Shots on Goal (Stick Side Book 3)

by Amy Aislin

  He and Cody had strolled back to Cody’s place after leaving the playground, shoulders brushing, fingers latching and then letting go as if they were too shy to hold on. Realistically, Roman wasn’t out, a fact he’d told Cody, to which Cody had shrugged and said, “I figured,” before zipping up his coat against the wind that had picked up, casual as you please, like Roman’s admission didn’t bother him any.

  And maybe it didn’t, but that was a question for later seeing as once they’d arrived at Cody’s townhouse, he’d complained about Mitch not being back yet and his shift at the library starting in ten minutes. It was fortuitous that Roman was conducting storytime tonight and could drive him, something Mitch must’ve known, otherwise he surely wouldn’t have left his best friend stranded.

  Cody stood behind the checkout counter, arms crossed, slight smile on his face, appearing inordinately pleased with himself. On Roman’s side of the counter, a small group—that was getting larger by the minute—stood peering at a bunch of sheets taped to the top of the counter.

  “We haven’t had this many guest speakers in a while,” one man said.

  Cody smirked. “I’m trying to prove to Mr. Wallace that the library is an important resource to the community.”

  The man scoffed. “Let me guess . . . He’s at it again? Suggesting we close the library?”

  A boy of about five stood on his tippy toes to look at the sheets, then glanced up at his mom. “Are they really closing the library? Where will we get our books?”

  “Close the library?” someone else who joined the group muttered.

  “Yup,” a woman in a long red wool coat said. “Every two years, like clockwork. I swear he sets his watch by it.”

  Roman closed the distance between himself and the group and peered down at the sheets. Looked like sign-up sheets for the speakers Cody had managed to organize.

  “The community didn’t know yet that the library might be in trouble?” he quietly asked Cody.

  “Some people did. One of the board members has been speaking with some of the influential people in town and I’m sure word has gotten around. But not everyone knows. I figured it was time they did so someone other than me can put up a stink. Hence my strategically placed sign-up sheets.”

  “Couldn’t you just email everyone? Set up an online form?”

  “I did. But not everyone’s on the email list.” Cody nodded at Roman’s bundle. “Did you choose your books?”

  “Maybe.” Roman held them out. “What do you think of my selection?”

  Cody tapped on one with the end of a pen. “You read this one already. Your first day.”

  “I did?” Roman flipped through it. “I don’t remember. I’m surprised you do.”

  Cody just shrugged. “I see you, Roman.”

  Something inside Roman flipped and settled at Cody’s words.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Cody said with a scowl, gesturing at Roman’s face with the pen.

  Roman cleared emotion out of his throat. “Like what?”

  “Like you want to eat me alive.”

  “But I kinda do.”

  “Just . . .” Cody waved the pen around. “Go read to your children.”

  Feeling pretty good about himself, Roman followed orders and went back into the children’s section, where the kids where getting settled onto the floor mats. He felt lighter for having talked to Cody and sorted things out between them. He also felt like an asshole for withholding the rest of it, but would Cody still want him when he learned that Roman had once been homeless? He’d never told a single soul about it. Did that part of his past even matter anymore?

  When storytime was over and he was mentally patting himself on the back for remembering to do the voices, he went off in search of Cody, first stopping by the checkout counter to see how many people had signed up for his own sessions. Two dozen wanted to listen to him talk about hockey—topic TBD, according to the sheet—and seventeen wanted to learn how to make apple turnovers.

  That was two dozen and seventeen more than he’d expected. Okay then. Meant he actually needed a plan now. Something to think about tomorrow on the flight to Ottawa. His team had a short road trip coming up—Ottawa, Toronto, New York—giving him some downtime to think about it.

  After a walk through the entire library, including the study and conference rooms on the second floor, it was clear that Cody was either not in the building or he was in the attic. Roman would bet his hockey jersey it was the latter. Not knowing where the entrance to the attic was located, he went back downstairs and hovered near the front door, pulling out his phone to send Cody a text.

