12. Christian

Christian

Unfortunately, while Theo and I did manage to spend a lot of time together, we couldn't spend every night that way, and not just because hockey was demanding.

Once a month, as long as the Rainiers were in town—and weekly during the off season—my parents expected my sister, her husband, and me at the house for dinner. I would've loved to be conveniently unavailable or just not bother answering my phone, but seeing us on a weekly basis made my mom happy. Sometimes I thought it was one of the only things that made her happy.

For that reason alone, I dutifully took my usual seat at my parents' ornate dining room table tonight.

I had to bite back a laugh as I sat down. It wasn't the first time I'd been at this table while I could still feel the sex I'd had the previous night or earlier in the same day, though that hadn't happened in a while. It was, however, the first time the man who'd ridden me into oblivion had been on my father's payroll.

All through grace, I fought the chuckle that desperately wanted to bubble up. I'd stayed at Theo's place last night. We'd started the day with some coffee, followed by some lazy sixty-nining while we waited for the DoorDasher to drop off our breakfast. It was as decadent as it was forbidden.

And my dad didn't have a clue.

That wasn't to say I was involved with Theo to rebel against my dad. I wanted Theo. I wanted his body against mine as often as possible, and I just… wanted to be around him. I liked him. It was still way too soon to know if this would be friends with benefits and nothing more, or if there might be something else here. I was happy either way. If we didn't end up dating, then I hoped we ended up being actual friends in addition to those benefits, because he seemed like a really good guy.

So, no. I hadn't spent last night or any other with Theo as a fuck-you to my father.

But I'd have been lying if I said that fuck-you didn't exist and wasn't satisfying as all hell. He hated it when I had boyfriends. He hated being reminded that I was queer, as if anyone could ignore it once I opened my mouth. If he found out I was dating a player from his club? Ooh, he'd be livid.

If he found out that player was the one who'd defied him with the Pride Tape?

Yeah, like I said, the fuck-you was definitely satisfying.

"So." My father peered at Aiden, who sat across from me beside my sister. "How is the job search going?"

Aiden chewed as if the chicken my mother had prepared was tough and overcooked. It wasn't. I suspected he was just trying to hold back all the things he wished he could say to his father-in-law. For a moment, he stared at his plate. Then he cut his eyes toward my dad and managed to keep his tone even as he said, "I have some promising leads."

"Good." Dad smiled that smile that made everyone in the locker room twitchy with nerves. "Well, if you need a reference…"

Most people would follow that with "Let me know" or "Hit me up." Dad just left it vague, and I didn't imagine I was the only one in the room who could infer what he'd left unsaid.

"Use me for a reference, Aiden. I dare you."

Aiden smiled tightly, offered thanks, and then shifted the conversation to compliment my mom's cooking and ask if she minded sharing the recipe. "How did you get the sauce to thicken up? Last time I tried to make one like this, I followed all the instructions, but it still came out all watery."

That had me grinning behind my wineglass. Aiden was good at not directly antagonizing my father, but he knew which buttons to passive-aggressively push. Dad hated when we talked about Mom's cooking. He especially hated when anyone other than him was being asked for their advice or expertise. For all Dad had been an excellent hockey player and was (for the most part) a genius general manager, there wasn't much else he was good at. He despised when there was a discussion he couldn't contribute to or couldn't dominate by being the expert in the room.

Maybe Dad had fired Aiden and derailed his career, but he couldn't hold a candle to Aiden's or Mom's skill in the kitchen.

It was also annoying, this dining room power struggle. I'd heard that most families had normal conversations over dinner instead of pissing matches, but I don't know. That sounded fake to me. This was all I'd ever known. Hell, I'd been out of my element the first time the Rainiers had invited me to join them for dinner. There was shit-talking and chirping, of course—that came with the territory of being around hockey players—but it was all good-natured. Nothing was barbed. No compliments were backhanded. No one was being criticized for real. It was just… fun and relaxed, with everyone talking about whatever and no one taking over the conversation.

This? Dad trying to domineer while the rest of us found ways to subtly subvert him and antagonize him? It wasn't normal, but it was my normal, and I still found it exhausting.

