Taylor shook his head. “Definitely not.” Any time he had given Fletcher an ounce of affection had ended in him immediately putting up walls and guarding his feelings. There was no way Fletcher could be gay. His ever-growing body count could attest to that.
Taylor didn’t even know if it was feelings that he was having for Fletcher. It was more so an attraction. Fletcher was one of his best friends. They were unstoppable together on the ice. The last thing he wanted to do was overthink about their friendship and end up putting a wrench in it. He didn’t want to mess things up. With Fletcher or his career.
The therapy session didn’t really do much except reinforce the fact that Taylor valued his career too much to do anything that may threaten it.
* * *
Two weeks later
On his way home from practice one morning, Taylor stopped to pick Marina up from a sleepover. Well, Marina hated when he called it that and insisted that the kids called them “hangouts” now. Apparently, sleepovers were “so middle-school.”
“Can we stop by the store?” Was the first thing she asked when she hopped into the passenger seat of his truck.
“Sure. What do you need?”he asked.
“Uhm,” she hesitated. “Just stuff.”
They pulled into the Target parking lot and Taylor found a good spot right up front. He loved when that happened. He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the car door.
“Wait,” she said, sounding panicked. “If you just give me your card I’ll run in and be right back.”
Taylor rolled his eyes. “Yeah, no. Not gonna happen. I don’t need you spending all my money on slime ingredients.” He’d been burned before.
He and Marina headed in the store and she grabbed a basket. “Do you know when mom gets off of work?” She asked quietly.
“I think late,” he answered. Taylor sensed something was upset. She was acting very shy around him, which had never been the case in the past. Marina was the annoying little sister he never had. “What’s wrong, munchkin? Is something going on?”
Marina began to shrug, but someone approached them. “Taylor Piers? Oh my gosh! Can I get a picture with you really quick?”
Taylor turned around and gave the girl a polite smile. She seemed like she was around his age or maybe a little younger. She quickly raised her phone and snapped a selfie with him. “Thank you so much! I’m such a fan of you guys.”
Taylor thanked her for her support and looked behind him to ask Marina the question again, but she was nowhere to be seen. “Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. Where the hell could she have gone?
If he knew what she was here for, then he would’ve known where to look. He reached into his pocket to call her, but he had no service in the store. Pancek was going to murder him. Gretchen was going to murder him. Taylor was absolutely donefor. How the hell did he manage to lose a kid?
Right as he was going to ask a store associate for help, he spotted Marina in the corner of his eye walking back from the direction of the cosmetics section. He let out a sigh in relief and thanked God for letting him live to see another day.
“You are in so much trouble, munchkin.” He shook his head at her and gave her a look that was full of disappointment. He folded his arms across his chest like a disapproving father.
“You were taking a picture with a fan. I didn’t want to disturb you.” It sounded like the kind of truth-evading lie Fletcher would try to tell him. They started walking towards the checkout area.
He narrowed his eyes, spotting the basket she held behind her back. “What’s in there? I swear to God if you abandoned me because you needed more skincare crap—”
“It’s not skincare,” she corrected with an edge of annoyance. “Just give me your card and I’ll meet you back at the truck.”
Taylor shook his head. “I’m not paying for it if you don’t tell me what it is first, munchkin. Your mom will kill me if we bring glue in the house.”
Marina rolled her eyes and threw her head back like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “It’s… private.” She told him. Her face went red as she rubbed her eye.
There was only one thing a teenage girl meant by “private” that came to mind for Taylor, suddenly feeling horrible for giving her trouble. That’s why she had asked when her mom would get home from work. She was too embarrassed to admit it to him.
“You know I have an older sister, right? I know what a period is.” He told her reassuringly.
“Oh,” she said softly. “I must’ve forgotten.” She shrugged likeshe was trying to play it off as a minor mishap.
Taylor tried to think of what Mandy and Emogen both liked when they had their time of the month. Emogen called it her “shark week.”
“Do you need help figuring out what you need? We should probably get you some Tylenol and a heating pad. Well, I’m sure your mom already has both of those at the house. I heard chocolate’s good…”
