The Nature of the Game (Stick Side Book 2), page 20
The hotel room door swung closed behind Dan with a quiet click, the latch catching sounding too loud in his quiet room. He’d blindly followed the GPS’s directions back, not paying attention to where he was going or what he was seeing.
Sinking onto the edge of the bed, he stared at himself in the mirror on top of the dresser. This morning he’d looked at himself in the mirror in Ash’s bathroom after his shower, surprised to find himself smiling at nothing. Happy. Anticipatory. He’d even played teenager and drawn a heart in the foggy mirror. Now, he was haggard, his eyes hollow, his skin too pale.
Last night had been amazing, if wholly unexpected. Ash had been alternately sweet and desperate, careful and rough. But there’d also been a lack of . . . warmth. Like Ash wanted it, but was holding a part of himself back. The whole thing had felt off from the moment Ash kissed him. Dan had ignored it at the time, too willing to go along with whatever Ash was ready to give him. He’d fooled himself into believing that the awkward tension between them was due to their years apart, to timidity as they relearned each other.
Truth was that Ash was horny and Dan had been a convenient, warm, willing body.
What had he thought would happen? A sigh escaped him. His chest felt concave, empty. What had he expected? That he’d cement himself in Ash’s life, become a constant, and Ash would miraculously forgive him and they’d be together again? Everything all hunky dory and better than ever?
Yes. Naively, that was exactly what he’d expected.
Stupid, really, to think that they could go back.
God, he was such an idiot. To think that he could prove to Ash that he wasn’t the same person anymore, that he was here to stay. Ash was understandably protective of himself; he wasn’t letting Dan in.
Maybe he needed more time.
Or maybe all the time in the world wouldn’t change anything.
The problem was that Ash had moved on. He’d left Dan in the past, exactly where Dan belonged if he was being honest with himself.
And Dan . . . Well, Dan was stuck in the past. Overwhelmed with guilt. Dwelling to the point of obsession over what he’d done and how to fix it.
But there was no fixing, only going forward.
Could they move forward? Together?
He almost did it then. He pulled his suitcase out of the closet while his laptop booted up, prepared to pack up, book a flight, and head home to admit defeat.
Go big and fail epically. Story of his life.
What would bailing prove, though? It wouldn’t prove to Ash that Dan was sticking around this time; it would only show, beyond a doubt, that Ash was right and Dan wasn’t to be depended on.
So he was staying. For a little while, at least. He’d said he’d help Ash and he would. He’d stay as long as that took. After that . . .
He changed out of Ash’s clothes and into his own, then brought Ash’s down to the hotel laundromat. No doubt Ash wouldn’t want his clothes back smelling like Dan. While he waited, he sat on his bed in his room with the TV on, but he couldn’t see anything past the expression on Ash’s face when he’d told Dan he didn’t need him—angry and frustrated, ready to vibrate out of his skin.
And because the universe didn’t think he was hurting enough, his mom called.
“Jesus.”
He considered not answering, but as the phone continued to ring in his hand, a pounding started in his ears, loud as a drum. Here was the cause of all of his troubles. Her call couldn’t have been more timely.
“Mom.”
“Dan.” The sound of a door closing echoed through the line. “I’ve just returned home from brunch at the Millers where I bumped into Mark. He said you’re working in Tampa now?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Were you going to tell me?”
“Why? You don’t keep track of other employees who transfer offices.”
“Well, no. Of course not. But you’re my son. I worry about you and your brother.”
“You worry?” Dan’s hard laugh stung his throat. “Really? Is that why you visited Mitch after he fainted earlier this year?”
Silence answered him. They both knew she’d done no such thing.
She sounded oddly subdued when she said, “I didn’t think he’d want to see me.”
“He wouldn’t have. But since when do other peoples’ feelings stop you? Mine certainly didn’t six years ago.”
“Dan—”
“Do you remember?” he whispered past the knot in his throat that stung his eyes, made his nose burn. “I told you my plans, my dreams. And you shit on them like they were as much of a nuisance as the phone bill.”
