Chapter 19

Luca

“I ’m here for you, Luca. Answer me. My dude. My bro. My homie—”

Fighting laughter, Asher slapped the back of Teddy’s head. “You’re basically sitting on his back, speaking into his ear and feeling up his arm. He knows you’re talking to him, Ted.”

“Oh, right, yes.” Teddy released my bicep, propped his elbow on his knee and rested his chin on his clenched fist. “Talk to me. Tell Uncle Teddy what’s wrong.”

“Us.” Asher added. “Tell us what’s wrong, ‘cause I’m here too.”

“Thanks, bud.” Raising my head, I tossed Ash a wink before burying my face back into my pillow, where it had been for the last few days when I wasn’t training, stretching or eating. “Honestly. I don’t know. Actually, I do know, I just don’t want to think or talk.”

“What about dance, ‘cause Taylor’s new vault tracks are banging, and I’ve several new routines I’ve been working on.” With an oomph, Teddy jumped to his feet and busted into some sort of hybrid worm-electric slide, a giant smile on his face as he moved.

“For fuck’s sake,” Asher muttered, once again fighting back chuckles as he sat beside me on the bed. “Just ignore him. He’ll wear himself out eventually. In the meantime, tell me what’s going on with this Polly.”

My eyebrows knotted together. Asher Kim had been a closed book for the majority of the time I’d known him, which was almost my whole life. I knew he’d changed, but talking about feelings was something we’d never done.

“This is weird right? You wanting to talk about … anything.”

“I know it’s weird coming from me, but Ted’s helped me open up and stuff. Take advantage while you can.”

With Teddy grooving in the background, I spewed my tale of woe, my hands mindlessly tapping against my thigh, my feet stretching out to avoid a cramp I’d been fighting since my morning run. “You remember what a manipulative ass Dad was? How he played Mom the fool for years? I hated him and what he did, but is that why I’m still so attracted to her when I know what she’s like?? Is there some fucked up biology at play here?”

A contemplative frown formed on Asher’s handsome face. “I don’t think attraction works that way. You can know or think you shouldn’t want someone, but your dick doesn’t always listen. Look at me and Disco Stu.” He pointed to Ted who was then attempting a moonwalk. “I tried to stay away from him, and I couldn’t. Even with all … that.”

Teddy’s ridiculousness failed to raise a smile. “That was different. You were trying to protect Ted, to do the right thing by the guy you loved. Polly is deliberately malicious. Did and still does horrible, horrible things to truly good people, yet I look at her, and I can’t breathe.”

On a scoff, Asher gripped my foot, bringing a halt to stop it’s insufferable shaking. “Luca, I don’t think you understand what a deliberately hurtful bastard I was, not just to Ted either. Years of pain and inadequacy had festered into pure assholeness I took out on everyone. Who knows? Maybe Polly’s the same.”

There had always been a haunting sadness, a vulnerability in Polly’s eyes, but still. “Is any type of pain an excuse to be that horrible?”

Ash released his grip of my ankle, pushed his hands into his thighs and stood. “It’s not an excuse. But it might be a reason.”

Asher’s pep talk got me up, out of bed and soaking up the sun, sand and surf. In some ways it helped. In many, many more it did not.

Everywhere I was, Polly was. At the beach. In the supermarket. Jogging past me in those tight black shorts and crop top on her way to Byron’s iconic lighthouse. Despite the seed Asher’s insightfulness planted, each time I saw her, distaste over her behavior bloomed. Her actions made me sick, but her body brought me to my knees. As Teddy put it, my conundrum was a right kerfuffle.

There was only one thing I was sure of. The mere idea of a road trip to the Gold Coast with three deliriously happy couples was nauseating. Especially after seeing what I had last night.

It was late, but also the first night of daylight savings. The sun had only just set over the ocean, a teasing breeze carrying its scent into our little beach home that was oddly peaceful after Teddy and Asher had gone into town.

Unable to rest in the. stillness, I let myself in the always open and unlocked front door of the main house, expecting a, ‘ Hey Mate. Wanna beer?’ to hit me in seconds. But I heard nothing. No children were squealing or crying. No laughter permeated the air. Not until I wandered deeper into the house, passing through the kitchen, its sink stacked high with dishes. Baby bottles bubbling away in the sterilizer. When I came to the base of the stairs, just by the laundry room, it hit me. The distinct sounds of pool-based tomfoolery. Perhaps the Austen-Myers crew were enjoying a late-night dip. I had the pool part right, just not the family.

