He didn’t want to sleep with Aubrey really, right? Finding someone attractive wasn’t the same as wanting to spend time with him naked.
Plus, there was the show. Jess said their dynamic worked, had brought their numbers up. Nate didn’t want to fuck with that. He and Aubrey would be fine if they got canceled, but what about the rest of the crew? He wouldn’t jeopardize their livelihood just to get his dick wet.
“It’s not like that,” Nate protested, but it sounded weak even to his own ears.
Bones raised his eyebrows. “Uh-huh.” He leaned his elbows on the table and put his head in his hands, eyes glinting with mischief. He looked like a teenager at a sleepover. “Why don’t you tell me what itislike.”
Nate could tell him to butt out. He probablyshouldtell him to butt out. But sitting there at the bar, surrounded by old friends, glancing down the table at where Aubrey had taken the lead in the conversation again and was diagramming something on the table using lowball glasses and stir sticks, he couldn’t help himself. He wanted someone to talk to about everything that had happened, and his former captain was as good a therapist as anyone, probably.
“I haven’t been single in almost ten years.”
He might as well start at the beginning.
Without changing his expression, Bonesy lifted a hand to signal for another round. Nate knew he could count on him. “I get the feeling we’re going to need that.”
Nate acknowledged it with a tilt of his head. “And even when I was younger, it wasn’t… I never got into the whole pickup culture, you know? I never really dated. And then I met Marty, and that was it.”
“Uh-huh,” Bonesy repeated. The server brought the next round of drinks, and he raised his to his lips but paused before taking a sip. “And now that’s over.” He sounded sympathetic, but he was also clearly inviting Nate to elaborate.
“Yes!” Nate said, a little too loudly, and he glanced down at his glass and wondered if maybe he shouldn’t slow his own pace of drinking, because he’d drawn a bit of attention with that. Even Aubrey had stopped at the end of the table, in the middle of saying something that had his eyes wide and his mouth parted in surprise. Nate quickly looked away again.
When he didn’t say anything for a few long moments, Bonesy leaned forward, pitched his voice so it wouldn’t carry, and said, “Are you telling me you can’t figure out how to fuck someone without any strings?”
“Not exactly. Okay, yes. But that’s only part of it.” He swirled the ice in his glass as though it would help him order his thoughts. “I never wanted those things before. Or maybe I did but I wouldn’t admit it to myself. And now I feel… cheated? But I’m also not sure how to tell if….” He glanced toward Aubrey again. An attractive flush had spread across his face, but he wasn’t looking at Kaden anymore; he was staring at his own hands.
Nate took a long drink.
“Let me get this straight.” Nate shot Bonesy a look. “Shut up. It’s a figure of speech. You want to know if that guy wants to fuck you as much as you want to fuck him. Do you talk to him in person like you do on the air?”
Nate snorted, using his thumb to draw a sad face in the condensation on the glass. “No. I kind of avoid him.” He inhaled deeply and made himself hold it for a few seconds before letting it out slowly. “We got off on the wrong foot.”
“Never would’ve guessed,” Bones said, dry. “But here’s a thought—if you want to know if he’s DTF, try it. Your show is a master class of sexual tension.”
Nate winced, wondering how to explain that was part of the problem. Once he and Aubrey slept together, that tension would disappear, right? “The thing is, I sort of have instructions, uh, not to make friends.”
Bones blinked at him over the top of his glass. “What?”
“My boss, okay, ratings were… suffering with John, and with Aubrey they’re not, and she said, and I quote, ‘Don’t. Change. Anything.’” He smeared the sad face. “What if I screw it up and the show gets canceled?”
Carefully, Bones put his glass down. Then he said, in a clear, slow voice, as though Nate were being particularly obtuse, “Nate. I know your ego is as out of control as any other professional hockey player’s. But if the show gets canceled, it’s not going to be because you and Mr. Bedroom Eyes gave in to your hormones and got your poles waxed.”
Nate didn’t have time to respond to this allegation before Bones continued, “You’re making excuses because moving on from divorce is hard and you’re chickenshit.”
Nate’s shoulders seemed to recognize the truth of it ahead of his brain, because he felt them slump even before he admitted to himself that Bones had a point. He sighed, spun his glass around on the table, and finally raised his eyes again, looking down the table almost automatically, as though Aubrey really were magnetic—only to find Aubrey looking back at him.
A second later Aubrey looked away, returning his focus to Kaden, but it seemed to Nate as though his heart wasn’t really in it.
None of this gave him the slightest idea what to do next. “I hate you,” Nate mumbled. “Why couldn’t you just tell me to forget about it and move on?”
“Hey, you get what you pay for. You want your head shrunk, get a therapist.”
Nate was screwing up his face in a grimace, reaching for something cutting to say, when a wadded-up napkin flew through the air, hit Bonesy in the face, and fell into his glass. The rookies in the center of the table erupted in cheers, and Nate ended up smothering a laugh with one hand lest he inadvertently encourage them.
“Just for that you’re picking up our tab,” Bones threatened, shaking his head. “And get me another drink.”
NATE HADobviously not expected Aubrey to accept the invitation to drinks with him and his former teammates. Even Aubrey was a little surprised at himself. He’d fucked a couple hockey players, but aside from a few carefully curated outings with Jackson, he didn’t spend time with them en masse—too much aggressive heteronormativity. But something about the possibility of seeing Nate in his natural habitat called to him irresistibly. So here he was.
Having, it must be said, a surprisingly pleasant time.
