Chapter 9- Him?

Nate

My eyes squint at the brightness of the morning sun pouring into the living room through the windows.

I rub my eyes and just as I am about to move, a hand shoves me and I fall from the couch.

No. The couch was never that high.

My body thuds on the ground and it doesn't hurt, but I let out a dramatic groan and stick my middle finger up to where I know with all certainty Vik is lying.

He didn't have to shove me from his body like that. Then again, I can't blame him. I must have sprawled on him and maybe squished his face.

Massaging my face, I get up on my feet and start preparing for school.

Oh wait, it's Saturday. Yayyy. I couldn't be more happy right now.

Glancing around, I close the still-open laptop and by its side, only one plate of the cookies is lying on the table. Wait... I'm damn sure out of the three plates of cookies, Vik and I ate only one.

A thud echoes, and I snap to my right to the second room. The first is past the kitchen and to the other side of the house.

These pricks. I storm to the room and shove the door open.

The sight before me is... I'm gonna kill them.

Cam is on the floor, most likely because Dylan just pushed him while sleeping, and Elias is on the other side, his bare, broad back heaving up and down in a calm rhythm.

And on the bedside cupboard, the other two plates of cookies. Empty. Only crumbs litter the white plates.

I can feel my eyes twitch as I stare at the three of them, and Cam mumbles something on the floor in his sleep.

Well, only one way to solve this.

"Cannonball!!!" I yell as I fling myself up, barely giving them time to wake up, and I barrel down, slamming my body on Elias and Dylan.

"Ughh," Dylan groans.

"You prick," Elias hisses as he turns his body, shoving me.

Only a bubble of laughter escapes me as I stare up at the ceiling, sprawled on the two boys.

Eventually, Cam gets up and pulls me away by my ankle before plonking himself back on the bed and in between Eli and Dylan to continue sleeping.

How is this blond-haired idiot not even fazed? He surprises me every time. He literally slept while a girl was riding him once. Thank God I accidentally barged in at the right time.

But now Elias and Dylan are fully awake and shaking themselves out of bed.

That's for the cookies, I scoff, standing up from the floor where Cam had left me to rot. Elias just stares at me like his entire system was doing a reboot, while Dylan flips me the middle finger.

"Alright," I clap my hands loudly, "time for a shake-off."

"Go away," Cam groans, still in bed.

"Come on, Cam," Dylan pulls him. "We've got practice later. Coach's gonna kill us if we're still hungover."

Cam just groans and lets Dylan pull him without attempting to move. A bubble of laughter rises in my chest as Cam finally lifts his head and his hair is all messy and pointing in all directions, making him look like an electrocuted cartoon.

"Let's go, boys."

The entire house is buzzing with energy as we start working out.

Doing laps around the house, press-ups, sit-ups, and whatnot.

In about 30 minutes, we're already dripping with sweat, energy buzzing in the air as hard rock music pounds through the large home studio, connected to my Spotify DJ.

The songs switch on their own, the vibe energetic and lively. We continue to pummel through the morning, just the four of us, leaving Viktor to meditate first.

Yeah, he's always like that.

As we bounce around, the Spotify DJ booms through the speakers, playing songs that I had listened to years ago.

After playing a Lana Del Rey song, to which the boys groaned and snickered, an upbeat sound starts playing and just as I think it's about to play good music from years ago, "Could Have Been Me" starts playing and my breath all but hitches in my throat.

But the boys are nodding and moving along to the beats even when it's a love song. At this point, honest to God, I'm sure they aren't even listening to the lyrics.

But my heart unclenches itself as we continue the workout.

"Didn't tell us you were such a lover boy?" Cam snorts by my side, taking a big gulp from the bottle of water on the kitchen counter mere minutes after our last sequence.

"What?" I ask, acting oblivious.

"Don't think we didn't hear the lyrics," Cam says in a sing-song voice. "Oi, Dylan, Eli, come check this out."

"What the fuck are you doing?" I mutter to Cam in between clenched teeth.

Cam shrugs. "Calling the guys, duh."

"You dumb fuck."

In a second, Dylan and Eli are already in the kitchen.

"So get this," Cam starts. "Nate here used to be a lover boy. He isn't even denying it."

Dylan's eyes widen. "I knew there was more to that grumpy old hockey player," he says pridefully, like he just won a competition on who knows me best.

"Come on, guys. I was in high school." I give in, whining.

"Yeah, duh, we know," says Elias with a knowing smile. Ugh, I don't need him to remind me of my love-struck days in high school.

Elias knew everything about me at this point, including that I had a crush on a guy in high school and kept it to myself. But he somehow clocked the shit out of me.

"But he always has his head in his ass, right? All quiet and normal and shit." Cam talks to Eli about me as if I'm not here.

"You guys, I'm right here."

This time all three of them chorus, "We know."

I just shake my head and start walking away.

"You guys can say whatever you want. Not like y'all weren't worse."

"And how would you know?" Dylan smirks at me.

"Wanna try me?" I give him a look that suggests that I can find out everything about him if I really want to.

"No, sorry," he mutters.

"Way to be a coward, Dy," Cam groans. "Nate can't do bat shit. Know how I know?" he asks suggestively.

I shake my head in uncertainty.

"Because you would have done something about Logan."

Oh fuck. I should have seen this coming.

"Oh my God, that again?"

"Yes, that again," Eli says, sitting on the kitchen counter.

"Yo, what is your issue with Logan?" Cam all but begs me.

"I said nothing."

And all of a sudden, Eli is walking up to me and slapping his palm on my bare chest.

"Fix it, Nate. Or else, it's gonna affect the team and it's gonna affect you, and you know in what way." Eli gives me a knowing look, and I swallow hard.

My dad. My NHL career. My life. Eli was right. I did need to stop being a jerk and fix this.

If not, everything I've worked for will all be for nothing.

Ugh, I hate it when he makes so much sense.

~

Practice today was shit.

I didn't talk to Logan on or off the ice, but I had to play with him. That was the only thing that could keep Coach off my back.

Is this what it meant to be a true leader? Because, to be honest, I've never not liked any of my teammates or even had major scuffles with them, so it was pretty easy to take on the role of captain. But with someone like Logan...

I... it just totally messes with my head. I can't seem to see past his brown eyes and his lips and the way they bobbed up and down on my cock.

Fuck.

A knock comes on my dorm door as I work on the laptop. I ignore it.

A second later, the knock comes again.

What the fuck? After Matthew, my roommate, had withdrawn from school, I've been staying alone. So I'm not used to getting unexpected visitors in my dorm.

Rubbing my palm and dropping my laptop, I open the door to a gruff but tall woman standing in front of me with a clipboard.

"How may I help you?" I take in her full stature. She looks at me with a sneer and flips her clipboard.

"I'm your housing instructor, and you have a new roommate. You're not new here, and I assume you already know the rules," she says like she has a thousand other more important things but is stuck babysitting college students.

She steps aside. If I wasn't angry, if I wasn't fucking pissed already, then this does it.

My eyes meet a familiar pair of amber-brown eyes and those fucking freckles.

"Him?" I ask, still reeling from my shock.

"Of course." The housing instructor nods.

Logan looks just as bewildered, but he masks it quickly, unlike me.

"Over my dead and rotting corpse," I spit the words out like venom, turning on my heels when a voice stops me.

"Then you, my boy, should start digging your own grave," Coach says as he walks into my view.

I'm gonna have to stay with this insufferable liar? Fuck me.