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Bell dropped his towel, stepping into his boxers and pulling them up over his thick thighs, adjusting himself. He turned to Bogart, his expression stony. “They gave me a ton of problems. Do you know how many guys have said homophobic shit to me in locker rooms and out on the ice? There’s a reason I don’t tolerate that in this room.”

Was I imagining things, or had his gaze flicked my way when he spoke?

Lately, I’d started to wonder if Bell knew more than he was letting on. Sometimes, I’d catch him looking at me like he was trying to puzzle something out, or I’d see him and Morrison huddled up together talking in hushed tones, their eyes flicking between Mikey and me. Did he suspect we were together?

I took a step back, creating a foot of space between us.

Mikey’s eyebrows dipped, his head tilting to the side. “What?” he mouthed.

Bell glanced my way again, and I forced myself not to shirk away from the speculative gleam in his eyes.

“It wasn’t all bad, though,” he continued. “There are a lot of guys in the league who have my back. More than you’d think, probably.”

“Always got your back, Cap,” Lavoie said, looking around at the group, pausing on each one of us, his eyebrow lifted in silent challenge.

It occurred to me that I’d been silent the entire stretch of this conversation so I cleared my throat and said, “Yeah, definitely,” my voice cracking slightly.

A few of the guys echoed my agreement before turning back to their stalls to finish their post-practice routines.

The weird, paranoid buzzing in my brain continued as I stepped onto the team bus, a blast of cold air from the AC doing nothing to cool down my overheated skin. I collapsed into my usual seat and pressed my temple against the window.

Mikey stepped onto the bus a few minutes later, glancing my way and lifting his right eyebrow. I shook my head minutely, and he dropped into the empty seat beside Koffee, who immediately launched into a heated debate about the Patriots and the Vikings.

I stared at the back of Mikey’s head, noticing a tiny ,pale patch of skin right above his collar his recent haircut had exposed. A sharp ache flared in my chest. I wanted to put my lips to that spot, take it between my teeth and mark him the way he was always begging me to.

I listened to them arguing for a few more minutes, then slipped my noise-canceling headphones on over my ears to drown out the chatter around me so I could hear myself think about the scary, overwhelming thought taking root in my mind.

If Bell had figured us out, it stood to reason others had, too. Maybe not Nielson because he was a fucking idiot, but I had to wonder if Koffee was only been talking shit earlier, or did he have his suspicions, too? Did the other guys look at us and think to themselves, “Wait, what if …”

Mikey and I weren’t just teammates who’d decided to live together. We were inseparable, walking into arenas around the country side-by-side every single day. My hands routinely drifted out to touch him in some small way whenever we were next to each other. He stole food off my plate without asking, and we finished each other’s sentences. We conducted entire unspoken conversations made up of glances, smiles, or frowns that defied standard teammate relationships.

To anyone paying even a modicum of attention, we looked exactly like what we were—two athletes who’d inexplicably found each other in a world where we weren’t supposed to and had decided we were it for each other regardless. Mikey was mine, and I was his, and that’s just the way it was going to be.

Honestly, I didn’t understand how anyone could look at us and not immediately know we were more than we let on. We weren’t the least bit subtle.

They had to know, right?

And if they did …

I stared out at passing traffic—at the palm trees and the sun glinting off sleek glass skyscrapers on a sunny December afternoon—and realized I wanted them to know.

When Lavoie spent forty-five minutes showing off videos of his kid, beaming with pride, I wanted to be able to jump in and talk about something extraordinary Mikey had done. Hell, something completely fucking mundane even. When Bell mentioned Ethan picking him up at the airport, I wanted to be able to complain about Mikey’s horrible driving without having to edit my language. When Morrison spent fifteen minutes bemoaning Sebastian’s chaotic travel schedule, I wanted to commiserate about how much I missed Mikey when he was back in Minnesota on one of his quick in-and-out trips between games to deal with family shit.

I wanted what those guys had—the freedom to love their person out loud.

In the hotel’s lobby a few minutes later, while waiting for the travel team to hand out room keys, Lavoie called out, “A few of us are getting a projector set up in one of the conference rooms to watch the football game. Who’s in?”

Mikey turned toward me, his eyes lit with interest but waiting for my lead.

I was feeling overstimulated, and all their noise would only make it worse. I needed to be alone.

“I’m out,” I said, sliding my room key into the front pocket of my jeans.

“Shocker,” Nielson snickered.

“Fuck you,” I shot back. “My head is pounding. I’m gonna get in a nap before dinner. If we want to keep winning, you fuckers need me at my best tomorrow.”

Mikey searched my face. We’d been together long enough for him to know what I looked like when I had an actual headache—the tight pinch between my brows, the way I avoided light, how I breathed shallowly through my nose—so I knew he knew that I was lying through my fucking teeth.