1. BILSON

ONE

BILSON

“A-are you … crying?” Aleksander Emerson asks beside me. He’s one of the best teammates ever, and it’s a shame he’s not going to be there for me this season. In a weak moment, I decided it was time to leave Seattle once and for all, and as a free agent, I was shopped around to any team interested.

Nashville, here I come.

But that’s not why I’m crying.

“Is it because you’re not up there getting married?” Aleks whispers. “You know, not every wedding in Washington State has to be yours.”

“It’s so beautiful,” I say.

Our linemate Dennan Katz stands at an altar, watching the love of his life as she walks down the aisle in all white.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Aleks says. “You don’t need a fifth divorce.”

Amen. Hence the wanting to get far, far away from Seattle. There are too many exes here, and when you have four ex-wives and countless former girlfriends, you realize Seattle is actually really, really, really small. Minuscule.

The reason I ended up signing with Nashville is because it was the team the farthest away from all my exes that was willing to offer me a good deal. Nashville needs help on their offensive lines, and I had one of the highest assist records in the league last season.

Moving to a new team isn’t ideal—Emerson, Katz, and I helped take Seattle to the championship game this past year—but I need out.

“What can I say? I love love.” Even with the number of exes I have, I still believe in love. For some unknown reason.

Love has ripped out my heart and put it in a blender countless times. It’s as if my perpetual broken heart sees everyone I date as the one, and then I get so wrapped up in the possibility of finally finding true love that I ignore all the red flags telling me this isn’t my person.

It’s a real problem.

Which is why, since my last breakup, I’ve sworn off relationships. Which also means I’ve sworn off sex. Because I know me, and my pathetic neediness reads into every sexual encounter I have.

A therapist would say—and has said—that my need to be loved stems from a childhood of being neglected by my parents. I grew up as a privileged kid, but as my parents always liked to remind me, the only reason I was able to have the opportunities I had was because they worked. All. The. Time.

I barely saw them, they weren’t affectionate, and they were such assholes to everyone around them, none of the nannies or housekeepers or butlers they hired stuck around long enough for me to get close to them.

It sounds like a whole lot of rich people problems, and I guess it is, but that doesn’t mean the emotional scars are any less traumatic.

So, new state, new team, new town, new me. It worked for Aleks. He moved from San Jose to Seattle and found Gabe. It could work for me too. I could find my Gabbie. You know, as long as I deal with all my baggage first.

I might crave love, but at this point in my life, I need to sort my shit out. I’m in my thirties now. Time to be a put-together human and all that other crap.

When Dennan and his new wife, Krystal, seal the marriage with a kiss, everyone cheers and whistles. I just watch them like a creeper because what they have, that spark in her eyes when she pulls back, the smile on his lips …

I sigh.

Aleks nudges my side. “I’ll hand it to you, man. You haven’t let any of your marriages make you bitter. One failed marriage was enough to turn me off for life.”

“As if you and Gabe aren’t practically married.”

Aleks came out as pan after his marriage to his high school sweetheart fell apart, and his first season playing with Seattle, he fell for a firefighter. Who then introduced me to his coworker Rina. She was my most recent ex and the person who made me realize something.

With all my failed relationships, the common denominator is me.

Since that breakup, I’ve been hanging out with Aleks and his Collective friends that consist of all the queer dudes in the league. It’s safe there. No women.

“Is it drinking time yet?” Gabe asks from the other side of Aleks. “I swear you’ve dragged me to five different weddings this summer.”

“That’s what happens with hockey players,” I say. “Marriage and babies all take a back seat to the game. Once hockey season finishes, NHL wedding season begins.”

Aleks taps my shoulder. “And this time, you weren’t one of them. That’s growth.”

I’m not going to tell him that if she hadn’t gotten scared off at the mere mention of living together so soon in our relationship, Rina could very well have been the next Mrs. Bilson. Thank fuck she has a good head on her shoulders and decided I’m too much work.

I know I am. I also know if I don’t get my head out of the clouds and work on myself that I will never find what I’m looking for.

She’d told me when she broke up with me that love is like the fires she puts out. For it to grow and flourish, you need to stoke it and give it oxygen. Suffocating it will extinguish the flame.

She’d explained in one simple analogy why none of my relationships have worked out.

So, I’m working on me now. Can’t say that it’s easy or that I haven’t checked out at least four different women at this wedding, Krystal’s bridesmaids being two of them.

It’s a sickness that I’m so damn desperate, but I’m trying here.

“Remember the wedding rule?” I ask Aleks and Gabe.

“Don’t let you talk to any women,” Aleks says. “How could we forget?”

“Yay,” Gabe deadpans. “Another wedding where we get to babysit a grown-ass manwhore.”

“Is that really any different than spending time with any of the guys in the Collective?” Aleks asks. “The only difference is with them, you have to keep them from getting drunk and setting each other on fire.”

“Fair point. Distracting Bilson with something shiny is much easier than trying to control that lot.”

I cut in. “I know you’re trying to offend me, but it’s hard to be upset when it’s the truth.”

Gabe laughs. “I’m actually going to miss you, Cody.”

I hold my heart. “Aww, for that, you can call me what everyone else on the team does.”

“Ross Gellar?” Gabe asks.

I gasp. “Is that really what y’all call me behind my back?”

“No. Gabe’s being an ornery asshole.”

“You love my ornery asshole,” Gabe argues.

Queer dudes talk about assholes a lot, I’ve noticed.

