Shots on Goal (Stick Side Book 3)

by Amy Aislin

  “Guys! Roman brought homemade cookies!”

  It was a good thing it was cold—Roman could blame his reddened cheeks on the temperature.

  Inside, the pizza was all but forgotten as the plastic tub was pried open and five full-grown men oohed and ahhed over little chocolate cookies while standing around the kitchen island.

  “Um, here.” Roman placed the second smaller plastic container on the island.

  “What’s this?” Yager asked, already taking the lid off that one.

  “Cream cheese icing.”

  “Wait, they’re sandwich cookies?” Mitch said. In short order, he’d dug spoons and knives out of a drawer and passed them around.

  “I didn’t know you bake,” Dan said, spreading icing on a cookie.

  “Occasionally.” Roman ran a hand over his head. “I prefer to cook.”

  “You cook?” Mitch, slouched with his elbows on the island counter, a sandwich cookie held in both hands and poised in front of his mouth, glanced up. “Don’t suppose you want to move in?”

  Dean chuckled and polished off his own cookie. “When I first met them, these two—” He waved between Cody and Mitch. “—were living off smoothies and Cheez Whiz-covered celery sticks.”

  “Cheez Whiz.” Roman grimaced. “Guys, have some standards.”

  “Hey, don’t knock it till you try it,” Mitch said, mouth full.

  “Besides, we were broke college students,” Cody joined in.

  “Still are.”

  “Hear, hear.”

  They did a mock cheers with their cookies, then popped them in their mouths.

  Okay, Roman got that. Understood what it was like to scrimp and save every penny. His own meal of choice for the half a year he’d lived out of his car after the major juniors had been apples and peanut butter or pickles wrapped in cheese. Real cheese, not the Whiz kind.

  Eventually, they ended up spread out in the little living room attached to the kitchen, pizza boxes open on the coffee table, the cookies passed around between Mario Kart races while controllers changed hands. Yager, Dan, and Dean had commandeered the couch, Roman and Cody sat on the love seat perpendicular to it, and Mitch sat on the floor at Cody’s feet.

  “Rainbow Road is obviously the best track,” Mitch was saying, wiping pizza sauce off the corner of his mouth with his thumb.

  “Rainbow Road sucks.” Yager cued up the next race.

  Cody, whose turn was now over, passed his controller to Roman.

  “It’s boring,” Yager continued. “And unnecessarily long. Coconut Mall is where it’s at.”

  “I like Moo Moo Meadows,” Dan said. “The cows.”

  “Yeah, the fucking cows,” Mitch grumbled. “Always right where you don’t need them to be.”

  This debate went on during the entire length of the race, until the very end when Cody announced there was only one sandwich cookie left.

  “Obviously,” Yager said, holding a hand out to Cody, “Dan and I should split it since we came from so far away to come visit.”

  Cody hugged the plastic container to his chest and turned away with a frown. “Roman should get it since he made them.”

  “That’s really nice.” But Roman was so full he didn’t want to see food again until tomorrow. “But Mitch should get it since his team won tonight’s game.”

  “I knew I liked you.” Mitch made grabby hands. “Gimme.”

  Cody gave, and the entire cookie disappeared into Mitch’s mouth in less than a second.

  Dean gaped at him. “You didn’t even offer to share.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry.” Mitch shot Dean a lewd look that was ruined by his full mouth. “I’ll be sharing something else with you later.”

  “Oh my god.” Cody made gagging sounds. “You’re so crass.” He kicked Mitch in the leg, and Mitch fell over laughing.

  You’d think they were all drunk given how stupid they were being, but really they were just . . . happy. And Roman, for the first time in what felt like forever, found that he was happy too. Maybe he didn’t say much, letting the conversation flow around him, but he noticed how easy these men were in each other’s company, how easy they were with him. It’d been so long since he’d hung out with people without feeling like he had to keep his guard up. Even as he had the thought, he was tempted to call it a night and head back to the safety of his apartment. But then Cody laughed, the sound hitting Roman right where he thought he’d been dead for a long time, and when Cody turned to him to get him to share in on the joke, something shifted in his chest that made him think there might be hope for him yet.

