by Rachel Reid
“Uh,” Ryan said quietly. Fabian glanced up and saw that Ryan was staring at Fabian’s fingers.
Fabian dropped his hand and stepped back. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. They don’t hurt too much.” Ryan shoved his bruised hand in the pocket of his wool coat and looked at the floor. Quite a lot of hair had escaped from the bun he’d tied it back in, and the loose tendrils were hanging around his face. It was a good look.
“So that’s normal for you? Bashed-up hands?”
Ryan shrugged. “Pretty normal, yeah.”
Fabian remembered noticing similar bruising on teenage Ryan’s hands. He was pretty sure Ryan had tried to hide it from him then too.
“Well,” Ryan said. “I should probably get going.” He said it at the same moment that Fabian said, “Can I offer you a drink?”
“What?” Ryan said.
“I have most of a bottle of wine in the fridge.” Fabian pulled his own scarf off and draped it over a chair that already had several scarves on it. “Or tea, if you prefer. I might have one of those grapefruit sparking waters left...”
“I—no. That’s okay. I’m pretty tired after the game. I should go.”
“If you’re sure.” Fabian ducked his head and slipped the necklaces off, laying them over the scarf. He wondered what Ryan would do if he removed his shirt next.
“I’m sure. But...it was nice. Seeing you again.”
Fabian stepped closer to him. He smelled good. “Likewise.”
Fabian wasn’t sure what his plan was here. He didn’t want Ryan to leave, but he also had no idea why he wanted him to stay. If he and Ryan had never met before tonight; if Ryan had just been a big, strong, attractive stranger who had offered to walk Fabian home, Fabian would be tearing his clothes off right now. But Ryan wasn’t a stranger, and while part of Fabian really liked the idea of tearing his clothes off, he just...couldn’t.
Not even when Ryan was gazing down at him in a way that took Fabian right back to that night on a ferry all those years ago. To that moment where he’d thought for a wild second that Ryan was going to kiss him. Fabian could kiss him now. He could go up on his tiptoes and brush his lips against Ryan’s. It didn’t even need to be a big deal. It would be a simple thank-you kiss, the kind Fabian gave his friends all the time.
But instead, Fabian said, “We should do this again sometime.”
Ryan blinked and jerked back a bit. “What?”
“I mean, we should hang out. Get coffee. You know. Catch up some more.”
Ryan’s brow furrowed, but then he nodded. “I’d like that. Can I get your number?” They traded phones and entered their numbers. “I haven’t really explored the neighborhood too much.”
“Well, let me be your guide.” Fabian’s tone had gone silky again. Much too flirtatious.
Ryan froze, and Fabian mentally kicked himself. Ryan was not the kind of guy you were casually flirtatious with. When they’d been teenagers, Ryan had gotten so easily flustered whenever Fabian had attempted to tease him. It didn’t seem like that had changed.
It was still inconveniently charming.
“I’ll wait to hear from you, then,” Ryan said stiffly. He raised one hand, as if he was going to offer a farewell handshake, then seemed to think better of it and stuffed his hand in his coat pocket instead. “Good night.”
“Good night, Ryan Price. Take care of those hands.”
Ryan nodded, and left. When the door closed, Fabian cringed. Did take care of those hands sound flirty? It definitely sounded dumb.
With a sigh, Fabian fell back onto his bed. What a weird night.
Chapter Seven
“Can I move in with you?”
Ryan smiled at his sister’s pained expression. He’d slept late that morning and had been awoken by Colleen’s Facetime request. “You don’t want to move to Toronto,” he said.
“I totally do. I’ll get on a plane tomorrow. Today, even. This town is smothering me.”
“You love it, though. And what would all those poor third graders say when their teacher disappears?”
“They’d be thrilled. Seriously. Let me mooch off of you in Toronto for a few months. Or years.”
Ryan would honestly love to have Colleen closer to him, but he knew she was kidding about this. “You should come visit soon.”
She sighed. “I want to. If you don’t come home for Christmas, maybe I could go there for a few days.”
“I’m going to try,” Ryan said. “I want to come home this year.”
She smiled. “That would be awesome. But I still want to visit you in Toronto. I want to go out. Have you been to any of the clubs?”
“Um...”
“Ry-an,” she whined. “You are a young, rich gay man in Toronto’s Gay Village!”
“I’m not that young,” Ryan argued.
“You’re thirty-one. That’s not old.”
“I have the body of a seventy-year-old, though.”
“You have the body of an Olympian. What the hell are you talking about?”
“My back’s been bothering me.”
Her expression softened. “Sorry. I’m being a dick. So you really haven’t been going out at all?”
“Well.” Ryan braced himself, because he knew his sister was going make a thing about this. “I actually ran into someone recently. From Halifax.”
“An old teammate?”
“No. Do you remember when I lived with the Salahs?”
“I think I only met them once, but yeah. You liked them, right?”
“Yeah.” He bit his lip, which his sister noticed immediately.
“Oh my god. What?”
“I liked one of the Salahs in particular.”
“Please don’t let it be the dad.”
