5. 5

5

Ant Decker

I wasn’t feeling the gym. I lifted a little, but I couldn’t find my stride. I have a sofa at home calling my name loudly, and I can’t wait to get out of here. It’s been a shit week, and I’m ready for it to be over. Ordinarily, I work out post-game to give the guys time to hit the showers and get out of my way, but I don’t have time for that shit tonight.

For personal reasons, I like to limit the amount of time I spend around my naked teammates. I don’t need to catch an eyeful of them on a regular basis. Sure, we’re a team, and some aren’t all that bad, but technically, they’re my colleagues. We work together. How would you feel about seeing your colleagues buck-naked on a regular basis?

Oh, you wouldn’t mind, would you? You little perv.

How about if you’re a closeted gay man who’d very much like to keep his private life private? Hmm? How about then ?

I realize the gravity of my mistake as soon as I walk into the locker room. Robbie McGuire has his back turned to the rest of us and is bent over at the waist, pulling his compression leggings off. He straightens slowly. Painstakingly slowly, each vertebra uncurling and locking together. There’s a deep line down his back. An indent glistening with sweat. His skin is tan, his back and legs a dusky old gold I wrongly assumed was from the overuse of a tanning bed or something equally vain. But no. The color of his back and legs blends seamlessly over the globes of his ass and into his crack.

He moves effortlessly, seemingly without a care in the world, bundling his personal belongings into his duffel bag and gathering his toiletry bag. Bodie says something to him. Evidently, it’s at least mildly amusing because McGuire half turns and releases a ripple of laughter that makes his ribcage contract. His lips peel back, showing a blinding line of white. A picture-perfect smile that carves an apostrophe into the cheek closest to me. He reaches back, tucking two fingers into one of the straps of his jock, tugging at it, adjusting it so it finds its way neatly into the semi-circular crease where his leg and ass meet. He does it while he’s talking to Bodie. As if it’s nothing. As if it’s perfectly legal to have an ass like that. As if it’s not in the least bit problematic to be standing in the middle of a room, cavalier as you fucking please, with a jock strap cutting fine lines into your flesh.

I sit at my station and get my phone out of my locker. I make a firm decision to keep my eyes on my screen and try to find something to cheer me up. I opt to call up stats from the game as they come in. Lately, they’ve been doing wonders for my mood.

It’s fine.

Whatever. It’s just one game.

My stats are still better overall for the season.

I turn my attention to various headlines popping up on hockey sites I frequent. The letters swim and come in and out of focus. Black-and-white shapes flash on the screen. Rich, sultry flesh tones flicker in front of me, jarring my brain.

Fucking McGuire won’t get out of my line of sight.

It’s too much skin.

Too much muscle.

At last he saunters over to the shower, toiletry bag dangling in hand, towel draped over one shoulder. He moves with the happy-go-lucky gait of a man who feels good about himself. A man who knows damn well his shoulders are broad as fuck and his hips unreasonably narrow. A man who knows that when he moves, shelves and dents form on his legs and his entire body radiates heat.

A man who I’m pretty sure knows something about me that I wish to God he didn’t.

Unlucky for him, I’m pretty sure I know something about him too.

I read the message from Luddy again and grit my teeth so hard the beginning of a headache bleeds into my temples.

Luddy: McGuire’s invited the team to his place for a housewarming tomorrow.

Luddy: I’m not saying you have to come, Decker. It’s up to you, but I think you should.

But I think you should? Who the hell is he kidding. That’s one hundred percent the same thing as telling me I have to come. It might even be worse.

I’m fuming by the time I pull up to McGuire’s house. I had to stop at two bottle stores to find the right bottle of wine—a 2016 Chateau Angelus Hommage a Elisabeth Bouchet. It cost me an arm and a leg, but I’m not walking into this housewarming thing empty-handed, and I can’t bring a crap bottle because people will notice. There will be a ton of eyes on me, and not just to make sure I don’t take a swing at the host. People will be poking their noses where they don’t belong, watching my every move to see how I interact with McGuire.

I hate this shit. I can’t believe I agreed to come.

Luddy has a lot to answer for, being so fucking nice all the time.

The house itself is a shock. It’s in Broadmoor, on Thickwood Drive, a well-established, tree-lined street littered with grand old houses. It’s less than ten minutes from where I live. Trees that haven’t yet lost the last of their leaves throw up a blaze of orange and red on either side of the road. It’s a nice street, but McGuire’s place is easily the worst house in a two-mile radius, if not more. It’s a colonial revival home with badly chipped paint, a roof that needs urgent attention, and a front porch that appears to be the home of at least one family of raccoons or opossums if the scratches on the timber decking are anything to go by.

I ring the bell and Bodie lets me in, pressing a beer into my hand before I step over the threshold. I smile and thank him, though I get the distinct impression the drink is meant to subdue me rather than quench my thirst.

The interior of the house is a little better. It has good bones but needs work. The entrance is papered floor-to-ceiling with intricate and dated floral wallpaper in shades of sickly yellow and blue.