“I . . . Yes, well . . .” She cleared her throat delicately, a little ahem that reminded him of all those times she’d made the same sound at the dinner table to get his and Mitch’s attention while they debated something or play-fought or Mitch jabbered on about this or that hockey something. “I know you don’t believe this, but I really was doing what I thought was best.”
“Whatever.” All of the fight went out of him—if he’d had any to begin with—and his body went limp, sinking into the pillows. Exhausted to the point of oversensitivity, he just wanted to curl into a ball and nap until things got better.
“When are you coming home?”
Woodenly, done with everything, he said, “I don’t know. I gotta go. Bye.” He hung up on her protests and turned off his phone.
He was out of ideas.
Worse, he was out of hope.
He was lying on the bed with an arm flung over his eyes when the room phone rang. His clothes were dry. Taking a deep breath that did nothing to loosen the grip on his chest, he pocketed his wallet and keys, went down to the laundromat to fold Ash’s clothes, then got back into his rental car.
Twenty minutes later, he knocked on Ash’s door, unsure of his welcome. He swallowed hard and fidgeted while he waited, holding Ash’s clothing out in front of him, a bad peace offering.
The door swung open so fast Dan’s hair bounced.
“Hey, man,” said Evan—Carlie. Whatever he liked to be called.
“Oh. Uh, hi. Is Ash here?”
“Yeah, he’s out back.” Evan jerked a thumb in the backyard’s direction. “Come in and I’ll grab him.”
“I’ll wait here.” He was never forcing his presence on Ash again.
Evan frowned at him but merely shrugged. “Okay. Yo, Yager!” he yelled as he headed for the patio doors, thrown open to the summer sunshine. “You’ve got a visitor.”
“Who is it?” Ash asked.
Just the sound of his voice made Dan choke on a breath.
“Dan?”
He couldn’t have mustered a smile if he’d tried. “Hi.” God, Ash looked good, all sweaty and dirt-stained from working in the yard. It seemed the anger had passed, or the frustration, or whatever. Instead, there was confusion in his gaze, a little bit of uncertainty as his lips tilted up in a small, tentative smile. It reminded Dan of the expression on Ash’s face when Ash had first spotted Dan at the bookstore in Toronto during Alex’s book launch last month. Back before Dan’s hope had been killed.
He handed Ash his bundle. “I brought your stuff back. They’re clean. I washed them at the hotel.”
“Oh. Thanks.” Ash’s penetrating gaze narrowed on Dan. He stepped forward, onto the front stoop, and the world shrunk in size to just the two of them.
Dan took a step back.
“Are you—”
Okay, Ash no doubt meant to ask, but Dan cut him off at the quick. Because no, he was not okay, and he didn’t want to have to lie.
“I came to help. If . . . If you’ll have me, that is. I said I would, so . . .” His shoulders jerked. “Put me to work. If you want.”
“Okay, thanks. That’s . . .”
Ash moved forward again; Dan countered with another step back.
Ash licked his lips. “Listen, about last night—”
Ugh. If ever there’d been a more inauspicious start to a conversation . . . “We don’t have to talk about—”
“I just wanted to say—”
“Really, there’s no need—”
“—that I didn’t mean to make you feel bad—”
“It’s fine, I get it.” Dan spoke loudly, making himself heard. “Messaged received, loud and clear.”
Scowling, Ash blew out a hard breath through his nose. “Are you going to let me talk?” he growled.
Dan took another step back and bumped into the porch post. “Like you’ve let me talk?”
Ash’s mouth opened, ready for a pithy rebuttal knowing him.
Dan held up a hand. “Do you want my help or not?”
Yes.
Of course Ash wanted Dan’s help.
More than that, he wanted five minutes to explain where his head had been this morning.
It was only fair, though, that Dan didn’t want to listen. A taste of Ash’s own medicine, so to speak.
Fuck, they sucked at communicating.
