He didn’t regard me. “I started doing it to wind down after games, and now I just do it every night.”
“Lively guy like you, I figured you’d be jerking off first.”
He tipped his head to the side. “That too.”
I was just making a joke, not trying to get him to own up to masturbating. Then again, we’d masturbated together, so what was the difference anymore?
I rested my head on the cool pillow, not really sure whether to face him or away from him. I prefer lying on my left side, but that was facing him. “Do you want to talk?” I asked slowly.
Jack fidgeted with his necklace, a silver crucifix he kept putting between his lip and teeth. “Let me finish this chapter.”
“Oh. Sure.” I waited, letting my eyes flutter shut. With a soft thump and a light breeze on my face, his book closed and he nestled into the sheets facing me.
I grinned, wiggling like we were in our own slumber party. Jack pretended to be unamused by my excitement. I stuck a finger out to toy with his necklace. “Are you religious?”
“Fuck no,” he said. “This was just my Papi’s.”
I found it interesting that Jack Leroy was sentimental at all. “Tell me about Papi. What was his name?”
He drew in a breath, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. It wasn’t an intentional thing, just something he idly played with. His fingers stroked along my neck. “Jacques.”
“Like you,” I said with a smile.
“Not like me. He was better than I could ever be. He was my mom’s dad. I lived with him after the accident, just me and him.”
My eyes rounded, and he nodded, getting that I needed more context.
“Uh, guess I should explain that. My brother and I both played hockey and he was on track to be even better than me. But then there was an accident that paralyzed him from the waist down. And,” he swallowed, tensing, “I was there for the accident. So they sort of blamed me.”
“Oh, no,” I said, not wanting to have too big of a reaction lest I scare him off. I put a gentle hand on his side under the sheets, touching his bare skin. In any other circumstance, that would be too intimate for where we were, but he didn’t pull away. “Do you blame yourself?”
Jack’s eyes drifted into the space between us. “Hard not to. We were climbing a tree. I told him not to go higher, but he had to go to the top. We were competitive little shits,” he laughed, “but this time it had a consequence.”
“He fell,” I supplied.
“Yeah.”
“That must have been awful,” I whispered.
Jack just nodded and went on. “I stayed at home for a while, and I kept playing hockey. Some kid chirped me about my ‘lame’ brother, that I tried to kill him because I was jealous. I lost my shit. Beat the fuckin’ piss out of that kid. Bad.” He paused, looking at me. “I’m not proud of it. I just couldn’t stop myself and . . . yeah. My parents were horrified. I got thrown out of the league and sent to live with Papi for a fresh start. Out on Cape Breton, kind of more removed from the madness and peoplewho knew what happened. He got me back on track, got me to focus on nature and music and stuff.”
I dragged a finger between his pecs, thinking. “How are things with your family?”
He shook his head. “Not great. My mom’s always trying to patch things up, and J.P. doesn’t hold anything against me. Doesn’t remember much about the actual accident. My dad is . . . my dad. He was a crazy hockey dad before and remained one after. He was mad at me for taking his star away from him.”
I wrinkled my brow. “But . . . you’re a star.”
“Not like he was,” Jack said, and I felt every bit of the guilt and shame in what he said.
“I’m glad you had Papi,” I said, continuing to let my hand drag over his skin.
“Me too. I was there until I went to hockey boarding school.”
I held my eyes shut. “A lot to unpack there, the least of which is ‘what is hockey boarding school?’”
He snorted. “It’s a thing. Promise. Kind of a factory for NHL players.”
“A whole other world I know nothing about. Bryce obviously didn’t go to hockey boarding school.”
