by Lily Harlem
“Yeah. Can you keep a secret?”
“Of course.”
He grinned sinfully and his eyes sparkled. “We shared her.”
I could barely hide my surprise at the sudden confession. “Really?”
“Yeah, it was a blast. Not just for her, us too. But you can’t say anything to anyone. That sort of thing can’t hit press.”
“Goes without saying. Who would I tell anyway?”
“I dunno, just don’t.” His eyes darkened and he took a slug of whiskey.
“I won’t mention it to anyone. Friends don’t do that kind of thing.”
One side of his mouth tilted in a half-smile. “Yeah, we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Sure, and stuff between friends stays within the four walls.”
He leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. Swiped his tongue over his bottom lip. “Raven and I were buddies, still are, and seeing him, you know…” He paused and shook his head, tugged his bottom lip with his teeth. “Seeing him with a woman, fucking, it took the friendship to a different level. We knew stuff about each other after that, we’d seen stuff, experienced stuff.”
My mind whirred with this new information. Todd Carty was telling me about threesomes he and Raven Starr had enjoyed together. Was this real? I couldn’t help but wonder for the first time whether perhaps I should entertain the idea of screwing a woman, just so I could share her with Todd and see him in action. What a glorious sight that must be.
I poured us another neat whiskey and a new thought developed. It was a small seed, it had barely germinated, but it was a thought just the same. “What do you mean stuff?”
He sighed and sat back again. “I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you, Matthew.”
“Er, I’m not following.” His words were like a fog I needed him to clear. Was he saying that he enjoyed the threesome because he enjoyed Raven?
Surely not?
“Stuff. We were together naked and aroused. I saw his face when he came, heard the sounds he made and watched the way he treated a woman, gentle but firm, taking control. It wa….” He shook his head and frowned.
I struggled to keep a lurch in my belly under control. “A turn-on?”
His frown deepened. “Don’t get me wrong, I like pussy fine, it just made the whole thing real erotic seeing him like that.” He shrugged. “And it was great for a while until I became a spare part. Not that it was their fault, but he fell in love with her, he just wanted Fiona in his bed, no one else.” His heavy blond eyebrows pulled together. “There was no room for me.”
A silence stretched between us and thoughts tumbled through my mind. I was trying to read between the lines of what Todd had just told me, sift through the way he’d talked of the two people he’d left behind. It seemed it was Raven he was missing, not Fiona. He’d only mentioned her once and that was describing how Raven had reacted to her, not what he, Todd, felt about her. “So tell me more about Raven. What’s he like? Not the player, the guy?”
Todd smiled and nodded. “Sure, he’s a great defenseman and teammate but he’s also got a dry sense of humor and a steel-hard loyalty. Plus, he’s worked his ass off to get where he is. I remember this time…”
And so I sat back and listened as Todd talked of various adventures he and Raven had been on. Games they’d played, places they’d visited, parties they’d been hammered at. All the time his eyes held a sparkle, his hands moved, his gestures animated and enthusiastic. And all the time my heart beat with a tremor of hope that although Todd Carty clearly wasn’t in the one hundred percent gay category, perhaps he was fifty-fifty. And if that was the case, maybe I stood a chance with him. A slim chance admittedly, but that didn’t matter. I’d take any odds.
Chapter Three
“I should go,” Todd said with a yawn. “It’s midnight.”
I glanced at my watch. “Fuck, so it is.” I stood though my legs were noodle-like. Too much whiskey on an empty stomach had weakened my muscles.
“Thanks, Matthew, I enjoyed myself.”
I grinned and stretched my arms over my head, easing the knots in my shoulders, aware of cool air hitting my flattened belly as my top lifted.
“I’m on the road this week,” Todd said, shifting his gaze from my stomach. “A ten-day stint, but I’m free tomorrow evening and I’d like to see the shots you’re taking to Armani. You know, make sure there isn’t one of me looking like a complete ass.”