  “This was stupid,” Cody said by way of hello. Jumping into the warm interior of Roman’s charcoal-colored SUV, he shut the door behind him and buckled his seatbelt. “You should’ve just stayed over.”

  “So you said last night.” Roman pulled away from the curb. “Multiple times. And this morning via text.”

  “Just seems silly to drive all the way home only to come back less than twelve hours later.”

  “‘All the way’ is only an hour,” Roman said.

  “Still.” Cody removed his beanie and gloves. “Anyway. Thanks for coming to get me.”

  “No problem. The others left this morning?”

  “Yeah. Mitch is on the team bus, and the other three left at nine. Figured I’d stay behind and carpool with you.”

  Roman glanced at him quickly as he navigated them out of Glen Hill and toward the highway, following the directions of the GPS hooked up to the dash. “You didn’t have to wait for me.”

  “I don’t mind. It let me get some course reading done this morning.” Cody inspected the floor at his feet. Not finding what he was looking for, he shot a hopeful smile at his driver.

  “What?” Roman asked, somewhat apprehensively.

  “Don’t suppose you brought snacks?”

  With a quiet laugh, Roman reached behind him, into the backseat, and came out with a soft cooler that he plopped in Cody’s lap.

  “Yes,” Cody said under his breath like a mad scientist, drawing the word out to five syllables. “I knew it.”

  Opening it up, he found diced vegetables and homemade hummus, hardboiled eggs, cheese, sliced apples, grapes, clementines, nuts and seeds, beef jerky, and yogurt in those squeezable tubes.

  “You brought a feast.”

  “It is a three-hour drive there and back,” Roman explained.

  Pulling out a small plastic container he’d previously overlooked, Cody held it up. “Please tell me these are homemade chocolate chip cookies.”

  “Of course.”

  Cody practically salivated.

  They drove in companionable silence for a bit, munching on snacks and listening to the radio. Roman had his eyebrow and nose rings in again today, and Cody could totally understand why he’d been dubbed an asshole. With his shaved head, resting bitch face, wide shoulders, and facial hardware, he certainly looked like the kind of guy you didn’t want to meet in a dark alley.

  But Cody had refused to be the other kind of asshole—the type that didn’t look past the surface—and so he’d tried from the get-go to see past Roman’s don’t fuck with me attitude. And had succeeded, if he did say so himself. Or was in the process of succeeding given they’d only known each other a week and a half. What he’d learned was that Roman wanted people to think he was an asshole.

  Someone had hurt him in the past and the asshole exterior was a defense mechanism. Cody desperately wanted all the details, but only a week and a half into a friendship was not the time to ask.

  Roman chomped on a carrot stick. “Why do you keep looking at me?”

  Well, he was smokin’ hot for one. And for another: “Your nose ring is sexy.”

  He promptly regretted saying it. Roman wasn’t a homophobe—he’d proved that when he’d hung out with them last night and hadn’t blinked at the casual affection Alex and Mitch, and Dan and Ash showed each other.

  But that didn’t mean he wanted to be hit on by a guy.

&n
bsp; No, wait—Cody wasn’t hitting on him. Just pointing out the obvious.

  Roman shifted in his seat. “It’s just a stud,” he muttered.

  “Think I’d look sexy with a nose ring?”

  Taking his eyes off the road long enough to lift an eyebrow in Cody’s direction, he said, “You’d look like a naughty librarian.”

  “You think?” Cody pulled down the visor and examined his own face in the little mirror.

  “Speaking of the library—any updates on that front? Is it actually going to get shut down?”