The headache I thought I’d beaten yesterday returns with a vengeance.

The hallway leads to a formal dining room, a separate sitting room, and a large open-plan kitchen-living room. There’s a fire roaring in the living room, boxes stacked against one wall, and nary a stick of furniture in the room, save for four stools at the kitchen counter.

Kids, wives, and players alike are sitting in front of the fire on flattened empty boxes.

McGuire appears before me, drink in hand. He’s wearing a pair of baggy denim jeans that pool at his feet and hang so low on his hips they show the waistband of his boxers. White Calvin’s, in case you’re wondering. His T-shirt is long-sleeved and boxy, not cropped exactly, but shorter than anything I’d ever consider wearing in public. It hits the waistband of his underwear, just. It’s bone-white and textured like it’s made of hemp or something organic. The neckline is cut in a low V that goes all the way to his sternum, and he’s layered a couple of necklaces that look like they were bought on vacation in Bali around his neck.

He’s smiling like he knows he’s pretty and is pleased about it.

I want to go home.

I shouldn’t have come. I knew I didn’t want to be here. I should’ve just told Luddy no. It’s our day off, for God’s sake. It’s supposed to be a day of rest, not a day of let’s-see-how-high-we-can-get-our-blood-pressure.

McGuire acknowledges me with the faintest of nods and turns his attention to the gaggle of kids trailing behind him. One of them, Katz’s eldest, points to me and says, “Isn’t he your enemy?”

“Nah.” McGuire laughs, leaning down to whisper something into the kid’s ear. Something that sounds a lot like, “He’s my archrival” from where I’m standing. The kids burst into screeches of laughter and follow McGuire with the urgency of imprinted ducklings when he turns and heads to the kitchen.

Amber, Luddy’s wife, is in the kitchen chatting with a couple of the other wives. As soon as McGuire reaches them, a cacophony of “Robbie this” and “Robbie that” breaks out, all said in lilting tones usually reserved for rescue puppies .

Someone asks for a platter to hold a batch of chicken nuggets that are ready to come out of the oven, and that sends McGuire hunting through various boxes, cool as a fucking cucumber. He cuts boxes open, rifling through them, and then laughs and stacks them again when he comes up empty. I swear to God, I’d be tearing my hair out if I was entertaining and this was the state of my house. I find it stressful enough even with the help of an A-list interior decorator, a cleaning service, and a catering company. And here he is, having the time of his life, house crawling with people, without so much as a seat to offer them.

“Sorry,” he says when he’s unsuccessful in his quest to find a platter, “haven’t had time to unpack yet.”

No shit, Sherlock.

There’s a chorus of sad, sympathetic oohs and aahs .

“Kids!” says Amber. A bunch of them stop what they’re doing and look up. I don’t blame them. Amber has a kind smile and a no-nonsense set to her jaw. She’s a woman who has raised four children, all boys, all well-behaved, so you better believe she knows how to make people listen when she speaks. “Line up here. We’re going to unpack Robbie’s kitchen for him.”

In a matter of minutes, boxes are ripped open and goods are unpacked with the precision of a production line. McGuire looks on, shaking his head now and again in wonder. Within twenty minutes, the contents of the boxes labeled Kitchen have been neatly stowed away. A couple of players start collapsing boxes, but McGuire rescues a few and tapes five or six of them together with packaging tape. He scoops up the youngest kids and dumps them into the giant box he’s created, giving them some plastic cups and a couple of paper napkins to play with, and wouldn’t you know it, kids, mothers, and fathers alike act as if he’s just invented Christmas.

The doorbell rings. McGuire rubs his hands together and cries, “Food’s here!”

He disappears from view and returns with a mountain of pizza boxes and a couple of buckets of fried chicken under one arm.

Everyone cheers as though the idea of ordering greasy takeout when entertaining is the most novel thing they’ve ever personally encountered.

Fuck.

I hate it here.

When I’ve had a couple of slices and finished my drink, I take a wander through the rest of the ground floor of the house. I find a deserted alcove under the stairs so I stand there and collect myself. Some people might call what I’m doing skulking, and they’d be dead wrong.

But only because I hate the word skulking.

“You looking for something?” I know it’s McGuire without turning. His smooth, pleased-with-himself voice hits me at the base of my skull and activates a reaction that typically occurs in response to a perceived threat or attack.

Some people call it fight-flight-freeze.

For me, it’s fight-fight-fight.

I turn to face him. His hands are in his pockets and his shoulders are relaxed, but there’s a hard glint in his eye that he doesn’t usually let people see.

“You know you can afford furniture, right?” I ask to antagonize him.

He takes both hands out of his pockets, rubbing a forefinger and thumb together absently before dropping both hands to his side. “I do know that.” He pauses and smiles beatifically. A sweet smile almost catches me off guard. “Last time I checked, I out-earn you by twenty percent.”