“I promise you do not look like an ass in any of them.” I tried to look solemn as a warm feeling filled my insides, one that had nothing to do with alcohol and everything to do with spending another evening with Todd. “Shall I bring them to you about eight?”
He shrugged into his jacket, the leather creaking noisily. “Yeah, that would be cool. Apartment 97, Reynolds Building.”
“Yeah, I know the one.”
He wandered into the hall and I trailed after him, my gaze on his tight butt, admiring the roundness of his cheeks. They were perfectly grip-able with a delicious amount of both softness and tautness. Why he wasn’t contracted to do a Levi’s campaign as well as Armani was beyond me.
“Bring those other shots you were talking about, the ones for your exhibition,” he said, shoving a hand through his flopping blond hair.
“Really?”
“Yeah, It’d be cool to see more of your work.”
“Well, the exhibition is all black and white, a bit different to my advertising stuff. That’s bread and butter. The exhibition is pictures of people and things that are important to me and have made me the photographer I am today.”
He reached for the door handle and turned. “Matthew, I haven’t seen much of your work but already I’m a fan.” He smiled, a lovely warm smile that produced a dimple in his cheek as his voice quieted. “I’ll look forward to a private screening of the people and things that are important to you.”
I shoved my hands in my front pockets and resisted the urge to reach for him, pull him into a hug. Even if I made it a bloke-hug with a rough pat on the back, I didn’t think it would be well enough disguised. Todd Carty was pushing open the bolts I’d had around my heart for a very long time. If I wasn’t careful, I was going to be right back in the dark place I’d landed in after Tony had left. And that was a sinking well of loneliness I had no intention of pitching into again.
Ever.
*****
I thought the next day would pass slowly, dominated with thoughts of seeing Todd again. But by the time I had the shots ready for Armani, made a few calls and ran through the final selection for the exhibition it was eight o’clock.
He buzzed me into his building the same way I had him the evening before. When I stood outside his apartment I stilled and took a deep breath before banging on his door. All day long I’d been beating down the hope that Todd might be attracted to me. It wasn’t impossible, but at the same time was highly unlikely. This was, after all, the guy who’d had a double-page spread in The Enquirer featuring him with a different woman on his arm every weekend in a one-month stretch. Why would he be interested in me in any way other than as a friend? A gay friend admittedly, but that was probably just a novelty for him. Besides, how many guys were gay in the NHL? None to my knowledge, so the chances of the heavens delivering me the first was like wishing for a shooting star to land in my bed—not going to happen.
“Hey,” he said, pulling the door open. “Come in.”
I stepped into the huge apartment. The ceiling was strung with dark beams and the windows hit the floor and the roof. The living area was open plan with an enormous oak-topped breakfast bar and three deep cherry-red leather sofas. A fireplace threw golden heat into the room and a hockey game shouted from a plasma screen in the corner.
I shut the door and watched Todd delve into a bag.
“Here,” he said, pulling out a blue, white and red hockey jersey. “I had it delivered today. More suitable for a New Yorker.”
I laughed as he held up a Rangers top and spun it aro
und. It was his number and Carty written across the back in bold red letters.
“Now,” he said with a wicked glint in his eye. “You’re officially one of my groupies.”
“How quickly I slip from photographer, to friend, to groupie,” I said with a laugh.
“Nothing slippery about it. You can be all three.” He held it against me. “I got you a large, thought that’d work. You’ve got broad shoulders.”
“Thanks. I was bored of the Penguin look anyway.” I took the jersey from him.
“Liar.” He turned and headed toward the kitchen area. “If I hadn’t dragged it off you, you’d still be worshipping the pansy.”
“Don’t diss Gatsby.”
“I’ll more than diss him. If he was going to be playing when we hit the Penguins next week I’d go for every big hurt I could get away with.”
His eyes flashed my way but only for a second, because then he turned, reached for the remote and hit mute, silencing the game that was being warred out on TV.