  “That decision won’t be made until the town meeting.” He flipped the visor back up. “We’ve been brainstorming ways to show the library’s value between now and the meeting, trying to head Mr. Wallace off at the pass, you know? But I volunteered to do something stupid.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Try to get speakers to come in for talks and lessons. You know, like knitting or poetry nights or how to write a resume. To prove to the town council that there’s value in the library.”

  “Okay.” Roman held out a hand toward Cody; Cody plopped a celery stick into it. “But why is that stupid?”

  “Because I don’t really have the time for it. With school and work at the library and assignments and course readings . . . Eileen tried to convince me to leave the fight for the library to her and her librarians, but I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know, just . . .” He fiddled with the plastic lid of the Tupperware in his lap. “What if the library gets shut down and there was something I could’ve done to prevent that?”

  “I’m sure its fate doesn’t rest squarely on your shoulders.”

  “No, I know. But I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try. A lot of people in Glen Hill depend on that library.”

  Roman’s eyes drifted his way for a moment, mouth softened and lips slightly parted. “Where does your love of libraries come from?”

  “Mitch and I grew up together, and I went to every one of his home games when we were kids. The rink he skated at was in a community center that also had a library, and since Mitch needed to be there early, I’d get dropped off with him and hang out in the library before his game. It was . . .” He shrugged, unsure of where he was going with his story. “It was where I fell in love with books.”

  “I get it.” Shoving the seatbelt aside, Roman held open one side of his windbreaker. Tucked into one of the interior pockets was an e-reader.

  “You bring your e-reader on outings?”

  “I bring my e-reader everywhere.”

  Cody unzipped his own coat, held it open, and pointed at his own inner pocket and his own e-reader. Grinning, Roman held his fist out for a fist bump, his eyes crinkling when he laughed, and Cody couldn’t do anything but grin back at him.

  A buzzing sounded from the direction of his coat pocket, and he pulled out his phone to find a text from his dad.

  Shit.

  Kid, I’m heading to your mom’s on Monday. Don’t forget to let me know as soon as possible about next weekend. I’d love to visit with you.

  Would he, though? Or was it all talk?

  Cody sighed so long and loud that Roman squinted at him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Tapping his phone against the palm of his hand, Cody turned his head to look at Roman. “Have you ever loved someone and hated them at the same time? And you really wanted to see them again at the same time that you wanted to punch them in the face?”

  Something pained briefly took over Roman’s expression; his hands clenched on the steering wheel. “Yeah.”

  See? Cody had known someone had hurt him. A parent? A sibling? Another relative? A friend? “What would you do if you had the chance to see them again?”

  Roman remained silent for a whole minute. Cody would’ve thought he was being ignored if not for the way Roman’s lips pursed. He was thinking some deep thoughts over there.

  Finally, Roman said, “I’d ask them why.”

  “That . . .” Wasn’t what Cody had meant. He wanted a definitive They’re out of my life and I want nothing more to do with them or Yeah, maybe I’d give them another chance.

  Although Roman’s answer was answer enough, wasn’t it? It wasn’t I’d ask them why they want to see me. It was I’d ask them why they did what they did.

  Maybe this was Cody’s chance to finally get to know his dad. But did he want that?

  “I take it that’s not the answer you wanted to hear?”

  Cody rubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t know what I want.”

  “Take a minute to think about it.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it for an entire week. I don’t know how many minutes that is, but the answer isn’t any clearer.”

  Reaching into the center console, Roman grabbed one of the two water bottles and uncapped it one-handed. He took a swig. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Ugh.” Cody ground the back of his head into the headrest. “You don’t want to hear my stupid family drama.”

  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

  Oh, what sweet, magical words. “My dad’s career military, currently based in Texas. He’s been absent most of my life. I barely know him since I’ve barely spent any time with him, and now—” He waved his phone. “—he suddenly wants to see me.”

  “What about your mom?”

  “She’s back home where she’s always been. The Hamptons,” he added at Roman’s questioning glance.

  “They’re divorced?”