My fury is instant. Zero to one hundred in under three seconds. I step forward, breathing hard and loud. He doesn’t flinch or step back. Instead, his right hand twitches, fingers curling tightly into his palm .

“You’re lucky there are wives and kids here,” he says, keeping his tone mild. “Otherwise, I might be tempted to give you the beating you richly deserve.”

He’d give me a beating?

Him?

He thinks he could take me?

Oh fucking fuck, my blood pressure just went through the roof. I know it. I can feel it—shortness of breath, headache, heart palpitations—I have all the symptoms.

I’m going to put this guy on his ass if he isn’t careful. I’m going plow my fist into this face. I’m going to mash my knuckles into those soft, full lips.

I’m going to split them open.

I’m going to watch him bleed.

I’m going to rip that stupid fucking hemp T-shirt down the middle.

Gonna drag it off his shoulders.

Gonna bite —

“Can I get you another drink?” McGuire raises a perfectly arched brow. A picture of faux innocence if I’ve ever seen one. His eyes are still full of menace. “You look a little parched.”

By the time I’ve recovered enough that I no longer pose an imminent threat to his life, “Pumped Up Kicks” by Foster The People is playing in the living room, and almost everyone in the house is on their feet, dancing like they’ve forgotten we’re a losing team, we’re adults, and this isn’t a fucking frat house.

McGuire is in the middle of the circle, hips loose, arms floating at his sides as he does an up-his-own-ass shuffle meant to be completely adorable. He’s biting his bottom lip, eyes closed, dancing like no one’s watching him when, really, he couldn’t possibly be more aware that every eye in the place is on him. And the worst is that every eye in the place is on him. Watching in wonder, almost in worship, as he moves.

Every eye but mine, that is.

When the song ends, McGuire works his way around the room, spending a minute or two with each person, regardless of gender or age, sprinkling a little attention on everyone to make sure they feel like the most special person here.

And let me tell you, they eat it up. Every single person.

Luddy spots me as I head for the door and stumbles over. He throws a heavy arm over my shoulder and pulls me close. His eyelids are heavy, and he looks more relaxed than I can recall seeing him in the past. I’ve known him for four years, and this is the first time I’ve seen him less than completely sober .

“I’m glad you came, Decker,” he says, face a little too close to mine. He pats me hard on the back and then looks suddenly somber. “And don’t worry, okay…don’t worry about anything. Errything’s going to be fine. You’ll see. It’ll be fiiiine ’cause—”

I cut him off there. I don’t need to hear the rest of the sentence. I know full well what he’s going to say.

Everything’s going to be fine…because Robbie McGuire is here.

Fuck that shit.

I’m out.

That’s quite enough peopling for me for one day, thank you very much.

I leave and breathe a sigh of relief when I get home and throw myself back onto my sofa. I’m about to chill my ass off. I’m not going to move for the next four or five hours. The only thing in existence is going to be me and my TV. A TV with an eighty-four-inch curved screen, which, by the way, I could easily afford because, contrary to what you may have heard, I earn sixteen percent less than McGuire, not twenty.

I flick through channels, looking for something mindless to numb my brain. I can’t find a thing.

Goddammit, I have that song stuck in my head now: “Pumped Up Kicks.”

Ugh .

McGuire looked so dumb when he was dancing to it.

He did this thing where he seemed to alter the space around him, like slow it, or bend it, or something. It was cringey. He does it all the time on his socials, not that I often check them, but he posts a lot so it’s hard to miss. The algorithm decides what it thinks you’ll like and shoves that shit down your throat whether you like it or not. There’s not much you can do about it.

He posts totally random snippets that are essentially just him doing something very normal with soft, emotive music playing in the background. He uses a filter that makes the video look grainy, almost vintage. He moves slowly, taking his time to pour his coffee and stir it or whatever basic task he’s filming himself doing. He builds the tension by not looking up, and when he’s sure he has the viewer frothing for more, he hits the camera with a blistering hazel gaze. He holds eye contact for a few seconds—that’s when he adds the slo-mo effect—and then he smiles. His lips curl into a perfect half-moon, the background around him growing increasingly hazy, and then he leans toward the camera and says something truly ridiculous like, “Life is beautiful,” and ends the video .

I think it’s meant to be an authentic glimpse into his world. I can all but hear his PR people saying, “It’s a way of connecting, Robbie, a way for you to show people who you really are,” but really, it’s a massive thirst trap.

I’d rather die than post shit like that.

The incredible thing is that people love it. They absolutely love it. He has twelve million followers on TikTok, and most of his videos get millions of views and thousands of comments. The shit people comment is off the hook.

I’d happily bear this man five sons (and I’m child-free by choice)

Call 911. My ovaries just exploded.

This boy put my menopause on pause.

You can do whatever you want with me, Robbie.

I love you, Robbie.

Check your DMs, Robbie. Please, I love you.

It’s like a car crash. You know you shouldn’t look. You know you’re going to regret it and feel a little queasy if you do, but you can’t help it. No matter what you do, no matter how much you reason with yourself, you can’t help but look.