and his nervous twitching with the same look Rhian was pretty sure he’d been giving him for the past ten minutes.

  “Yeah. We’re going to lunch. You coming?”

  “Sure,” Henri answered, his eyes narrowing when Noel opened his mouth as if he might object.

  “Great,” Noel agreed instead of whatever he was going to say originally. “Let’s go back to mine. I’ll grab sushi on the way.”

  Rhian nodded, pleased about the sushi, but also relieved that Dad would be along for this. He had no idea what the fuck was going on with Jean-Michel, or Noel, but he felt like maybe having Dad there to act as a buffer would help if things got weird.

  Henri wasn’t called Dad for nothing. He was a calming influence on all of them, and if nothing else, Rhian could use a little of that right then.

  It wasn’t until Rhian was in the car on the way over to Noel’s that he started thinking about Jean-Michel asking about going back to his place. The unease came back, tenfold. Rhian, Garrick, and Savannah had been talking, for almost a year now, about actually buying furniture for the in-law apartment above the garage. If nothing else, it would mean they could put up more guests. In fact, that’s about all it would mean, because even if Rhian actually had a fake apartment, he would still never invite anyone back to it.

  The lies were bad enough already. That would be another level he couldn’t stand.

  When he got to Noel’s, he parked right behind Henri and followed him into the building and up to Noel’s place. Noel and Jean-Michel were already there, spreading out the frankly ludicrous amount of sushi on the kitchen’s long breakfast bar.

  It was a little early for lunch, but they’d had practice, so they all dug into the mountain of food in front of them, any conversation temporarily stalled in favor of stuffing their faces.

  Rhian was happily eating his spicy tuna roll and sharing looks with Henri about the idiots across the breakfast bar, when Jean-Michel suddenly put down his chopsticks and caught Rhian’s gaze.

  “Why is your apartment empty?”

  Rhian paused with his chopsticks halfway to his mouth. “What?”

  Henri cocked his head curiously, looking between Jean-Michel and Rhian.

  Jean-Michel had the grace to look guilty, but he held Rhian’s gaze. “I stopped by your apartment the other day, because I felt bad about the bar and making you go talk with that woman when you clearly didn’t want to. The door was unlocked. I didn’t mean to put my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but it’s kind of weird, dude. Your apartment is empty.”

  Ryan stood from his stool, his heart pounding against his ribs. The sushi was dangerously close to making a reappearance. “I’m staying with a friend.”

  “And you took all your furniture?” Noel asked.

  Rhian could tell they were trying hard not to sound accusatory. Or judgmental. Or any of the zillion different ways they could reasonably sound, given than they’d figured out that their supposed good friend had been lying to them. For years.

  “I’m going to go,” he managed, turning for the door. He wished his voice had sounded steadier, but it probably didn’t make much difference at this point.

  He heard Jean-Michel’s quiet, “What the fuck?”, and Noel’s even softer, “Whoa,” but he didn’t stop moving.

  He slid his sneakers on, left them untied. Didn’t bother pulling on his coat before yanking open the door. He was almost into the hallway, almost free, when a hand landed on his shoulder.

  He froze. Didn’t look back.

  “Are you okay to drive?” Henri asked quietly.

  Rhian nodded, his eyes filling with tears at this, of all things. Fucking Dad.

  Henri let him go. Rhian ran from the building.

  Garrick was pulling the ingredients for his lunch and Rhian’s afternoon snack from the fridge when the back door flew open so fast, the Christmas wreath fell from the door and landed on the mudroom floor with a thud.

  Garrick watched, slack-jawed, as Rhian stomped in, slapped it back up on its hook, and shut the door hard enough that it was a miracle the damn thing didn’t fall off again.

  “What—”

  The question died when Rhian’s head snapped up, his eyes wet and red.

  Garrick’s heart broke a little, and he didn’t even know what had happened yet. He came around the kitchen island toward Rhian, every instinct on high alert. Had Rhian had a panic attack? Had something happened?

  He put his hands up, to hold Rhian. To anchor him.

  He was brought up short, though, when Rhian pushed him back and walked right past.

  “Rhi?” Garrick asked, uncertain and hurt.

  Rhian just shook his head, his feet moving faster and faster away from Garrick until he was sprinting up the stairs.

  Alone.

  Garrick didn’t understand. Rhian would come to them when he was feeling alone. Lost. Scared. Anything. That was what they did for him. That was what they did for one another.

  Except, apparently, not this time. Not for the past few weeks.

  Garrick stood there, dumbfounded, for a long minute. Then he dug his phone out of his pocket and called Savannah.

  As soon as she answered, he said, “You need to come home.”

  Chapter Nine

  Savannah hovered in the doorway to their bedroom, watching Rhian. He lay flat on his back on the bed, his eyes glued to the ceiling.

  She would have thought he was getting ready to take his pre-game nap a little early, if it weren’t for the fact that he was fully clothed on top of the covers, and the set of his shoulders was far too tight for anyone who was hoping to sleep.

  He also kept taking deep, shaky breaths and letting them out slowly.

  Part of Savannah—the chicken-shit part that she would ignore—wanted to just leave him be. Let him rest and recover from whatever the hell had happened at lunch. It had taken more willpower than she would have thought she possessed no
t to call the French Canadian Mafia as she was tearing home from the rink. If she found out they’d done something shitty, she was going to be hard pressed not to subject them to a “tape-to-thigh waxing” when she was prepping them for tonight’s game.

  There was nothing like having all those little hairs ripped out to make a man reconsider his sad choices.

  That would have to wait, though, until she had a better idea of what was going on. It was Savannah’s habit to stay in the office until she had to move to the big rink for the game, so she only had about two hours before her absence would not just be noted, but a problem.

  She entered the bedroom and walked around to the side of the bed. Rhian barely moved, only his eyes tracking her movement.

  “Hey, you okay?” she asked, which seemed like a foolish question but she had to start somewhere.

  Rhian frowned. “I’m fine.”

  “You very clearly are not fine,” Savannah said. She ran her fingers through Rhian’s soft blond curls, as was her habit.

  Rhian sighed and closed his eyes. “It’s fine. I’ll be fine.”

  “Can we please talk about it?” she asked. She’d beg if she had to. “We’d like to know what’s going on. What’s got you so upset.”

  Movement caught her eye and she saw Garrick in the door, watching them. He’d taken an extra minute to settle himself before coming upstairs. Rhian rebuffing him earlier was not something he took lightly, and he was hurt.

  “There’s nothing to talk about,” Rhian said abruptly, waving his hand in front of himself and right at her belly. “I can’t change it now.”

  Savannah took a quick step back, pressing her palm protectively over her stomach. “What?”

  Rhian sat bolt upright in bed. “No!” He stood so quickly she took another step back. “That’s not—my god, no, that’s not what I meant at all.”

  Rhian pulled her against his chest and hung on. She clung back, trying to get her heart to beat normally again, to make her breathing calm. Garrick wrapped them both in his arms.