Page 89 of Playing His Game

“You’re minus-two for the trip.”

“Plus-minus is a stupid stat.”

“You declined a call from your mom.”

God damn it. “What do you want me to say?” Adam huffed, exasperated. “Taking someone home to meet the parents is stressful. And I’ve basically been on the road since we got back.”

He clamped his mouth shut. He shouldn’t have said even that much.

“Ohhh.” Jorts nodded as though Adam had revealed the secrets of the universe. “You’re a little backed up. I get it. Makes me testy too.”

For fuck’s sake.Of course Jorts would zero in on the exact opposite of the problem. Adam groaned. “Please don’t talk to me about your testes.”

Fortunately for Adam, the flight was mostly over. They landed, and he escaped to his car, hoping to leave the discussion in his rearview.

But while he might have evaded Jorts, he couldn’t avoid himself. Wherever he went, there he was.

More glaringly, there Mo wasn’t.

Not next to Adam in the car that Mo talked him into buying, or in front of Adam’s closet mocking his boring wardrobe. Hell, for the first week after their return from New Brunswick, they’d barely even texted. Until Mo’s disastrous, regrettable—hot—booty call, there’d just been the one exchange asking to keep the breakup quiet.

He’d agreed, of course. The fallout didn’t feel like something he could handle with dignity. Not that he’d been behaving in a particularly dignified way lately. Two fights in three games—not his most glowing statistic. And dodging his mom was a new low.

He kicked off his shoes by the garage door, dropped his bag outside the laundry room, and made his way upstairs.

He couldn’t put his finger on the worst part of the situation. The fact that he’d fallen for someone he’d once thought shallow and phony? The fact that his whole family immediately clocked when something went wrong in Adam’s fake relationship because Adam got too in his feelings?

How about the way he liked the version of himself he could be around Mo better than any of the other versions he’d been before? That was pretty pathetic.

Or was it that he was so gone on Mo, he couldn’t say no to “casual” sex, even when Mo’s dirty talk felt like an ice pick to his heart?

Adam flicked on the bathroom light and pulled off his shirt. None of those things held a candle to the real problem—the gaping chasm in his chest he’d tried to cover with hockey fights and surly behavior.

Adam wanted to be with Mo. For real, not to put a good face on the team image, not to appease anyone’s parents. Because Mo made him laugh and relax, and because Adam went warm and tingly inside when he could do the same. Mo might be campy and crotchety and snotty and entitled, but who wouldn’t be, given his upbringing? Adam had met his parents. Compared to them, Mo basically qualified for sainthood. Of course he’d cultivated a prickly exterior to keep those monsters at arm’s length.

Adam wanted to be with Mo, but Mo didn’t want to be with him, and that made Adam want to crawl into a hole and curl up to protect his soft parts.

Instead, he showered off the plane crud and crawled into bed. Sleeping in a hole wouldn’t help his game any, and he needed to get back on track.

Which maybe started with some new rules. If Adam was going to be so weak that he slept with the guy actively breaking his heart, then he needed boundaries. Like no more sex at Adam’s house. He needed to be able to escape, to press the Eject button when necessary.

As much as Adam would love to keep ignoring his mom’s calls and avoid any heart-to-heart conversations, that wasn’t practical. Avoiding her since the trip was already hard enough.

So when she called again later that day, Adam picked up.

“Honey,” she greeted, voice warm.

Adam blinked hard.

“How are you doing?” She sounded way too soft and gentle for someone who didn’t know he’d gotten his heart stomped on.

“I’m fine.”

“Pull the other one, dear.”

Adam blew out a deep breath. This was why he’d been avoiding her—he could never fool her. Not about the big stuff. She hadn’t been at all surprised when he came out at fourteen—in fact, for weeks before he got up the courage, she’d talked a lot about her acceptance of the queer community.

“Is it something about Mo?”