Without another word, Nathan walked out the door, got into his car, and drove away. She stared out the window, hugging herself around her waist. It felt as though a chunk of her heart had been ripped out and had driven away with her husband.
She felt Jeremy move up behind her and tentatively settle his arms around her waist, crisscrossing them over her own arms. “I’m sorry, Rach. I can’t help but feel this is my fault. Nathan has been in a piss-poor mood since I came back. Maybe I should just leave and let you and Nathan get things back to normal.”
Panic welled up in her, and she clutched at his arms, even as she turned around to face him. This wasn’t exactly how she pictured telling him, but it was now or never. “Jer, I love you.”
Well, that was smooth. And the surprised look on his face didn’t exactly reassure her. Suddenly, the surprise morphed into the biggest grin she had ever seen grace Jeremy’s face. She just wished Nathan could be here to see it, too. Tears welled up in her eyes, and she felt them slipping down her cheeks, gathering speed.
Jeremy cupped her face with both his large palms and tilted her head up so he could kiss her. Instead of kissing her mouth though, he kissed her cheeks, thumbing away her tears as he went. “I love you, too,” he whispered, still stroking her face gently. “When we started this…thing between the three of us, I never expected to fall in love with you. The fact that you love me back blows my mind.”
“What about Nathan?” she asked, hating the tremulous quality she heard in her voice. She hated crying. It made her nose run and her eyes swell. But she really couldn’t fathom how this relationship was going to work if they didn’t get everything out in the open.
To her consternation, Jeremy’s grin simply grew wider. “It took me a long time to admit I could be attracted to another guy, but once I let myself acknowledge my feelings for Nathan, I realized I was in love with you both.”
Just like Dr. Seuss’s Grinch, Rachel’s heart expanded so quickly she was surprised it still fit in her chest. She laid her head on Jeremy’s shoulder and let him carry her back to the couch, where he sat with her in his lap. “Don’t worry about Nathan,” he soothed, rubbing her back. “He’ll come around.”
She nodded absently. “What if you or Nathan gets traded?” she asked, unable to keep her real fear inside. “I don’t think I could bear to live without either one of you.”
Leaning back against the couch, Jeremy began running his fingers through her hair, the expression on his face thoughtful. “I suppose that is an issue,” he conceded. “I guess we’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, why don’t we just bask in our glow and wait for Nathan to shit out whatever crawled up his ass.”
Despite her mood, Rachel couldn’t help the little giggle that slipped out. Jeremy flipped on the television and surfed through the channels until finally settling on some kind of science fiction show that soon drew her in. Commercials were for kissing, talking, and snack breaks. By the time the show was over, she was even more convinced she was deeply in love with him.
Finally, the conversation turned to shoptalk. She told him of the event with the Family and Children’s Services, and he told her about the latest video game he was working on. It turned out that the game, a point of view hockey game, was almost done. “I’m even thinking of pitching it to the major gaming companies.”
She loved the enthusiasm she heard in his voice when he spoke of his games. Nathan had told her of his conversation with Jeremy where the younger man had revealed that his ambition growing up was to be a software engineer instead of a hockey player. “What about hockey?” she asked.
Jeremy shrugged and smiled at her shyly. It was so damn adorable he was still shy when they’d admitted their love for each other. “Hockey is my job,” he said, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles. “I have goals for hockey, of course. But when my hockey career ends, I’m glad I have something to fall back on. I can’t imagine being thirty-five and retired permanently.”
Catching her lower lip between her teeth, Rachel tried to imagine Jeremy sitting around the house with nothing to do. It wasn’t something she could fully envision. The man was constantly doing something. And it was just like him to have goals for his hockey career. Curious, she twisted in his arms and looked up at him, giggling when her curls hit him in the face, forcing him to spit out some of her hair. “Tell me one goal you have for hockey.”
He blushed, but his eyes sparkled. “I want to get a hat trick. You know, scoring three goals in the same game.”
She did know what a hat trick was. She was married to a hockey player, after all, but she didn’t bother to mention it. Besides, it was one of the cutest things she had ever heard. “I’m sure you’ll achieve that in the near future,” she said, settling back against him.