  Storytime’s over. Where’d you go?

  Cody’s answering message said 2 mins, so Roman went into the staff room where he’d hung his coat, and when he returned, Cody was standing there as if he’d appeared from thin air. The smile Cody gave him made his steps falter.

  Cody bounced on his toes. “How’d it go today?”

  “Good,” Roman said, slipping on his coat. “How much longer have you got here?”

  “Couple hours.”

  “Cool. I’m gonna head to that café you took me to a few weeks ago, grab a coffee, and read until you’re done.”

  “You’re not going home?” Cody asked, going still.

  “I will at some point. Thought I could take you to dinner first. If you want.”

  “I want! I mean.” He cleared his throat. “I want.”

  “Okay.” Chuckling, Roman glanced around, but there were far too many people in the library for him to comfortably kiss Cody goodbye. Or hello. Or at all. Kissing was something they’d yet to do, and why was that? Roman should’ve planted one on him in the car before they drove over earlier.

  The only explanation he could think of for why he hadn’t was that Cody had fried his brain with that smile of his and he was no longer thinking straight.

  He said, “I’ll come back in a couple of hours.”

  And was treated to that brain cell-killing smile again.

  I’m going on a date!

  I think.

  No, it’s definitely a date.

  Cody sent the texts off to Mitch in a flurry, then added one more.

  Keep the door unlocked so I can get in later.

  He was going on a date for the first time since . . . ever? No, he’d gone to the movies with a girl in freshman year for no other reason than he hadn’t had the heart to decline to her hopeful face when she’d asked. Nothing since then, mostly because he was busy and partly because he couldn’t be bothered. He had Mitch, he had school, he had books. What else did he need?

  Obviously, he’d been waiting for the right person to come along, and now he had an actual date with a guy who was causing him to grin at nothing as he sorted books in the attic.

  He was smitten.

  No, that was too historical romance. Not that he’d ever read a historical romance, but he imagined it’d have words like smitten.

  He was sunk. Sunk in Roman’s orbit. In Roman’s eyes when they regarded him with earnestness or amusement or anything in between. Sunk in the quiet way he viewed the world. In how he’d come out the other side of the freak out he’d had when his former best friend joined his team.

  Sunk. He was just gone over this man.

  Maybe he’d keep that to himself for now, huh? He didn’t want Roman running hot and cold again. Hopefully, Roman was just as into him. In the meantime, Cody would play it cool. Whatever that entailed.

  As promised, Roman was back two hours later. Cody met him by the front door and inhaled the scent of him, which right now consisted of coffee and, oddly, mint. Cody almost leaned in for a hello kiss before remembering that not only had they not kissed at all yet—that brush of lips at Roman’s apartment before Kowalski appeared didn’t count—but there were other people around. They hadn’t talked about it, but Cody was certain Roman had no intention of publicly coming out anytime soon.

  “Ready to go?” Roman asked.

  Cody nodded. �
�Ready.”

  They stepped outside, into an evening that had darkened to night while he’d been in the attic. The temperature had dropped, and a thin layer of snow covered the parking lot, the cars, the trees, lampposts, the roofs of buildings. It would’ve been pretty if Cody wasn’t dead tired of winter.

  He tugged on his beanie and turned to Roman. “Where are we going?”

  “This is your town,” Roman said, his SUV giving a honk as he thumbed the key fob. “You tell me.”

  Wasn’t like they had a lot of options. “The Green Onion’s good,” Cody said once they’d gotten into the car and were on their way. “Or Mama Jean’s.” He squinted at Roman. “Professional athlete. Definitely The Green Onion, then.”

  “What’s wrong with Mama Jean’s?”

  “It’s just pizza. Won’t be very filling for you.”

  “Hey, I like pizza as much as the next guy.” They reached the tiny downtown Glen Hill strip and Roman parallel parked into a spot in front of the pizza place. “If it’s pizza you want, then pizza you shall have.”