I was honestly surprised Aiden didn't bow out of these dinners more often. Once in a while, he was hung up working on one of his occasional freelance gigs, but most of the time, he showed up with my sister. He never looked happy about it, and if looks could kill, my dad would've been in the ground a long time ago.

I didn't think Chelsea browbeat him into coming. Knowing her, she insisted she could go alone. Was it pride that kept him showing up, week after week? A refusal to let Dad think he'd won somehow? Masochism, maybe? I had no idea, but here he was, looking as miserable as ever in the same room as my parents.

My mother was in mid-sentence, explaining how she'd tweaked the recipe to make the sauce a little sweeter, when Dad said, "Christian, I understand there were some issues with a shipment or jerseys from the manufacturer." He stabbed a piece of chicken. "What was that about?"

"Uh…" I glanced at my mom and brother-in-law. They both subtly shook their heads and focused on their food. Chelsea met my gaze and shrugged. It wasn't like they didn't know this game, or that they thought there was any point in pushing back. Better to just play along so we could all get through dinner and get the hell out of here. I cleared my throat, absently dragging a green bean through the sauce in question. "Just, um… The ones for Military Night, yeah. There were a few seams that weren't done right." I gestured dismissively with my fork. "Marty and I fixed them just in case the replacements don't come in time."

"What do you mean, if they don't come in time?" he growled.

"The manufacturer is expediting them," I said. "They'll go out today—tomorrow at the latest—via express shipping, but they're coming from Canada, so we needed a contingency in case they get hung up in customs."

"I see." He picked up his wineglass. "And why did it take until yesterday for this problem to come to my attention?"

It didn't even make me panic anymore when I could tell Dad was sniffing around for a reason to make something my fault. I was so used to that from my childhood that it hadn't been a surprise when he started doing it as my boss. After one season of that bullshit, it barely registered anymore beyond mentally acknowledging that's what he was doing.

Soopredictable.

I sipped my own wine. "The jerseys came in yesterday afternoon. Marty and I found the problem right away, and we prioritized contacting the manufacturer and figuring out if we could fix the jerseys we had in hand." I half-shrugged. "Once we had the situation under control, I emailed you and Bruce to keep everyone in the loop."

"I need to be notified about situations like this," he snapped. "I need to be notified immediately. Not after you've crossed off items on your to-do list. Is that clear?"

A few years ago, I'd have been sweating bullets, knowing I was in a no-win situation. If I notified him immediately without first addressing the issue directly, then I'd get chewed out for bringing him problems and not solutions. When I notified him after we'd figured out and implemented a solution, then I was leaving him out of the loop and only telling him as an afterthought.

"I can't win!"younger me would be saying. "There is literally no way for me to win!"

Older and wiser me understood how true that was, and I'd saved myself a lot of stress by simply accepting that, no, there was no way for me to win. These days, I just resolved the situation as efficiently and effectively as possible, and then let Dad rant, rave, and threaten me over not running to him the moment I discovered the problem. Yawn.

I took another drink of wine and let myself sound bored as I told him, "I'll let you know next time."

"There had better not be a next time," he growled. "Or that manufacturer can pound sand."

It was a struggle not to laugh. Especially when Aiden—who'd worked for the club long enough to know how things ran—pressed his lips together to fight back his own amusement.

Sure, Dad. Sure. You're going to fire the jersey manufacturer. The one with the ten-year, multimillion dollar exclusive contract with the NAPH. Good luck with that.

Dinner mercifully didn't last much longer. Mom's desserts were always blessedly simple and small, so they hit the table just a few minutes after the dinner dishes were cleared away and they didn't take long to eat. I was pretty sure that was by design, too.

Chelsea and Aiden left shortly after dessert. It was my turn to linger and help Mom clean the kitchen, and no, my sister and I absolutely did not have a standing agreement to take turns being the one who had to stick around. Never. Not at all.

Of course we were both—along with Aiden—more than happy to help Mom with the post-dinner cleanup. We never wanted to bail on her. The issue was my dad, and who got to get the hell away from him first.

The one upshot was that Dad didn't do kitchen cleanup. It always ended up being time we got to spend with Mom, chatting about whatever while we scrubbed pots and pans.

"We have a dishwasher, Beth," Dad always snidely reminded her. "You don't need to wash them by hand."

"It's fine," she'd tell him. "I don't like putting my good dishes in the dishwasher."