Kissing the top of her head, he stood up and placed her gently on her feet. “Some players never get a hat trick,” he said with a half smile. “It’s just something I’ve always wanted to say I’ve done.”
He glanced at the clock on the DVD player and winced. “It’s getting late, and I still have to pack for our away string. You wanna come and keep me company?”
Rachel looked at the door once more, her thoughts suddenly drawn to Nathan. What was going on with him? Where was he going to spend the night? She knew he wouldn’t be spending it with another woman. Maybe he would crash at Johnston’s place. He’d always had a fondness for the odd goalie. She ached to pick up the phone and call him, to make sure he was taking care of himself, but he’d clearly needed some space.
“Come on, sweetheart, let’s go upstairs and get me ready to go. Nathan will come back when he’s ready. I’ll talk to him on the plane tomorrow, okay?” Jeremy tugged on her hand, drawing her to the stairs.
He was right. Nathan needed to work out whatever was going on in his head. She followed him up the stairs and into their bedroom. She laid out one of Jeremy’s suitcases on the bed and began folding clothes into it as Jeremy gathered up his toiletries from the bathroom.
She eyed the other suitcase that had been placed in the corner and hefted it up on the bed with a sigh. By now she knew exactly what Nathan like to pack for away games and she and Jeremy packed the bag quickly. “Will you get this to the airport for him?”
Jeremy nodded and carried both bags down the hall stairs, placing them next to the door.
By the time they were done, it was late enough to go to bed, and they spent the rest of the evening cuddling under the covers. As good as it felt to know that Jeremy loved her and Nathan, she couldn’t help but think of how perfect it would have been to have Nathan in bed with them.
* * * *
Nathan sat on the bench sullenly, spitting out his mouth guard and scowling down at the blade of his stick as if it was the reason he was playing so poorly. There were only thirty seconds left in the game, and they were losing miserably. Johnston sat next to him, swearing loudly in French. “What was the point of pulling me when we’re so damn far behind?” he muttered as the Bruins scored another goal on the Leaf’s empty net.
“Shut up, Johnston.” Nathan growled with frustration as the buzzer signaled the end of the game. It couldn’t have come soon enough for him. He watched Jeremy skate by on his way off the ice to talk to one of the coaches. He was so tired his eyes literally ached with the effort to keep them open.
He had spent the night on the goalie’s god-awful, lumpy couch. The bloody thing was a full half foot shorter than his own frame. All he could think about was the look on Rachel’s face when he’d left and how she would probably never forgive him for his tone of voice. That, and how proud he was of Jeremy for standing up for her.
Wiping the sweat out of his eyes, he trudged down the hall to their locker room and stripped off his equipment, letting it fall on the floor without a second thought. He dragged his sorry ass into the showers before anyone else had even removed all of their equipment and stood under the steaming water, hoping to wash away the guilt that was literally eating him alive.
A hard shove displaced him from the hot water, and he turned to see an irate Johnston now standing under the showerhead. “Shit, man. Get your head outta your ass. You let me steal your shower as easily as the Bruins stole the puck from you.”
“Fuck you,” Nathan shot back, getting right in the other man’s face. “I know you’re pissed that you broke your winning streak, but that’s your fault, sucker. You should have stopped at least three of those goals.”
Johnston shoved him again, harder than before. It was clear the normally easygoing goalie was more than just pissed. He was furious. “Don’t you blame this on me,” he said, poking Nathan in the chest with his index finger. “I seem to recall at least four goal opportunities that you missed. Can’t win if you don’t score some goals, fucker.”
“All right, all right,” Jeremy shouted as he strode in, completely naked, to separate them. “We all played crappy. It wasn’t any one person’s fault.” He placed his body between the two of them and crossed his arms over his chest. Thank god Nathan was too pissed for his body to react to Jeremy. The other guys might have dropped their odd looks and teasing over the gossip column in the last few weeks, but sporting a woody for Jeremy’s naked body might prove to be a little too weird.
Johnston was the first to back down, although he did turn into the shower that he’d just forced Nathan out of. “Geez, give a guy your couch for the night and he jumps down your throat.”
