For a long moment, Ryan was silent. Fabian raised his head and bravely glanced at his face. Ryan was smiling at the ceiling.
“I don’t think I’ve ever inspired anyone to do anything before.”
“I didn’t say it wasyou,” Fabian teased. Ryan’s smile faded. “Oh my god!Of courseit’s you!” Fabian climbed on top of him, sprawled out on his stomach with his chin propped on his folded hands. “I don’t want to alarm you, but I’m quite fond of you, Ryan Price.”
Ryan shook his head. His face was pure wonder. “I used to listen to you practice. I’d be in my room in the basement, and when I heard your violin I would just lay on my bed and listen.”
Fabian’s heart fluttered. “Did you?”
“Yeah. All the time. It...helped.”
“Helped?”
Ryan sighed. “That wasn’t a great year for me. I was away from home for the first time—and Ross Harbour has less than two thousand people, so even being in a city was an adjustment—and your family was really nice, but it was still, y’know, not my home.”
Fabian had never really considered things from the hockey player’s view when he’d been forced to cohabit with them. As far as he’d been concerned at the time, the world had been their fucking oyster, and they probably saw it as their right as an elite hockey player to take over someone’s home. “That must have been stressful for you.”
“It was. I was at a new school, trying to graduate while also playing hockey and dealing with...stuff.”
Ugh. Fabian was an asshole for ever assuming that he had been the only person suffering in that house. “Hockey stuff, or...?”
“I was trying to fit into my new team, and having a hard time. Plus I was suddenly playing in front of ten thousand people instead of, like, fifty.”
“Yikes. Yeah.”
Ryan began absently stroking Fabian’s hair. “Plus there was the being gay thing. That was a whole other problem.”
Right. Fabian obviously hadn’t known at the time that Ryan had been dealing with that, but now that he knew... “Jesus. That must have sucked.”
“It was a lot to hide at once. The fact that I was attracted to men, that I was scared, that I was homesick, that I...hated fighting. And some of my teammates.” His lips twitched up a bit. “Didn’t help that I also had to hide the crush I had on you.”
God, why wasn’t time travel real? Fabian wanted nothing more than to go back thirteen and a half years, walk into Ryan’s bedroom, and tell him how much he liked him. To lie on his bed beside him and hold his hand. Or maybe tell his younger self to do that. That would make more sense. Time travel was confusing.
He took Ryan’s hand now, first rolling off the man to lie beside him. “I wish you hadn’t,” he said. “Hidden your crush, I mean. We could have had a lot of fun in that basement.”
Ryan huffed. “I think I would have been pretty awkward.Moreawkward than I am now, if you can imagine.”
“Do you really think I would have been a skilled and adventurous lover at seventeen?”
Ryan turned his head and smiled at him. “Probably. It wouldn’t have surprised me.”
Fabian laughed, and then kissed him. He decided, right then, to forget about the video he’d watched. It didn’t matter. Ryan had said he was going to stop fighting, so why even think about it anymore? The man in the video didn’t matter. The man who bought Fabian flowers and used to secretly pine for him while he listened to his violin practice; that was the man who was here now. That was the man who mattered.
“What would you have done?” Fabian asked. “If I had gone down to your room and come on to you?”
“I probably wouldn’t have even known that’s what you were doing. I would never have let myself believe it.”
Fabian traced a finger around Ryan’s belly button and up to his chest. “But if I made itveryobvious, let’s say.”
“Like what?”
“Well...” Fabian was suddenly giddy imagining the scenario. “What if I’d closed the door behind me and...taken off my shirt?”
“Oh geez. I definitely would have thought I was dreaming.”
“What if I’d told you I couldn’t live another day without telling you how much I wanted you? How badly I needed to touch you?”
Ryan seemed to be seriously considering his answer. “I still wouldn’t have believed you.”
