Page 86 of The New Guy
Slowly, he shakes his head. “It’s cute that you think that.”
“What are you talking about? I wasthere.”
His chin snaps up and those gray eyes are full of fury. “You weren’tthere, Hudson, when you were unconscious. That’s the whole damn problem. For a few minutes, I was in charge of making sure you were going to be okay. And I couldn’t even finish a thought because I’d just watched your skullbounce off the ice. Apparently this is going to come as a surprise to you, but it kind of fucked me up to watch that.”
“Oh,” I say stupidly.
Oh.
“It was, like, the perfect storm,” he says, hugging himself tightly and beginning to pace in essentially the same spot I’d done the same thing a few minutes ago. “You, flat out on your back. You lookeddead, Hudson.” He gives me a furious glance, and my heart slides a little further into my guts.
I wasn’t anywhere near dead. But Gavin has way too much experience with men dying on him. And maybe it took me way too long to clue in, but I finally understand that I shouldn’t argue the point.
“…And then you did the whole macho athlete thing and fought off the care protocol.” He raises his eyes toward heaven. “Which is honestly no big deal. Henry probably gets a lot of attitude on the bench. It’s not personal. Except when it is, baby.” He turns to me again, looking devastated this time. “It’s great that you didn’t get seriously hurt. I believe that you’re fine. But I can’t be there next time. Your job is to think about winning games. Not to think about danger. But my job is to expect the worst and then make it all better.”
“But you’re really good at your job,” I point out. “And you only work a game, like, three nights this year, right?”
“There will be more,” he says softly. “He told me that his wife is hospitalized with preterm labor. They’re trying to keep her from having her twins too early.”
“Oh, shit. That sounds bad.”
“It’s touch and go.” He makes a face. “But he asked me if I would mind taking a couple of home games as the season finishes up. He also asked me if I wanted to take the LGBTQ night. So there’d be one guy representing pride on the Brooklyn bench.”
My stomach does a sideways slide. “One guy,” I repeat stupidly.
Gavin shrugs. “Just telling you what he said. I turned him down, though. Told him I’d promised to take Jordyn to that game.”
Hell. “But you’re mad at me for not coming out.”
“No.” He shakes his head vigorously. “I care about you, and I realize you’re in a bind. And everybody does it in their own time. But you have to understand that I’m in a bind, too. We can’t do this anymore, Hudson.”
I feel it like a blow.
“…Because I don’t want to be the guy who decides whether you come out of a game with an injury. And there’s no way I can be honest with my boss about the problem. I can’t tell Henry why it’s inappropriate for me to work at games.”
I sit heavily on the sofa and tip my head into my hands.
“The better things go for me at work, the more often this is going to come up.”
“…And I’m the reason you felt like you had to turn down a game.”
“You probably think I’m making too big a deal over it,” he says quietly. “I can see your side of it, too. But the job is new, and my reputation is all I’ve got. Besides…” He swallows hard and then stops.
I look up. “Besides what?”
“It sucked, okay? You didn’t see what I saw—a guy I have feelings for, laid out on the ice, not moving. And suddenly I’m the guy who’s in charge of making medical decisions for you, while you fight me over it?” He spreads his arms wide. “I just don’t want to be in that situation again.”
“God, I’m sorry. I don’t want you to be, either.”
“So we need to stop seeing each other.”
“…At least until the season ends,” I add, grasping for a loophole.
He nods, but it’s not a promise. I’ll still have to convince him.
“All I have to do is play my ass off, get an early contract renegotiation—with a no-trade clause—and make myself indispensable to Brooklyn.”
He gives me a tired smile. “That’s all, huh?”