Sometimes I thought she used the fine china on family dinner nights specifically so she'd have a reason to wash them by hand. That meant time with whichever sibling stayed behind, and a good twenty minutes or more without my dad.

God, we were dysfunctional.

I was elbow deep in soapy water when my mom asked, "How is work going?"

Again, lines I could read between: "How are you holding up working for your father?"

I shrugged, focusing intently on scrubbing a plate that was already spotless. "I like what I do."

She sighed as she dried a large pan with a dishtowel. "I'd miss you if you moved away, but I won't be upset if you decide to go work for another team."

I swallowed hard. "I like it here. I don't want to leave Seattle." I glanced at her. "And ninety percent of the time, I'm working with everyone but him. It's really not that bad."

Her forehead creased in that way that said she knew I was lying and she wondered why I bothered.

I pushed out a breath and put the plate aside so I could start on another. I wasn't actually lying. Everything I'd said was true… except the part about "it's really not that bad." Because… it was that bad. I always tried to gaslight myself into believing it wasn't but who was I kidding?

The thing was, when I was in the zone and focused on the gear and the game, I loved it. That was my happy place. The problem was that I always knew Dad was watching. During games, he was in the owners' box with a bird's eye view of the bench. At the practice rink, he was always lurking somewhere nearby. In the locker room, he could come storming in at any moment to throw a shitfit about whatever had his panties in a wad.

Yeah, I'd learned to live with it, but I was lying if I said it didn't stress me out.

Or that it didn't stress me out more now that I was screwing one of the Rainiers.

I swallowed the bile rising in the back of my throat. I wondered if Theo understood just how attractive he was. How strong his magnetism was if he'd drawn me to him despite my fear of my dad's wrath. Because whether I wanted to admit it out loud or not, I was afraid of my dad. I was afraid of what he could do to me professionally. How he could humiliate me in front of the staff and the players.

It wasn't that bad? Bullshit it wasn't.

But I did like my job.

And I did like the man who'd curled against me this morning while I was still half-asleep. Enough to risk both of our careers? Fuck. Now I was having second thoughts.

My mother was still waiting for an answer, though, so I cleared my throat as I put aside another plate. "It's stressful. It is. But… I really do love my job."

"You could love it on another team," Mom said softly, as if she didn't want her voice to carry to wherever Dad was. "I just don't want you to be miserable."

"I'm…" I couldn't say I wasn't. Not entirely. "I'll put out some feelers during the off season." Was I lying? I didn't even know.

"Okay. Just… don't feel like you have to stay there if you're unhappy."

I met her gaze. I wanted so, so bad to tell her that the same applied to her.

We'd had that conversation before, though, and all it ever accomplished was upsetting her. I knew where she stood and why. I knew why she didn't leave. Maybe that was why she was so adamant about me looking elsewhere—I had choices that she didn't, and she wanted me to use them.

Maybe I would.

But it wouldn't be tonight.

Eventually, we finished up the dishes, and we chatted in the kitchen for a little while before I had to head out. There was practice tomorrow, after all, and the day started early.

I was almost home free—in the foyer with my car keys in hand—when Dad appeared.

"Christian." He beckoned. "Before you go…"

My throat constricted. This probably wasn't good. Though I didn't want to, I pocketed my keys and followed Dad out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into his office. There, he closed the door, which was also a bad sign.

I stood there silently and waited. He had something to say, which meant I needed to let him start the conversation. Lesson learned the hard way.

After a painfully long silence, he finally did so. "I just want to make sure we're on the same page." He folded his arms and leaned against his desk, giving me that pointed look that said I needed to be reading between the lines.

"Um." I swallowed. "The same page about… what?"

He gave an annoyed little sigh, apparently frustrated that, at the age of thirty-one, I had still rudely refused to develop the ability to read his mind. "On the job, you're my employee. You understand that, correct?"

Okay, those lines I could read between:

When we're at work, you're my underling—not my son.

Gritting my teeth, I nodded. "Of course. I'm just like any other member of the staff." To a point, I was fine with that. I hated when people thought I only had my job because of nepotism. And like, yeah, being the GM's son had definitely given me a step up when getting the job. I knew that. But the respect I'd earned? My status as the head equipment manager? Those had nothing to do with my dad and everything to do with how I did my job. I believed firmly that I should be treated like any other employee, not the son of the general manager.