  His door wasn’t open yet and Cody could already smell it. “I do really want pizza.”

  Mama Jean’s wasn’t busy on a Tuesday evening. In the middle of the restaurant sat a group of six college students. In the far corner, near the restrooms, was a family of four. A couple of guys sat in the opposite corner, on the same side of their booth, laptop on the table between them. None of the booths along the window were occupied, so Cody chose the one farthest away from the noisy table of six. Once they’d sat, he extracted a couple of menus from between the salt and pepper shakers and handed one to Roman.

  Roman rubbed his jaw. “What did we have that time after Mitch’s game?”

  “I can’t remember but probably one of the ones with loads of meat.”

  They decided on the deluxe meat lovers to share, and Roman went up to the counter to place their order. Cody watched him weave his way around and between tables, speak with the employee behind the counter, hand his credit card over, and then return with two drinks. He walked with confidence and surety, head held high and gait loose and relaxed. The smile he gave Cody, though, as he sat back down across from him, was adorably shy.

  Cody grinned back, warmth uncurling in his chest, and thanked him for the iced tea.

  They chatted while they waited for their pizza, the talk turning to Cody’s speaker series as a server placed their pizza on the table, Roman wanting to know if it was helping him in his goal of proving that the library was a valuable community resource.

  “I think so?” Cody bit into his pizza, the taste of cheesy goodness and meat bursting over his tongue, and chewed thoughtfully. “Lots of people have signed up for the talks, and the board member I mentioned who’s speaking with the influential people in town? She’s been asking them to donate or speak on the library’s behalf.”

  “Speak to who?”

  “Town council, I think. And Eileen is revising the budget, which means cutting programs.”

  Roman paused at that. “Programs like storytime?”

  “Probably not that one in particular, but other ones. Like, there’s a monthly MMM event—Moms Meeting Moms. I think that one might be on the chopping block, which is too bad. Hence why that board member’s talking to some of the wealthy in town.”

  “What about holding a fundraiser?”

  Cody licked sauce off his thumb. “A fundraiser,” he mused. “Tell me more.”

  “Hold it at the library, say,” Roman said, abandoning his crust and reaching for a second slice. “Charge seventy-five bucks a head, or whatever, hire a catering company to pass around some hors d’oeuvres and wine, or hell, have a sit-down dinner. Locals can expound on what the library means to them, and Eileen can make an impassioned speech about all the good the library has done and what it has to offer and then ask for donations. All proceeds benefit the library and maybe you guys can hire an actual program coordinator.”

  Expound. Now there was a word. “I have two thoughts on this.”

  “Shoot.”

  “First, wouldn’t the seventy-five bucks a head just go toward paying for the food and drinks and . . . I don’t know, decorations?”

  “Maybe,” Roman allowed. “You could try finding yourselves a sponsor or asking catering companies to reduce their prices in exchange for some advertising.”

  Huh. Mama Jean’s, as well as The Green Onion, had one of those Shop Local Buy Local stickers in their windows. Perhaps Roman was onto something. “What kind of advertising can a library offer, though?”

  Roman finished chewing and said, “You could print up little programs for the evening and put their logo on there. Eileen would probably need to thank them publicly at some point during the event. I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe add their logo to event invitations? You’d have to work it out with them. What was your second thought?”

  “That a library fundraiser sounds utterly boring.”

  Roman chuckled wryly. “Yeah, fair point. If you wait until the summer, you could do some kind of funfair. Have clowns and a bouncy castle and games and I don’t know what else. I’m guessing by the look on your face that that’s not an option.”

  Cody was shaking his head. “Eileen has to present the new budget in less than a month. It’d be great if we had the fundraiser before then to prove that people want the library.”

  “You can still hold the fundraiser after her meeting, but start planning now so she can at least mention it next month when she presents.”

  “I suppose.”

  “You could do . . . an awards ceremony?”

  “For what?”