“Let me get this straight,” Alex had said this morning after Ash had finished telling them everything. Everything. From their first meeting in the elevator to last night. “You slept together—”
“Three times,” Carlie had piped in, the jerk.
“Three times. He told you he loved you and you kicked him out?”
“I didn’t—” Okay, that was a lie. I don’t need you was a very loud, very definitive get the fuck out.
Hours later, he was still kicking his own ass for it.
“You’ve got a second chance here,” Carlie had said, “and you’re blowing it.”
“If you want that second chance.” Alex had squinted at him. “Which, judging by our conversation the other day, you do.”
Yes. Yes, he fucking well did. Just that everything had happened so fast and he couldn’t get his head around it.
He’d spent the entire time during Dan’s absence convinced that Dan was going to hop on a plane any second, leaving Ash’s stupid ass behind. Yet had he called Dan and explained? Asked him to stay?
Nope. Apparently he was a chickenshit in a hockey player’s body.
Smart, his head chirped. You were smart. If Dan left, that’d just prove what you’ve known all along.
But Dan hadn’t left. No, he’d shown up all sad and determined, and then had proceeded to unpack all of Ash’s boxes, sorting all of his stuff into piles so that Ash could clearly see what needed to be put away. Neat piles too, all stacked against the wall in the living room, out of the way so that nobody tripped on anything as they went in and out from the backyard to the kitchen for a snack or a water refill.
And he’d left half an hour ago for the grocery store, declaring that Ash and Alex and Carlie needed dinner that was more sustaining than frozen pizza.
Ash didn’t know what to make of it.
Dan hadn’t left. He hadn’t left.
Ash was so confused that he couldn’t even make sense of Dan’s need to make them dinner when he hadn’t stuck around to eat his own breakfast earlier. Ash stared at his neat piles of stuff, seeing Dan’s handsome face and his light brown eyes the color of good whiskey and his blond curls tumbling all over the place.
I love you. Did Dan realize what he’d said? Did he remember? Had it been uttered in the heat of the moment and he didn’t mean it at all?
“Told you he wouldn’t leave.” Alex plopped onto the couch.
“Yeah, well. You know more about the situation than I do.”
“And whose fault is that?”
Ash gave him a black look.
Alex merely raised an eyebrow, the know-it-all.
A knock on the living room window came from outside and had them both turning toward it.
“Why am I the only one still working?” Carlie called through the glass. He wore a bandana to keep his hair out of his eyes and a pair of well-used gardening gloves.
Alex rose and headed for the patio doors. “Don’t let Dan leave without talking to him first,” he said over his shoulder. “The key to any good relationship is communication.”
Said the guy whose only—and longest—relationship was a whopping nine months.
“We’re not in a relationship.”
Alex’s don’t-be-stupid face was truly spectacular. “If you believe that, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”
Left alone, Ash sighed. Alex was right: he and Dan needed to talk. It was time.
A car door slammed, and he headed to the picture window that overlooked his street.
“For fuck’s sake.”
Despite divorced parents, being left at the “altar,” and a cheating wife, Ash had never considered himself one of those jaded I’m-never-gonna-love-again types. Yes, he was protective of himself. And it was true that he hadn’t let himself get attached to anyone since Dan and Laura. There was someone out there for him, though, he knew that. When he found that person, he was going to open himself up entirely and lay it all on the line. He wasn’t hiding from love, just from being hurt.
Watching Dan and Laura hike up his walkway together, Ash’s stomach went hard and he found himself unashamed of the image that crossed his mind. One where he went out the back, crossed the yard, snuck out the side fence, and headed to The Tavern to get shitfaced.
This was one of those moments that would be better dealt with if alcohol were involved.
Dan and Laura’s walk up to the door was that unpleasant, hesitant hey, we parked in front of the same house, are you going here too, let’s walk up together and make awkward small talk until someone answers the door, ha ha, strained smiles everywhere. Ash might’ve laughed if the situation wasn’t so ridiculous.