I stood glued to the ground and washed down a wave of optimism. Because if Todd Carty were gay I could have been big-headed enough to think he was jealous that I liked Sid Gatsby. But Todd Carty wasn’t gay.
Was he?
“Todd,” I said, folding the jersey and putting it over the back of one of the sofas. “You know I don’t just like Gatsby in an admire-his-talent-on-the-ice kind of way.”
He bent over a laptop on the coffee table, flicked it open and whirred it to life. “What are you talking about?
I pulled a memory stick from my pocket. “I mean, I like him in a quite-fancy- getting-naked-with-him kind of way.”
He looked at me, rubbing his finger over the cute vertical dent in his chin. “Yeah. I get that.”
“Do you?”
“Yeah, you’re gay. You like being with a guy not a woman.”
I rolled my lips in on themselves. Hesitated, then, “And you like being with a guy and a woman.”
He frowned, a small crease forming between his eyebrows. “Yeah, I did. But that’s over now.”
Something in his tone warned me not to push the conversation. Whether he regretted telling me about the threesome or suspected I guessed it was Raven who’d really held his attention, I couldn’t tell. But one thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to poke a bear then complain at being bitten. I’d let it rest.
“Here we go,” I said, shoving my memory stick into the portal of his laptop. “I’ve got the final selection of your photographs, plus the first wave of proofs for my exhibition. They’re all at the printers now being made into canvases.”
Todd walked over to the kitchen area, grabbed two bottles of beer from a glass- fronted fridge, then wandered back. He flipped off the lids and handed one to me.
“Thanks,” I said, taking a sip and setting it down on the table. I reached for the laptop and sat back on the sofa with it resting on my thighs.
He dropped down next to me. Close. So close his leg touched mine. But it didn’t mean anything, it was just so he could see the screen that was now balanced on my lap.
I pulled up the first of his shots.
“Oh God,” he groaned, knocking back a big chug of beer. “I look like a complete dork at the top of the Empire State Building.”
“You think?” I was surprised, I’d liked this set. The day had been clear and the backdrop of Manhattan stunning. And that was even before looking at the main focus of the picture—Todd, in full hockey gear, spinning a bottle of Raw toward the camera from the tip of his stick. Okay, the bottle had been Photoshopped on afterward, but the effect was great.
“Yeah, why the hell would I be up there in my hockey gear? I felt stupid at the time.”
“Okay,” I said, flicking through to the end of that sequence. “I’ll discourage them from using one of those.”
“Yeah, cool.” He reached over and clicked shift, drawing up the photographs we’d taken of him on the ice at the Rangers’ rink. He stayed leaning slightly over me.
I willed my breathing to remain normal as heat from his body poured onto mine. The soft breeze of his breaths washed over my forearm and made the hairs tickle against my skin.
“Much better. This is home away from home for me,” he said, jabbing his finger toward the screen.
“Yeah, they’re all great,” I managed, loving the way his stunning blue eyes shone for the camera. They could have been chips from an iceberg the way they sparkled. I glanced sideways at him and, to my surprise, found him looking at me. No, his eyes were warmer than ice, more like the Indian Ocean than something from the Arctic. “What?” I asked when he carried on staring.
He turned away, shifted and reached for his beer. “Nothing.”
I swallowed a tight lump in my throat and let my leg rest a little heavier against his. I’d been tense, that was all, and now I was relaxing—or so I told myself. “And these are from the Intrepid.” I scrolled through them. “The very last one we took, after all that effort, all those days of work, is the one my gut is telling me Armani will go for.” I pulled it up, full screen. “It’s the look they were talking about capturing.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, studying the rain bouncing off his bare shoulders and the wind ruffling his hair. “That was really fucking cold.”
“You didn’t look bothered.”
“Nah, it wasn’t. Guess I was just happy it was nearly over. I’d have put up with anything to hear you say it’s a wrap.”
I laughed. “So you won’t mind if that’s on billboards?”