I wasn't stupid, though—when Dad reminded me of my place, he thought I was a step or three beneath everyone else on the payroll. I had to toe the line more than anyone. Bow and scrape so Dad knew I was grateful for the position he'd bestowed upon me through benevolence and pity.

"Because you're my son," he went on, "you and I are both under a lot of extra scrutiny. People don't like nepotism and favoritism, after all."

The only thing that kept a sarcastic laugh from escaping was how unnerved I was by this line of conversation, not to mention how irritated I was by it. "I know. I've known that from the beginning."

"Right. So I would suggest you keep that in mind going forward. Don't let this jersey nonsense happen again. You find out there's a problem, you let me know immediately. Am I clear?"

I gritted my teeth. For as much as we were supposed to be speaking as boss-employee right now, I had the distinct impression he was envisioning me as a seven-year-old who hadn't done his chores.

"It won't happen again," I said blandly.

We locked eyes. I couldn't read his expression, but somewhere deep in my gut, a cold ball of lead started to swell.

Dad despised being crossed. He was this pissy over me not reading him in about the jersey debacle, and he'd have been equally pissy if I'd come to him before I'd had a solution. There was no winning with him.

The thing that suddenly worried me was the card I wasn't showing him. The one that was fun to play in the moment, but suddenly seemed like a reckless gamble when I was standing in his angry crosshairs.

What if he found out about me and Theo?

He already had his finger on the trigger, ready to send Theo back down, fire me, or both at the slightest provocation. He was just waiting for a reason to pull it.

Shiiit.

Fortunately, Dad was apparently satisfied he'd made his point, and he dismissed me. I got the hell out of that house like it was a fire, hurrying down the front steps to my car, which was parked in front of their six-car garage.

Sitting down to dinner with my body still aching from sex with Theo had been a rebellious little fuck-you to my dad. Sitting here now in my idling car in front of my parents' house, I felt sick.

Theo and I both knew what we were risking if we kept sleeping together. The professional consequences would not be minor for either of us, and I didn't imagine we'd have anyone on our side. No one had pushed back against Dad for canceling Pride Night. No one except for Theo, and then the other players who'd put on the rainbow tape after him.

The owners? The president of hockey operations? The league? The players' association? Nada.

So there was no way we could count on anyone to have our backs if Dad found out that Theo and I were hooking up. Or dating. Whatever the hell we were doing. The players who'd been supportive enough to put on the tape and who were protective of me when we went out to bars weren't necessarily going to like the idea of me screwing one of their teammates. That was how it worked with allies sometimes. They were supportive—even vocally so—right up until something made them uncomfortable. Then all that support was gone so fast, I wondered if it was ever there at all.

We couldn't bank on any support. We could probably bet on some serious backlash, though.

No matter how I sliced it, this thing we were doing—it was a really, really bad idea.

I pulled up his contact and started writing out a text.

Christian: Listen, I'm sorry. This has been super fun and hot, but the more I think about it… I just can't put either of our jobs on the line like this. Let's just call this a fling and stop before we get caught.

For long minutes, I stared at the message, my thumb hovering over the Send button. This was the right thing to do. Really the only thing to do if either of us valued our careers, which we did. We weren't in so deep that there'd be hurt feelings or resentment. Disappointment, sure, but it wasn't like we'd started getting emotionally involved with each other.

I chewed my lip, still reading and rereading the words I'd written.

I had to do this. I needed to. For his sake and mine. It sucked that my dad had that much power over me—over us—but it wasn't like I could change that reality. If Dad found out and decided to derail Theo's career and fire me, the people above him didn't have enough backbone between them to overrule him. And hell, they'd probably support the decision.

So why can't I send this damn message?

Because Theo deserves to hear it in person.

Ah. That was it.

I deleted the message and tossed my phone onto the passenger seat. As I backed out of my parents' driveway, I reassured myself that was the problem. We needed to talk about this face to face. That way there'd be no misunderstandings or mixed messages. Nothing lost in the translation.

Tomorrow, I'd look him in the eye and tell him everything I'd written, and then we could move on with our careers intact.

And I spent my entire drive home trying to make myself believe that.