He reached the door before Dan and Laura did and opened it wide, then blocked most of it with his body, allowing a small gap for Dan, with his paper bag of groceries, to slip through and inside. Small enough for Dan to brush up against Ash as he passed—in fact Ash purposely moved closer—but Dan somehow managed to keep them from touching, which made Ash feel . . .
Sort of panicky.
Damn it. They needed to talk and it had to be today.
“Laura,” he greeted.
He heard Dan freeze behind him. Ash couldn’t remember if he’d ever mentioned Laura to Dan; either way, Dan clearly knew the name.
“Wow,” Laura said as Dan unfroze and wandered off into the kitchen.
“Wow what?”
“I totally misread the situation.” She laughed without humor.
“What situation?”
“I thought, when you helped me board my place up last week . . . But you’ve never smiled at me like that.”
Ash pulled his gaze away from Dan unloading his groceries. “Sorry, what?” Who was smiling at who?
Laura’s snort was as small as her stature. “Is that—” She jerked her chin. “—the person you were texting when I saw you last time? Your new boyfriend?”
“He’s not my—” Alex’s words came back to him. “I mean, he’s . . . It’s complicated.”
“Does it have to be?”
Ash opened his mouth to respond, but a chuckle took him by surprise instead. “No. No, I don’t suppose it does.”
Laura’s eyes lingered on him for a second, and then she was backing away. “See you later, Ash.”
“Wait. What’d you come by for?”
“I was going to ask if you wanted to—Never mind. Doesn’t matter. Hey!” This last she yelled in the direction of the window above the sink in the kitchen. From his vantage point at the door, Ash saw Dan lift his head from where he was washing carrots. “Good luck with this one!” Laura gestured at Ash, turned, and was gone.
Dan looked at him, a question mark on his face.
Ash shrugged.
Dan surveyed him for a moment, and said, “I’m making stew.”
“Stew?”
“Yeah. Meat and potatoes. I figure it’ll go over well with this crew.”
“You’re not wrong. Can I help?”
“No.” And he started peeling carrots.
“Okay, then. I’ll . . . put my stuff away?”
“You do that.”
Amusement tickled Ash’s belly despite the circumstances. “You’re very irritating.”
“Are you actually insulting the guy making you dinner?” Setting the carrots aside, Dan reached for a purple and white vegetable at his elbow. “You don’t like rutabaga, if I remember correctly?” he asked as he started peeling.
“That’s just mean.”
Dan’s lips twitched.
Leaving him to it, Ash headed back into the living room, fervently hoping the rutabaga wouldn’t end up in the stew, yet knowing full well that if Dan was peeling it, then the recipe called for it, and if the recipe called for it, Dan would include it. Dan didn’t deviate from a recipe.
He didn’t deviate from a lot of things.
Which was why the way he’d left Ash at the airport made no sense.
There was no figuring anything out right now, though, so he left Dan to his stew and concentrated on putting his stuff away.
As an hour passed, and Alex and Carlie came and went, asking Ash for his opinion on this or that, and as Ash slowly cleared the living room, he was always aware of Dan’s presence mere feet away in the other room. Dan was the last piece of cheesecake at the restaurant—Ash wanted a taste even though he knew it was bad for him.
In that hour, Ash achieved very little. He spent too much time sorting his books into two piles—read and unread—useless minutes hooking up his DVD player, and a few sentimental moments placing his trophies in chronological order. Then he started categorizing everything into piles depending on which room they belonged to. The result was that he ended up with a living room that looked like a bomb had gone off.
So much for Dan’s neat piles.
Speaking of Dan, Ash had heard him banging through cabinets a little while ago, and then silence, and now it smelled like . . . fresh baked bread?
Ash leaned over the couch to see what he was up to. “Are you making bread?”
“Biscuits,” Dan said, elbow deep in water as he washed dishes in the sink.
“Why?”
“Because you need biscuits to go with stew.”
Feeling light as air, Ash said, “Do you?”
“Well, yeah.”
