Shots on Goal (Stick Side Book 3)

by Amy Aislin

  His jangling nerves kicking up a notch, he got out of the car, his sneakers sinking into the plush grass. His mom stepped out on the other side and the cab driver came around to open the trunk and remove their suitcases.

  As the front door opened, his dad appearing in the doorway, his mom’s words came back to him. It won’t be easy, but I promise it’s worth it.

  And he realized, as his mom dropped her purse at his feet, as she bolted across the yard and up the three steps to the house, laughing and crying in equal measure, and threw herself at his dad—her husband—that he already knew that.

  It didn’t make his upcoming decision any easier.

  Cody was pretzeled into Marichyasana I pose the next morning, breathing steadily, his spine and shoulders stretching. Morning, however, was perhaps a misnomer. Three a.m. wouldn’t ever be anything but the dark of night.

  The position he was in, seated on a couple of spread towels he was using as a makeshift yoga mat, on the floor of his dad’s living room, gave him a decent view of the bookshelf against the wall. There were a lot of classics and a lot of biographies. But the tome that kept grabbing Cody’s attention was a tall one with a wide, purple plastic spine he suspected was a photo album. He was insanely curious about what was in there. Photos of his parents while they’d been dating? His dad as a kid?

  Breathing out, he repeated the pose on the other side.

  Last night’s retirement ceremony had not, in fact, lasted five minutes. It was closer to an hour between arriving at his dad’s army depot, being led to a little informal room with sluggish air conditioning and folding chairs set in neat rows, the ceremony itself, and the mini social afterward. And the ceremony itself, he’d discovered, wasn’t just for his dad, but also for three other retiring officers. There were speeches, flowers, plaques, photos. Honestly, it had all been rather informal. Or, at least, not as strictly rigid as he’d expected.

  Afterward, his mom had treated them to a fancy dinner, where Cody had spent two hours feeling like the third wheel on a teenage couple’s first date. He didn’t begrudge them their happiness, was actually glad that they’d been so engrossed in each other because Cody had felt off all evening.

  Still felt off.

  You have to trust that you mean too much to your guys for them to leave you over a little bit of distance. Like your dad and I had to trust each other.

  His mom’s words wouldn’t settle in his head. She’d called it clinging—clinging to Mitch. Cody saw it more as loyalty. Friendship. He and Mitch had been there for each other since they were kids, through everything from first pimples to first days of school to driving lessons to figuring out their individual sexual identities. Cody had followed him to Glen Hill because they were best friends, not because he thought Mitch would replace him if they didn’t occupy the same space. He trusted Mitch implicitly.

  And the more he thought about it, he realized he’d been wrong when he talked to Mitch—he didn’t think distance would make Roman forget about him. He trusted Roman too, despite only having known each other for a couple of months.

  The problem, the reason his mom’s words didn’t ring quite true, was that he wasn’t afraid of being left behind. Or, rather, he was, but on a level he understood as afraid of getting hurt, which was a normal human reaction. But he was tough. He could take it. He wouldn’t let it keep him down for long. And since he trusted both Mitch and Roman, it was a sort of fear that simmered on the back burner, taking up about as much space as the decision on whether or not to get up to pee or wait until the show went to commercial.

  The real fear that sat behind his breastbone, that had made it difficult to sleep since he’d received his acceptance letter, was a fear of leaving others behind. Of disappointing others like his dad had disappointed him. Whichever way he went with grad school, he’d be letting someone down.

  When he’d first applied, the decision had been easy—follow Mitch to Boston. No hesitation, no question. Now?

  Now there was Roman.

  Chest squeezing painfully tight, he maneuvered out of his pose, shook his legs out in front of him, and folded his upper body over his thighs.

  Doing yoga in the middle of the night in his dad’s barely lit living room was a hell of a time for introspection.

  He straightened. Inhaled a deep breath through his nose. Brought his arms out to his sides and up, clasping them as if in prayer, and then brought them down to rest against his sternum. Exhaling, he lowered himself onto his back, flung an arm over his eyes, and groaned up at the ceiling. Middle of the night self-psychoanalysis should be outlawed.