Nathan grabbed his stuff and made his way back into the locker room, ready to hear the coach’s lecture. As usual, it was full of curse words, and the vein in his temple was pounding at top speed. He sat in his towel, feeling more and more miserable as time went on and then feeling more and more ashamed at his behavior. He had never wallowed in self-pity before. He’d never had any use for it, and besides, he hadn’t gotten to where he was now because he’d let himself get dragged down by negative emotions.
It was time he fessed up to Jeremy and Rachel and take what was coming like a man.
By the time the coach had run out of curse words, and consequently air, Nathan was ready to just head to the hotel and fall asleep. The others swarmed around, getting ready to go, while he just sat there, trying to dredge up the energy to get dressed.
A fist connected with his left shoulder, not hard, but enough to get his attention. He looked over to see Johnston standing there with a hangdog expression on his face. “Sorry I got in your face, Vaughan. I just hate that I played so poorly.”
Nathan could understand the feeling. “Yeah, me, too. Thanks for letting me crash at your place last night.”
“No problem, bud.” The goalie nodded in the opposite direction and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I think your boy’s waiting on you. Don’t hold up the bus, dude. We all just want to get to the hotel and bask in our glorious loss. Do you think if I acted all bummed out I could find a good lay?”
“Get out of here, Johnston.”
He pulled himself up and dressed quickly, discarding the clammy towel in the laundry hamper as he went. “You ready, Jer?”
Jeremy nodded, a strangely curious look on his face, and they walked together to the bus. The entire team was already on the bus, and the ride to the hotel was a silent and somber one. They hadn’t lost by such a large margin in weeks. From the looks on everyone else’s faces, the whole team was ready to just go to bed and forget this last game.
The bus pulled up to the hotel, and the team filed off to the jeers of Boston fans. At least their security kept off any crazies, although it looked like these fans were the type to heckle rather than do anything physical.
Nathan swiped his key card through the lock on his door and paused, checking to see if Jeremy was still behind him. The man was still there, a small frown pulling down the corners of his mouth. He stepped aside to let Jeremy in and then followed him into the room, closing the door quietly behind him. With nothing better to do, he collapsed on the bed and flung one arm over his eyes.
The mattress dipped next to him, and Nathan felt a rough palm stroke gently over his bicep. “You okay? You look exhausted.”
He dropped his arm but stayed where he was. He couldn’t even dig up the motivation to pull off his clothes and slide under the covers. “M’fine,” he replied. “Johnston’s couch really sucks ass though. Didn’t sleep worth shit last night.”
“Because of the couch?” Jeremy asked in a knowing voice. He didn’t sound upset at all. In fact, though he had been quiet, Jeremy had been much more relaxed since last night, and despite their loss tonight, he seemed happier than Nathan had ever seen him.
“Well, the couch was only part of the reason. Really, I couldn’t sleep because of how I left things with you and Rachel. God, I’ve never seen her so hurt before.” Nathan shook his head at the memory and felt the shame at his behavior swell again. With a heavy heart, Nathan managed to take off his clothes without actually getting off the bed.
Jeremy laid down on the bed next to him, cuddling up to his side, his naked body warm and comforting. “She’s all right. She knows something is going on with you. I think it hurts her more that she can’t help you. She’s a trooper, our Rachel.”
Our Rachel. That was exactly right. Somewhere along the line, Rachel had ceased to be solely his and had become theirs. Oddly enough, that revelation didn’t fill him with fury. Jeremy’s shaggy brown hair tickled his chin as he snuggled closer. “You wanna tell me what’s really going on?”
Reaching over Jeremy’s body, Nathan clicked off the bedside lamp and plunged the room into darkness. For some reason, the pitch black of the room made it easier to confess his feelings, almost like if he didn’t have to see the censure in Jeremy’s eyes, it would be all right. “I broke a promise to Rachel.”
Jeremy began nuzzling his nose into Nathan’s chest, almost as if he was trying to soothe him. “Tell me,” Jeremy invited. And that was really what it was. An invitation to unload his burden, to pour out his heart.
Clearing his throat nervously, Nathan decided to take Jeremy up on that invitation. “When we got married, I promised I would love only her for the rest of my life. It was a vow I made, and I never thought I would break it.”