“Bilson. You can call me Bilson,” I say before they start talking about all the gay sex they’re going to have later. It doesn’t bother me like it would with some other guys in the league, but I’m so hard up from refraining from sex that even thinking about it would make me horny. Gay sex, straight sex, any form of sex.

Urg. It’s already happening.

“I can’t break my celibacy streak. Don’t let me.”

Aleks snorts. “You say that like a couple of months is long.”

“It is!”

Aleks throws his arm around me. “It’s official. You can’t move to Tennessee. Who’s going to keep you from having sex there?”

I freeze because of course I haven’t thought of that.

“I think you broke him,” Gabe snarks.

“Maybe you could ask your new bestie, Miles Olsen,” Aleks says, knowing that’s the last thing I’ll be doing.

Miles Olsen is a cocky little dude-bro, who has ridden the goalie bench for Nashville or played in the AHL for most of his career. Until Czuchry kept playing on an injury and fucked his knee up for good. It was announced at the end of the season that he was retiring, and word has it that Miles will be taking over. So, this green rookie with a whole frat boy vibe will be my next goalie.

The man on my team all of us have to protect above any other on the ice.

I have nothing against the guy other than the way he’d smile at me after saving any shot on goal I’d try to get past him. There are some goalies that are easy to read on the ice, ones that you love going up against because you know how to score on them, but Miles is one that is impossible for me to penetrate.

At least I won’t have to worry about that now we’re on the same team.

Dennan and Krystal walk back down the aisle together, holding hands and hugging the guests seated at the edge as they congratulate them.

I’m so happy for my friend. “I don’t think I’ve ever been to a wedding before where I didn’t doubt the outcome. Look how in love they are.”

Aleks squeezes my shoulder, but it’s not in a playful way this time. “I think you’re forgetting that marriage is more than the wedding. Anyone can fall out of love if they don’t work at it.”

I turn to him. “Are you saying I didn’t work at any of my marriages?”

“No.”

“Because all I did was work at them.” Want them to stay. Stop them from leaving me.

“I know. But both parties need to put in the work.”

“Please don’t let me get stupid tonight.”

“I got you.”

“I thoughtyou said he’d be easier to handle than the Collective,” Gabe says from somewhere. “We turn our backs to go get off in the bathroom, and here he is, wasted off his face.”

“I asked Gallagher to watch me while you were gone, and his idea of watch was to make me take shots. He said if I have alcohol in my mouth, I won’t have room for some rando’s tongue.”

Aleks and Gabe look at each other with a defeated “he has a point” look.

“And I’m not that drunk.”

“When we found you, you were hitting on one of the decorative ficuses,” Aleks says.

“Gallagher said I should get all my flirting out on an inanimate object so I don’t accidentally fall into a vagina.”

Gabe presses his lips together like he’s trying not to laugh.

“You’re a lost cause,” Aleks says and brings me into his side.

I must’ve been swaying or something because I feel steady in his arms. My head falls so it’s on his shoulder, and with his big arm holding me up, it’s the first time in a long time I’ve felt … stable? Like I’m not going to jump out of my skin?

I want to hold on to that feeling, but it doesn’t last.

“Should I get you two a room or …?” Gabe asks.

I flip him off. “You get him all the time. Just let me use him as a standing post this once.”

“Have fun with that, babe. I’m going to go get some cake.” Gabe walks away, and Aleks calls after him.

“You’re leaving me with him?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll have a piece for both of you too!”

“Your boyfriend is mean,” I mutter.

“He is. But he wasn’t lying when he said he’d miss you. So will I.”

I lift my head. “You will?”

He nods. “You and Katz accepted me on your line, as your friend, no questions asked. When I started dating Gabe, you guys didn’t blink an eye.”

“Love is love, man.”

He smiles. “You’re an awesome friend. That’s all I’m saying. And I’m really sorry your life isn’t going the way you wanted it to.”

“Nashville will be different.” But even as I say the words, I have to ask, will it though?

Dennan appears out of nowhere, squishing all three of us together. “Group hug.”

I push him off us. “You have a wife to cling to. Aleks is mine.”

“And what does Gabe think of that?”

“I find it hilarious.” Oh, Gabe’s back. He shoves a fork full of frosting into his mouth.

Krystal steps up next to Dennan. “Dennan is going to miss you this season, Cody.”

“Duh. Everyone will miss me. That’s the point.”

I’m either too drunk and am seeing things, but it looks like they all roll their eyes at me. That can’t be right. I speak the truth.

“He even asked me to introduce my sister to you in the hopes you’d stay,” Krystal says.

“Sister? You have a sister?” I perk up.

Aleks clears his throat. Oh. Right. Celibacy and all that jazz.

“No, thank you. I’m good. I have my hand. And Aleks and Gabe.”

Gabe face-palms. “You have to hear how that sounds.”

“How what sounds? I don’t need a girlfriend to be happy when I can make myself happy. And when that doesn’t work, I have you guys.”

Everyone laughs, and that’s when I do hear it.

“I mean to stop me from doing something stupid, not … for that. They have each other for that. I have …”

“Your hand?” Krystal asks, her eyes still shining at Dennan.

I clear my throat. “Yes. That. Exactly that.”

“So, you don’t want to meet my sister?” She glances over at her bridesmaids, and fuck, it’s tempting. So tempting. Especially with me leaving. It would be the clean break I’d need. I could get off and forget about her tomorrow.

Only … that’s not me. Knowing me and my past history, I would probably fall in love with her, cancel my contract with Nashville, screw my career up, and it wouldn’t work out anyway.

“No. I’m good on my own.”

Now, if I could just get myself to believe that.