  “I can see why you’d think that, but no. They’ve always lived apart. My dad’s been at one army post or another for as long as I can remember. The last time I saw him was a couple summers ago when we were both home at the same time.”

  “How come you and your mom didn’t live with him?”

  “My parents . . .” Pressing his lips together, Cody propped an elbow on the doorframe and gazed out at the snowy landscape rushing by. “They wanted me to have roots. A home. Friends. They didn’t want me to get dragged around from place to place as my dad got moved. So I stayed in the Hamptons with my mom.”

  Sometimes, in the dark of night, he wondered if they’d made the right choice, wondered if his parents wished they’d done things differently. There were sacrifices and compromises either way you looked at it—a life with both his parents, in which case he likely never would’ve met Mitch, or a life miles away from his dad but with his best friend. It was impossible to tell if they’d done the right thing and he didn’t envy them that decision. His parents lived apart because of him, and even though they hadn’t meant for that to weigh on him, it did.

  “And now your dad wants to see you?” Roman asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Could be a good thing. Maybe he’s trying to reconnect.”

  Cody groaned loudly and thumped his head against the headrest once, twice, three times. Pulling up the messaging app on his phone, he typed a quick response to his dad—Sure, I’m free next weekend—hit Send and hid his phone in his pocket.

  “Feel better?” Roman asked.

  “I feel better about having made a decision. Not sure how I feel about seeing him.” Desperate for a change in topic, he said, “Your turn.”

  Roman’s eyes darted in Cody’s direction. He took a small sip of water, recapped his bottle, and left it between his thighs. Just when Cody was about to let him off the hook, he said, “My parents . . . found something out about me when I was seventeen. And kicked me out.”

  Oh. Okay, wow. So not what Cody had been expecting. “I’m sorry.”

  Roman shrugged and tapped a finger against the water bottle’s cap.

  “What’d they find out about you? Is it that you killed someone? I knew you were a murderer. The machete gave it away.”

  The tense lines of Roman’s face smoothed out when he laughed, and Cody wanted to laugh with him, but . . . Jesus. He’d never met anyone who’d been kicked out of their home before. He had so many questio
ns, but Roman’s hands were white-knuckling the steering wheel.

  Roman had been kicked out. And here Cody was whining about his daddy issues, half tempted to text his dad back to tell him he’d changed his mind about next weekend. And for what? Out of spite? As payback for all the times Cody had begged him to come home?

  Ha ha, sucker! Now it’s my turn to shut you down.

  He stared out the window at the winter landscape. “Three and a half years as a psychology major and I’ve only just realized that I’m a spiteful son of a bitch.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cody’s huff of laughter lacked humor. “You got kicked out of your own home and here I am complaining about how my dad wants to visit me for the first time in . . . ever.”

  “Hey.” Roman punched Cody’s shoulder, making Cody grumble. “My problems don’t invalidate yours.”

  “Except that I sound like a whiny child.”

  “So change your attitude.”

  “Change my . . . Meaning?”

  They passed over the state line into New Hampshire and thus over the Connecticut River, its water appearing brown under an overcast sky. The drive in the winter wasn’t exactly pretty—leafless trees on either side of the highway, dirt- and slush-splattered cars, hills in the distance covered in snow. He made a mental note to take Roman around Vermont and New Hampshire in the fall when the colors were bright and sunny, or in the summer when it was green and lush.

  “Meaning,” Roman said, moving into the left lane to pass a slow-moving minivan, “that you’ve been looking at this as your dad finally giving you the time of day.” Harsh, but true, echoing Cody’s belief that he was a whiny little boy inside, ugh. “But maybe look at it as an opportunity to form a better relationship with him instead?”

  Huh. “Roman, you are wise beyond your years.”

  “I’ve been told that from time to time.”

  Cody loosed unexpected laughter.

  “So this conversation was heavy,” Roman muttered, shaking out his shoulders. “Get the cookies out of the cooler, would you?”