  Footsteps sounded down the hall. He sat up just as his dad poked his head into the room, looking much too alert given the time.

  “Morning.”

  Cody regarded him. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m your ride to the airport.” His dad scratched his chest through his T-shirt. “Figured I’d let your mom sleep in.”

  Right. She was staying the week. “Okay. But we don’t have to leave for, like, an hour.”

  His dad grunted. “I’ll make us breakfast.”

  His footsteps retreated into the kitchen. The fridge opened and fell closed. Plates clinked. Pans banged against cupboard doors.

  Cody fell back onto his pretend yoga mat and blew out a breath. Then he tilted his head back and, upside down, regarded the purple photo album on the bottom shelf. Reaching over his head, he pulled it out. The angle was awkward, and the album slipped out, the edge catching on the wood floor. He lost his grip on it and it hit him in the temple before falling to the ground, open to a page about a third of the way in.

  “Ow,” he grumbled.

  Flipping onto his stomach, he pulled the album closer—

  And found himself.

  On the left page was a photo of him blowing out seven birthday candles. Opposite were three more photos of the same day, candid shots of his birthday party. The next page had photos of his next birthday. Flipping forward several pages, he found photos from birthdays, Christmases, graduations. Photocopies of certificates and ribbons, like his spelling bee certificate from second grade and the first-place ribbon from eighth-grade track and field. Candid shots he didn’t recognize—hanging out at the beach, him and Mitch working on some kind of school project, him asleep on his biology textbook during a high school all-nighter before an exam, his four-person high school relay team. The images were more frequent at the beginning and tapered off as it continued, as he got older.

  “Digital cameras.”

  Heart kicking into his throat, he jumped and looked behind him.

  “The ones your mom sent me from the past few years are all on my computer,” his dad said, leaning against the doorjamb.

  “I . . .” Gaze on the album once more, Cody ran a finger over his eighth-grade-graduation photo. “I thought you didn’t want me.”

  Padding into the room on silent feet, his dad sat next to him. “Why would you think that?”

  You don’t know me.

  I don’t know you.

  You hardly ever came home.

  But most importantly— “You sent me away.” Inaccurate maybe, but deep down, it was how he’d always felt.

  “Ah, kid.” His dad’s sigh was gusty. “Is that what you think?” He turned the pages of the album, going back to the beginning, to a photo Cody recognized because his mom had it framed on their wall at home—himself, newly born, swaddled in a blanket in his dad’s arms. “When your mom got pregnant, we had a decision to make: either you’d follow me around from one state to another or you’d have a permanent home base. Depending on how you look at it, it was lose-lose or win-win. Lose-lose: grow up without your dad or be dragged from one place to another, never having roots, always being the new kid in school and having to make new friends. Win-win: grow up with both parents or have those roots, the friends, the permanent home base.”

  His words grabbed at Cody’s chest, made it hard to breathe.

  “There were pros and cons to both choi
ces,” his dad continued, his shoulder warm against Cody’s. “In the end, we decided we wanted you to have roots. A home. A circle of close friends.”

  “That never seemed fair to me. Mom had to raise me by herself and you had to live without your wife and son.”

  “Yeah. But when you become a parent, you start thinking of what’s best for your kid, not what’s best for you. And we did what we thought was best for our kid. What do you think? Did we make the right decision?”

  Cody opened his mouth to answer. Closed it again. Tried to imagine a life with no Mitch, and thus no hockey, no Glen Hill College, and ultimately, no Roman. Tried to imagine being the new kid in school all the time, having to make friends only to leave them behind, but growing up with both his parents. Knowing they loved each other and him.

  He looked at his dad, who shrugged a shoulder with a soft smile. “There’s no easy answer, is there?”

  “No,” Cody agreed. “There isn’t.”

  His dad squeezed his neck. “The eggs are probably cold by now but . . . you want them anyway?”

  They ate cold eggs and toast with peanut butter and bananas. Cody drank so much coffee it reminded him of Roman, which was how he found himself telling his dad about him and about the Great Grad School Dilemma, as he was coming to call it.