“Whatever. I’m not vain, I just know the kind of crap I’ll have to take in the locker room and on the ice, that’s all. My teammates’ minds are filthy, opponents’ minds are obscene, so the less ammunition the better.”
“Well, regardless of teammates or opposition, I think you could be forgiven for being vain.”
He huffed and shoved his hand through his hair, which tonight was soft and feathery, absent of product. “Why?”
“Because you’re…” I hesitated.
Oh, go for it.
“Gorgeous,” I said. “But I’m sure you know that. Look at the string of women you leave in your wake. And for God’s sake, just being asked to head an Armani campaign is damn strong evidence.” My words tumbled over themselves and my heart raced. Had I really just told Todd Carty, hot new forward for the Rangers, that I thought he was gorgeous?
It seemed I had.
“More gorgeous than Gatsby?” he asked quietly.
A strange, dense feeling grew in my belly. “Yeah.”
His mouth twitched, a tight little smile. “You’re not bad yourself.”
I laughed. A sudden release of tension, like a bubble bursting. “Kind of you to say, but I’ll never switch sides of the camera lens.”
He reached for his beer. The movement made our legs press even harder together and when he sat back our shoulders touched, rubbing against each other as he lifted the bottle to his mouth. “Everyone is different in what they think is attractive, handsome or pretty,” he said with a shrug. “I appreciate a variety of looks, but you should get that, being a very visual person.”
“Yeah, I guess.” An electric current of hope burned through me but I tamped it down. Todd thought I was handsome even though I was a little rough around the edges. My hair was low maintenance, my jaw more often than not unshaven and sure, I was big and butch, but my gym membership wasn’t quite getting its dollar-per-mile worth—my abs were tight but could be more defined.
“So let’s have a look at your exhibition pictures,” he said, snapping me from a sudden urge to suck in my actually-not-too-bad belly.
“Er, yeah, sure.” I tugged my gaze from his bent knees. Encased in denim, they were square and strong. The jeans were faded and the paler material skimmed up his wide thigh before darkening over the creases at his groin. “Let me just…” I drew up the images, my fingertips fast and efficient across the keyboard. “This is Gareth and his partner Joel. They’ve been friends of mine for years. Garet
h is an accomplished photographer but he does look great on the other side of the lens.”
The black-and-white picture was of two men on a beach in Cape Cod. Their backs were to the camera and the waves washed over their ankles in a flurry of froth. Gareth—only I knew it was him—had his palm pressed into the small of Joel’s back. Neither wore any clothes and the sun was setting, casting long shadows over their footprints that led down to the shoreline. It was an intimate, sensual photograph that showed their absolute comfort with homosexuality and with each other and I adored it on so many levels.
“It’s great,” he said, leaning forward again and studying the photograph. “Awesome in black and white.”
“It’s my favorite medium. So honest, so detailed, the many shades of black to white are so adept at capturing contours, movement and symmetry.”
“And this is Gareth?” He pointed to Joel.
“No, that’s Joel. He’s a few years younger than Gareth. They met in Hawaii, hit it off straightaway and have been an item ever since. I’m good mates with the pair of them, they’re always there if I need someone to hang out with.”
“Were they there for you after Tony left?”
I was surprised Todd had remembered my ex’s name. “Yeah, they were.” I flicked to the next photograph. “This is Raymond. He’s a complete exhibitionist.” The shot was of a ridiculously made-up Raymond dancing in the streets of New Orleans. It was unusual to see this kind of shot without color but that was what had drawn me to it. That and the fact the group of us had enjoyed a wild time down south last year. It was over my birthday and the gang had taken a few days out of their busy schedules to celebrate with me. They were amazing buddies, the best.
I reached for my beer, took a slug then set it aside as a barrage of fun memories besieged me. Between that and Todd being right next to me, so close we were touching, my heart was now tripping along faster than ever.
We sat for a moment studying the details in the picture. The apartment was so quiet. It was just us, just our breathing and the hum of the laptop. I couldn’t ever remember being so aware of another human intruding into my personal space.