“No!” Joe Salah had been an attractive man, but no. Absolutely no. “Their son. Fabian.”
“Ohhhh. And that’s who you ran into in Toronto?”
Ryan nodded. “Yeah. And we were catching up a bit. You know.”
“Catching up like...”
“Just talking. We’re friends. We’re not...” Ryan shifted so he was sitting more upright against the headboard. “He’s way out of my league.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Way out of your league how? You are literally a star athlete and a millionaire.”
“Yeah, but he’s beautiful. And charming. And has a ton of friends who all do interesting things. And he plays music that’s, like, the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Okay, so this charming, beautiful man has been hanging out with you?”
“We haven’t really been hanging out. I went to his show last night, though, and I...walked him home after.”
Colleen’s face lit up. “Ryan! That’s adorable! Did you carry his books?”
Ryan flushed. “I carried his gear.”
“Aw. Did he kiss you good night?”
“Let’s change the subject.”
“Come on. The last date I went on was with Andy Hart, and it turned out we’re distant cousins. I need some big city romance stories.”
Ryan laughed. “Isn’t he Mom’s cousin’s son?”
“I don’t know. Something like that.”
“Yeah, that’s not that distant.”
“Oh, look at you, Toronto. So fancy just because you aren’t dating your cousins.”
They both cracked up. Ryan loved his sister, and he hated thinking that she was lonely back in Ross Harbour. She deserved to be loved by someone wonderful.
“Have you bought furniture yet?” she asked when they’d stopped laughing.
“Not really. Still just in the bedroom, basically.”
She looked dismayed. “That’s sad. Please order some furniture. I know there’s an IKEA in Toronto.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“What if you did meet a guy? You can’t bring him back to a weird empty apartment!”
“I know, I said.”
“They can probably do next-day delivery in Toronto!”
“There’s no point in buying furniture if I’m just gonna be traded again!”
Ryan thought that outburst would end the argument, but Colleen persisted. “Yeah, that’s no way to live, buddy. Buy a sofa.”
“I have to go.”
“Don’t be mad at me. I’m just—”
“I’m not mad at you. I just have stuff to do,” he lied.
“All right. Love you. We’ll be watching the game tomorrow night.”
“Love you too. Say hi to Mom and Dad.”
“Call them soon, will you? Mom has been complaining about you forgetting about them.”
“Will do.” God, it hadn’t even been a week since he’d last called them. “Bye.”
Ryan yawned and stretched. He wasn’t surprised he had slept in. After returning home from Fabian’s last night he’d been up for hours, staring at the ceiling and replaying every detail of the evening in his head.
And now he was awake with nothing to do. Colleen was right; his life was sad.
He grabbed his laptop from his nightstand and opened the IKEA website in his browser. It wouldn’t hurt to order a few things; his apartment really did look ridiculous. And what if he did want to invite a man back to his place? It wasn’t a likely scenario, but it wasn’t impossible either.
As Ryan added more items to his cart, he found himself getting excited about his new furnishings. When it was time to check out, he went hog wild and opted for the extremely expensive express delivery so he would get the stuff the next day.
He tried not to imagine, as he entered his payment information, what Fabian would think of the colorful throw pillows he had ordered.
* * *
“Prepare to have your minds blown,” Fabian said cheerfully as he plunked his backpack on Vanessa, Marcus, and Tarek’s kitchen counter. “I hit the discount Halloween table at the grocery store and bought...” He paused for dramatic effect, and then quickly pulled from the backpack. “A caramel apple!”
“Oh my god! Oh my god, Fabe,” Vanessa said. “Are you suggesting we slice up the caramel apple and layer it on top of the cinnamon cream cheese I bought? Because that is fucking genius.”
“I am suggesting exactly that.”
“What about my blackberries?” Marcus complained.
“Fuck you and your blackberries,” Vanessa said. “Caramel apple plus cinnamon cream cheese for the win.”
“I’m putting blackberries on mine,” Marcus grumbled.
They all ate delicious waffles and drank coffee and cheap mimosas, and to her credit, Vanessa waited until the food was gone before mentioning Ryan. “So you want to tell us about that hockey lumberjack or what?”
“Hockey lumberjack?” Marcus asked, setting his phone on the coffee table facedown in a gesture of absolute interest in the conversation.
“He was at the show last night,” Tarek explained. “Some hockey player who is in love with Fabian.”
“That is so wrong, I don’t even know where to start,” Fabian protested.
“As if,” Vanessa said. “He’s completely in love with you. He carried your gear home.”
“Right.” He rolled his eyes. “I forgot that means we’re engaged now.”
“Can someone tell me what the fuck is happening?” Marcus said.
“It’s not a big deal. Remember I told you my parents used to billet hockey players? Like, every year a different teenage hockey player would live with us?”
“Yeah. You hated it. Who wouldn’t?”
“Right. So, I did hate it. They were all homophobic jock assholes who almost definitely would have beat me up if they hadn’t been living under my parents’ roof.” Fabian chewed his lip before continuing. “But one of them...”
Marcus’s face lit up. “Oh my god. You hooked up with one of the dumb hockey bros!”