  “Put yourself in their shoes,” his dad said. “Pretend you’re Roman. Your boyfriend just got into grad school out of state. How do you feel?”

  “Sad,” Cody said, unable to be anything but honest. Roman had told him to go, but Cody hadn’t missed the flash of pain on his face. It had to have been so hard for him to tell Cody that he should go if he was accepted. “A little anxious. But also really happy for him. Grad school acceptance is nothing to sneeze at.”

  His dad munched a bite of toast with a pointed look in his direction.

  “The problem is that I don’t want to live without either one, but either way I will. How do I choose between them?”

  “You’re looking at it all wrong,” his dad said. “Grad school isn’t about Roman, and it’s not about Mitch. It’s about you—” He poked Cody in the chest. “—and what you want—” Poke. “—to be fulfilled and happy.”

  Cody sighed into his coffee. “Maybe I should just delay grad school for a bit and get a job in Burlington.”

  “Okay. Say you do that.” Next to him, his dad sat back in his chair and brushed his hands together, crumbs falling onto his plate. “And then Roman gets traded to, I don’t know, Arizona. What then?”

  “I . . .”

  “Your boyfriend and your best friend have careers where things could change at any moment. Kind of like mine,” his dad added with a grimace. “There are a lot of NHL teams. What are the chances of them ending up on the same one?”

  Cody closed his eyes. A lot less likely than he’d like to think, no doubt. Which meant with or without grad school, he’d be leaving someone behind.

  “Pretty unlikely, huh?” his dad said, driving the point home. He toasted Cody with his coffee before taking a sip.

  Moving his plate aside, Cody buried his face in his arms. “God. I’m so sick of thinking about this.”

  “Cody.” His dad squeezed his shoulder. “If you want to go to Boston, go to Boston. Just know that if you do it doesn’t mean a death sentence for your relationship with Roman. Your mom and I are proof of that.”

  “It’s kind of ironic, isn’t it?” Lifting his head, Cody kicked his foot up onto the chair across from him. “You chose to let me have roots and I go and fall in love with a guy who could be traded at any second.”

  “Irony.” His dad scoffed. “Or a giant fuck you from the universe.”

  They giggled the laugh of the up too early on not enough sleep, snorted snickers muffled behind their hands.

  “Whatever you decide,” he said with a pat on Cody’s arm, “make sure you look at all your options. Maybe there’s a solution you’re not thinking of.” Checking the time on the microwave, his dad stood and stacked their plates. “Why don’t you grab your stuff? We’ll leave in a few minutes.”

  “Sure.” Cody stood too. “Hey, Dad?”

  His dad hummed from the sink, his hands sudsy, the dishes clinking as he washed them.

  “Thanks for inviting me to your retirement ceremony. And for paying for me to come.”

  “I’m glad you came.” He smiled at Cody over his shoulder.

  “Do you think . . . maybe . . .” Straightening his spine, Cody clenched a fist and blurted it in one breath. “Will you come to my graduation ceremony?”

  “I’ll be there with bells on. We’ve missed a lot of each other’s lives. But not anymore.”

  No. Not anymore.

  Roman dragged himself through the front door of his building late Sunday evening, trailing behind Kas and Cotton, duffel bag slung over one shoulder. One delay after another meant he was arriving home hours later than he was supposed to. How was it possible that traveling—literally doing nothing other than waiting around in airports and on planes—could cause so much exhaustion?

  Kas and Cotton chatted quietly ahead of him, their boots thumping against the wooden stairs. Roman climbed the stairs after them, wanting nothing but Cody, a shower, food, then bed. Too bad he wouldn’t be getting one of those things, not until tomorrow’s library fundraiser.

  “Hey, Kinsey.” Cotton turned halfway to look at him. “Do you have a chicken pot pie recipe I can have?”

  “Chicken . . . ?” Right. That had been Cotton’s order when Roman had been taking them from the team. Then Kas had arrived and he’d forgotten all about it. The potluck meant he didn’t still owe them food, right? “Yeah, probably. I’ll see what I can find and email it to you.”

