Page 9 of Hot Ice, Tennessee

He didn’t answer for a moment. I decided not to push that line of questioning. He stood up, picking up his leather jacket in one hand and his drink in the other.

“Come outside. I’ll show you something.”

2

JESSE

It happened on a bright day—I remember, because I was squinting right into the sun when I saw him.

Naked. Tanned skin. In the backyard by the pool.

Legs wrapped around a blonde.

He gave me the same guilty look he always did out on the ice, when he fucked up perfectly angled shots that I practically fed him on a silver platter, game after game.

Apparently this was just a game to him, too.

“Oh.”

That was all I’d been able to say. Shimmers of light glittered into my eyes from the pool, dappling my vision.

Sometimes when your whole life crashes down around you, only feeble bullshit comes out of your mouth.

He had the balls to cheat on me right there in the frat house, when he thought everyone else was gone for the day. I’d always been his deep, dark, gay secret—on the same hockey team, while nobody knew what we did behind closed doors.

But now that he was fucking a girl, instead of me, he had nothing to hide.

The worst part? I didn’t leave.

I always was a forgiving person. Understanding.

So fucking naive.

It was another seven months before it crumbled. He got a different woman pregnant, and they were going to have the kid. Get married right after college. Live together. And he’d stay right in the closet.

He discarded me like a broken toy.

That time, I did get out of the lie I’d been in, unknowingly, for two years.

That sunny day had just been the beginning.

I didn’t mind a little rain now.

I thwacked the side of the pinball machine with my fingertips, the paddle inside ricocheting the metal ball all the way to the top.

“Thereit is,” I said, backing away as I hit a new high score.

Mason was beside me, shaking his head. “You’re cheating.”

“You can’t cheat at pinball,” I protested. “What do you think I’m doing, hacking the machine?”

“Well, maybe you have an advantage. Hand-eye coordination transfers from hockey into pinball, clearly.”

“Damn right it does. Get used to it.”

Mason clicked his tongue and I smiled, giving him a little shove.

A distant burst of lightning lit up the grey sky, highlighting him for a split second. The man was all hard muscle and pretty blue eyes, like some underwear model had been taken into the Tennessee country, given a blue flannel shirt, and dropped right into this bar.

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