“No,” Fabian said quickly. “Not at all. It was just that this one guy, Ryan. He was...different. He was nice to me. And... I liked him.”
“Aw, you had a crush on your hockey player housemate!” Vanessa said. “This is good shit, Fabian. Continue.”
“Nothing happened, like I said. We just...got along. Not that we were hanging out or anything, really, but we would do homework together. Watch TV. Sometimes walk to school together. Stuff like that.”
“Cute,” said Tarek.
“And...okay. This is the thing I kind of can’t forget about. I had this recital. An end-of-year thing at the conservatory. My sister had a playoff game that night, so my whole family went to that instead.”
“Yeah, well, of course,” Vanessa said flatly. “Who gives a shit about their insanely musically talented son when there’s a hockey game to go to?”
“Right. So the thing is, no one in my family was at my recital. But Ryan was.”
Vanessa covered her mouth with both hands. “Fuck. Off!”
Fabian’s cheeks heated. “I know.”
“That is the sweetest thing I have ever heard,” Tarek said.
Fabian’s belly fluttered at the memory of spotting Ryan Price at the back of the auditorium. “I couldn’t believe he was there.”
“And you didn’t run off the stage into his waiting arms?” Vanessa exclaimed.
“No. Oh my god. As if.” He hesitated, then said, “But...”
Vanessa leaned in. “You have my undivided attention.”
“We took the ferry home together. And it was this beautiful night where all the stars were out, and the moon was full. Just ridiculous. And we had...a moment. I think.”
“A moment? Like what?” Marcus asked.
Fabian was sure his face had gotten a little dreamy as he remembered that night. “There was a second where I thought... I mean, I was sure he was going to kiss me. Or that he was waiting for me to kiss him. But then it passed and that was that.”
Vanessa leaned back in her chair. “That story sucked, Fabian. I hate that story.”
Fabian shrugged. “Sorry.”
“Okay, but why was he at your show last night?” Marcus asked.
“I ran into him at work last week. I told him about the show.”
“Did he recognize you?” Vanessa asked.
“Yeah. We talked for a bit. He...he definitely remembered me. He looked at least as stunned as I was.”
“This story is getting good again,” she said.
“So what’s he doing in Toronto?” Marcus asked.
“He, um, he plays for the Guardians now, I guess? And yeah. He looks good.”
“He plays for the Guardians? Are you kidding me?” Marcus pulled his phone out. “What’s his last name?”
“Price.”
He tapped at his phone for a few seconds, and then his eyes bugged out. “Hello, Daddy.”
“I know.”
“So, is he gay, or...”
“Yeah. He told me last night.”
“Seriously?”
“Weird thing for a hockey player to lie about, so I assume he’s actually gay, yes.”
“So what we know,” Vanessa said, “is that he liked you enough to go to your recital when you were both teenagers, he remembered you after thirteen years, he went to your show last night, he carried your gear home, and he’s totally gay.”
“Right.”
“That,” Marcus said, “is fucking romantic.”
“That,” Fabian corrected him, “is not anything.”
“It’s the best, right?” Vanessa said gleefully. “Like, this is the most interesting thing ever. I am fully invested in this.”
“Completely,” Tarek agreed.
“There is nothing to be invested in,” Fabian said wearily. “I
’ll probably never see him again. We exchanged numbers, but you know how that goes.”
“You exchanged numbers!” Vanessa said in a voice so high it was almost inaudible.
“So, new plan,” Marcus said, clapping his hands together. “Fabian breaks up with Claude, and then he marries the gay hockey player and they have big, dumb babies together.”
“You’re an idiot. And Claude and I are not together.”
“Your mouths were together last week,” Tarek pointed out.
Fabian closed his eyes, drawing strength from the universe. “It’s not happening again. It was a mistake. I’m done with him.”
“Sure,” Tarek said.
“Totally,” Marcus said, nodding.
“Whatever. I hate you guys.”
“Does that mean you are going to make out with us?” Vanessa asked. “Because it seems like—” Her sentence was cut off when Fabian tossed a cat-shaped pillow at her.
“Who wants more coffee?” he asked. He needed a break from the room after that conversation. Everyone raised their hands, so he busied himself in the kitchenette for the next few minutes.
“Next order of business,” Vanessa announced, when Fabian returned with a French press full of coffee, “is Tarek’s birthday.”
Tarek let out a long groan. “If you don’t mention it, it might not happen!”
“Sorry, babe. You’re turning thirty. Deal with it.” She shoveled two heaping spoonfuls of sugar into her coffee.
“So, obviously we’re going out,” Marcus said. “May I request that we go anywhere other than—”
“Force! Force! Force!” Vanessa started chanting. Tarek joined in, followed by Fabian.
“Fuck you guys,” Marcus grumbled. “Fine. It’s in three weeks, right? I’ll make sure I’m not working, at least.”
“Remember when you were a stripper?” Vanessa said. “And we’d visit you at work? That was the best.”
“That was the worst, actually,” Marcus corrected her. “But I do miss that gig sometimes. Stupid fire.”
“Stupid arson, you mean,” Tarek said.
“Yeah. It was a good club.”