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“You didn’t.” I gasped.
Jackson rolled his eyes. “He hit on me the first day I was here alone. Asked if I was interested in checking out the staff break room. That he could show me how bendable he was thanks to yoga. It might have been fun, but he’s not for me.”
“So, you’re telling me Grant is a puck bunny?” I snickered and pain shot through my head. I grimaced and reached for my face but stopped halfway. “Jax?”
He reached for my hand. “I know, Tommy.”
“Can you...do you think you could try Blake again?” I whispered. “I just... I miss him and want to know he’s okay.”
Jackson nodded. “Sure, bud. Anything you want.”
I didn’t see Blake again until Jackson’s wedding, two years later.
Chapter One
Tommy
I stared up into the cloudless sky as my lounger moved slowly around the pool. Any minute now, Blake was going to come through the sliding glass door. Walk back into my life when I had done everything I could to forget him. Which was impossible, since he was imprinted into my mind, body, and soul. But that didn’t mean I hadn’t tried. Anything in my room that reminded me of Blake? Gone. Shoved into a box and buried in the back of my closet. Pictures on my social media? Deleted like he was never even part of my life. Yeah, I was that asshole.
The only thing left was the matching tattoos we got before he left. Most of the time I never saw it because I wore a shirt, but on a day like today, when I was sitting out here with the sun beating down on me on a hot summer day, that memory slapped me in the face. It made been a spur-of-the-moment idea then, one that everyone said we would hate or regret, but I didn’t, even now. I reached up to drag my finger over the piece of bread inked into my skin colored in purple. Yeah, it was jelly. Blake’s was peanut butter.
How many hours had we spent out here? Talking, laughing, and doing nothing? Our first kiss had happened here. A lot of firsts had happened here, too. My dick started to stir at the thought, and I shifted uncomfortably. Everything with Blake had been so comfortable, relaxed, and perfect. I had never been able to find that with anyone else. But that was probably because I didn’t want to. They were just a bunch of faceless holes, a way to get off.
The sound of the sliding glass door immediately caused me to tense up. Even though I had mentally prepared myself for this day for years, I still wasn’t ready. I closed my eyes, ready for whatever Blake might throw at me, only to hear bare feet slap against the brick patio and then—
SPLASH.
I was drenched in water, and then loud laughter filled the air. I opened my eyes to glare down into the pool at Killian Hampton, the lead singer of Mulligan Downtown. He grinned back at me like a complete fool.
“I forgot how much fun that was. Babe, we should get a pool! Holy shit! What the fuck happened to your face?” he blurted as he pushed the wet curls back from his head to stare at me.
Good to know he hadn’t changed at all. He still had no filter. The tattoos that covered his body like scripture were new to me, but he had been working on them for years.
“Killian!” I glanced up to find Matthias Fuller, his fiancé, gaping at him, his hazel eyes wide with horror.
I slipped off the lounger into the water. “It’s fine.” It wasn’t, but it was better than the way most people just stared at me in shock or ignored me completely. Like I didn’t exist.
“Well, are you going to tell me or not?” Killian had this giddy look on his face like a kid on Christmas morning. His blue eyes sparkled devilishly. “If I ask you the questions and I get it right, do I win a prize?”
Matthias looked mortified. “Oh my God. I am so sorry, Tom.” He shook his head. “Kill, get out of the fucking pool.”
“Babe, you’re no fun. Come swim with me.” He reached for his ankle, but Matthias took a step back.
I ignored them as I climbed from the water. “It was a skating accident.”
It wasn’t weird for me to see them together. I remember the crush Matty had on Killian growing up. The way he pined for the broody singer, and sure, we all pretended not to notice Killian, trying to ignore him, but it was obvious there was some sort of connection there. Matty had confessed that they were seeing one another in private right around the same time Blake and I got together.
“Oh shit, dude, I’m sorry.” Killian was out of the pool, fully clothed and dripping wet, trying to grab his fiancé, who was doing a terrible job of acting like he didn’t want to be caught. They were cute.
Jealousy hit me hard, and I immediately hated what they had.
I shrugged. “It is what it is.”
It wasn’t, but what was I supposed to say? It had ended my hockey career, and now I was back here. In Canfield. Living at my parents’ house.
“Did it hurt?”
Matthias clamped a hand over Killian’s mouth. “Stop it right now.” He shook his head. “Ignore him, please. He forgets his manners sometimes, and clearly today is one of those days. Holy crap, what is wrong with you?”