Evie and Nate were alone, the fading light just strong enough to show their naked forms. I should have walked away, not edged closer step by step. She was on his lap. Her arms around his neck, as she ground up and down while he licked and sucked the tender flesh just below her ear. “Nate.”

Leave. I told myself. Leave right now. But I didn’t because fuck, they were so damn hot. Instead, I watched, picturing myself and Polly, palming my aching cock as Nate lovingly twisted his wife’s limp body in his arms, pressed a series of tender kisses down her spine, and lay her over the edge of the pool. While she writhed and whimpered beneath him, he entered her from behind in one solid thrust I felt in my zing from balls through to the tip of my leaking cock.

I listened to her short, sharp panted breaths. To his deep, rumbling, needy grunts, “Fuck, Gidge. Take me. Take all of me.” My hips pumped into my hand, my fingers tickling my balls till I came, and they took each other to a place I’d never been. To completion with the person they loved more than anything else, and who loved them back all the same.

Would I ever have that? Would I lick the salty sweat from the hard shoulder of my utterly spent wife? Probably not.

That’s why the next day, filled with shame and a fresh dose of self-pity, I came down with a severe case of self-diagnosed, absolutely faked food poisoning. I couldn’t bear to look them in the face, let alone endure the happiness of others, not when my own always felt just out of reach.

Nate kindly offered to stay behind and nurse me back to health with a diet of surfing, beer, and fish and chips, but I insisted he go with his family.

For the first time in a long time, I had the house to myself, and it was brilliant … for the first few hours. I strutted around in my boxers and rifled through Evie and Nate’s medicine cabinets, searching for the concoction that held the secret to their eternal glow. After my accidental voyeurism that wasn’t so accidental, perhaps I already had my answer, but I’d been desperate to do it since I set foot in the door.

Once nothing but everyday skincare and delicious smelling Banana shampoo was found, I turned to exercise. Completing my Pilates and weights session swallowed up another chunk of time, as did making myself some dinner and eating it while watching a Miracle on Ice for the seven hundredth time. Bedtime was when the boredom, then overthinking, then obsessing set in.

The social media break Doreen and Chris suggested following my wedding day had become a month-long ban after the injury before morphing into a complete lockdown after the bi story broke. But with an empty house devoid of the happiness I thought I needed to escape from, and Polly’s deeds and body consuming my every thought, I needed a distraction.

TikTok was it.

At first, I went nowhere near my profile, just skirting around the edges of the usual fare: cat and baby videos, hockey fights and trick shots that had me itching to strap on the skates, and, of course, thirsty fan edits. To my surprise, after everything that happened, there were still a ton—maybe even more than before.

A false sense of security wrapped over me like a fuzzy blanket. Still, I was cautious. Don’t read the comments. Don’t read the comments. I repeated it again and again for the first ten minutes, so of course, I was soon reading them all. As expected, gay jibes and insults, petty shit I wouldn’t even raise a brow over, were peppered throughout. What I wasn’t prepared for, though, were the supportive comments—hundreds on some posts, thousands on others—backing me up.

We love you.

Coming out is a choice. Not an obligation.

They had no right to shame you.

Come back Luca

You still make my heart flip.

It was … overwhelming. A touch of the old cocky arrogance snuck back in. But then … I saw it.

NY Islanders D-man Dallas Brookes expecting first child with live-in-lover, actor Clara Nightwing.

They were living in my house and Clara was pregnant. About five months, from what I could see. Doing the math, I figured she must have been about six weeks along on our wedding day. This must be why Ana asked if I’d heard from her.

Suddenly, our wedding day made sense. Maybe Clara dropped the news to Big Daddy the night before … during one of their late-night rendezvous. Perhaps that was the spark that ignited the fuse that fucked my world. Despite everything she’d done, knowing she was having a baby with him… killed me.

The months of accumulated self-abuse, catastrophizing, and woe-is-me-ing erupted. Tears poured down my cheeks. Dad’s cruel taunts, hockey boys don’t cry , echoed in the empty cavern that was my head. “Fuck off. I’m done with that shit.”

I let them fall.

Let them drip from my neck and pool in the sharp crevice of my collarbone. Struggling for each shattered breath, I staggered out of bed and flung open the window. My clenched fist met the fly screen, and my face followed its path, bursting through and gasping for air. I swallowed the cold night air like it was an elixir for my soul. And it was, because I could smell the sea, taste the salt, and hear the sharp crack waves crashing against the rocks, calling me.

For the second time in my life, I jumped through a second-story window and ran, not toward home this time, but toward the water, and I just kept running.