  “Thanks!” Cotton smiled huge, making him appear twelve years old instead of nineteen.

  “We’re gonna order a pizza,” Kas said, stepping onto the landing on the seventh floor. “Want in?”

  “Sure, I could—” eat, he meant to say, but a man sitting cross-legged next to his front door, blond head bent over a paperback, duffel bag and an empty industrial-sized water bottle they sold at airports beside him, stole all of his words. “Cody?”

  That blond head snapped up. Pulling the earbuds out of his ears, Cody scrambled up, smile falling off his face when he spotted Kas and Cotton. “Uh. Hi.” He winced. “Sorry. I should’ve texted. Let you know I was here.”

  Roman’s own smile formed without conscious thought. He held an arm out. “Get over here.”

  Cody came, burying his head in Roman’s neck, arms coming around his back. Roman held him close, arms banding around him, breathing him in. Everything inside of him settled into place.

  “I told you they were seeing each other,” he heard Kas whisper-shout to Cotton. “You owe me a blow job.”

  A door closed on Cotton’s delighted laugh. Roman kissed Cody’s neck, his jaw, his temple, grumbling happily when Cody burrowed closer.

  “I really should’ve texted,” Cody said, straightening to press their foreheads together.

  Roman cupped his face, his cheeks prickly against his hands. “You never need an invitation to come by. Come on.” A quick kiss to Cody’s mouth. “Let’s get you inside. You look more tired than I feel. How long have you been waiting?”

  “A few hours.”

  Roman frowned at him as he unlocked his door. “I thought Mitch was supposed to pick you up at the airport.”

  They dropped their bags in the front entrance, hung up coats, and unlaced boots. Their items, nestled together as if they both lived here, unspooled warmth in Roman’s belly.

  “I told him not to come because I wanted to see you.” With those encouraging words, he disappeared into the bathroom, leaving Roman sputtering after him. “Sorry, gotta pee before I die!” Cody shouted from behind the door.

  Chuckling, Roman tossed the two-liter water bottle into the recycling bin underneath the sink.

  “Oh my god,” Cody said when he emerged a minute later, water droplets clinging to his hands.
“It was getting dire for the last hour there. Thought I was going to have to go use the bathroom in one of the coffee shops in the marketplace. Weren’t you supposed to be back earlier?”

  “Yeah. Flight delays.” Roman pulled him into his arms again. “Which I could’ve let you know about had I known you were coming.”

  “Wanted it to be a surprise,” Cody mumbled to Roman’s collarbone. “Is that lame?”

  “Nothing that involves you is ever lame.”

  Cody’s smile was sweet. “I do need a ride back to Glen Hill tomorrow.”

  “I can take you, but it won’t be until the fundraiser. I’ve got practice midmorning and then a team meeting. You’ll miss your classes.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t have any tests or assignments to hand in, and I can get the notes from one of my classmates.”

  “Okay.” Roman leaned back against the counter, pulled Cody between his spread legs. “How was your weekend with your parents?”

  “Good. Eye-opening.”

  What had made him look like he could fall asleep standing up, then? “Want to tell me about it?”

  “Yeah. But there’s something else I need to tell you first.”

  His downturned eyes gave Roman pause. “Does it have something to do with why you’ve been weird the past few days?”

  “Yeah, I . . .” Cody’s hands tightened on Roman’s waist. “I got into grad school.”

  “Cody!” Roman’s heart gave a painful lurch, happiness and despair vying for dominance. “That’s amazing.”

  Cody wasn’t smiling. “The last few days I’ve been trying to figure out what to do about it. I didn’t want to go because that’d mean leaving you behind. But staying here means Mitch would go without me, and I kind of freaked out for a bit trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t want to disappoint either of you.”

  Oh. Wow. Heart slowing from its painful gallop, Roman sucked in a breath. “Cody.” He leaned their foreheads together. “I could never be disappointed about you going to grad school. I’ll miss the hell out of you, but we’ll still see each other on long weekends and holidays.”