  “Fuck, I don’t know,” Roman said with a laugh. “I’m making shit up as I go. You could get a speaker to come in or maybe someone local with influence?”

  “Someone local with influence,” Cody repeated slowly, mind working. “Like the Vermont Trailblazers?” It was a long shot. A pipe dream. As if Vermont’s first NHL team would concede to appearing at a fundraiser for a library that wasn’t even in their home city. And it was too bad really because Cody could picture it—their little library filled to capacity with Glen Hill citizens wanting to meet their very own celebrities, the Trailblazers mingling and signing autographs and taking selfies. For a chance to meet professional hockey players, they could charge way more than seventy-five bucks per person.

  Roman, to Cody’s utter shock, tilted his head, gaze going distant, and seemed to actually give the idea some thought. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

  “Wait, really?”

  The idea he’d had of a panel Q&A with a handful of the Trailblazers morphed into a library benefit with all—or at least most—of the Trailblazers in attendance. They could probably still do a Q&A too. Maybe not in panel format, but it could be weaved into the evening somehow.

  “Let me talk to management,” Roman said, “and the engagement people. See what they say.”

  “Thank you.” Cody squeezed Roman’s wrist, the heat of his skin seeping into his own through the thin material of Roman’s long-sleeved T-shirt. “Really. And even if it doesn’t pan out, you’ve given me a lot of ideas. Now question.”

  “Hmm?” Roman had a glint in his eyes.

  Cody leaned forward. “How does one plan a fundraiser?”

  On the other side of the table, Roman mimicked Cody’s position. “I have no earthly idea.”

  Mock scowl in place, Cody said, “Way to give me half an idea.”

  Shoulders shaking with laughter that made Cody’s insides squirm, Roman left a second crust on his plate and took a third slice of pizza. “Why do you want to save the library so bad anyway? I’m not arguing against it,” he added, raising a hand when Cody opened his mouth to argue. “God knows we need more libraries, not fewer. I’m just curious what your motivation is. Is it what you told me once, about the library you used to frequent when you’d go to Mitch’s games as a kid?”

  “Partly, yeah.” Pleased that Roman understood, Cody added, “For the
most part it was just me and my mom growing up. My dad always lived out of state. We weren’t poor by any means, but neither were we rich. While my friends went off on summer or spring break vacations, I never did. It’s embarrassing now, but I used to get upset that we couldn’t go fun places too.” As a college student with little spending cash, he understood being frugal now, that was for sure. But at the time he’d wanted the same experiences as his friends. “My mom used to tell me I could travel through books and that my imagination could take me as far as I wanted it to.” Feeling awkward for the first time all night, he jerked a shoulder and picked a piece of pepperoni off the pizza slice on his plate and popped it in his mouth. “It was my way of seeing the world.”

  “Do you still want to see it?”

  “You know what?” Ruefully, Cody shook his head. “As I grew up, I realized I was more of a homebody. Not that I’m opposed to traveling, but I like being in my space.”

  “I started reading for the same reason.” Roman sat back and wiped his hands on a napkin. “Not to travel, but for that sense of escapism. Distraction. I didn’t read much as a kid, but after everything went down with my parents and Kas, I started reading everything I could get my hands on.”

  “Speaking of Kas,” Cody said. “How are things between you now?”

  Roman made a so-so gesture with one hand. “We talked a few days ago, cleared the air. We’re not overly friendly but neither are things as strained as they were. It’s been . . .” He trailed off and Cody could hear his tongue ring clicking against his teeth.

  “It’s been what?”

  “Freeing,” Roman said. Pushing his plate out of the way, he leaned his forearms on the table. “To let go of that anger.”

  Cody thought of his own anger for his father. Sure, his dad’s visit a few weeks ago had gone well, but it hadn’t changed anything between them, hadn’t erased the fact that he’d been purposefully absent from most of Cody’s life. Holding on to that anger was exhausting—he could understand why Roman said it was freeing to let it go—but Cody didn’t know how to do that.