“What? I can’t want to see my son?”
“I’ll be fine. I know you hate to travel in winter. I’ll come for a few weeks this summer.” He always went to see them and then had them come to Colorado. It was a thing.
“I want to see you.”
“Then come out in March, and I’ll take you out to supper.” Why fight it? She was coming. Might as well make it a date now.
“I’ll look at your game schedule.”
“Okay. How’s Dad?” His dad wasn’t one to call. He texted. Or emailed. He was probably watching the game on repeat and making notes to send to Hawk later.
“A little sniffly, but okay. Just the weather.”
“Well, keep him wrapped up and the heater on.” Mom was in the teeth of menopause, so she fiddled with the heat.
“I will. I just run around in shorts and a sports bra.”
“My eyes,” he whined.
“Bah.” She chuckled. “I’ll let you go sulk. But if you need to talk…”
“I’ll call when I’m ready.”
“Oui. Love you.”
“Love you too.” He had to smile when he hung up, because his very busy mom made him.
He was sulking though, and while that was fine, he needed to get his game face on before the next match. His mom might make sympathetic noises, but his coach wouldn’t.
Hell, he would get over Caleb soon enough, and he knew it.
In the meantime, he needed to get his head out of his ass.
Caleb typedand deleted about a zillion texts to Hawk.
They had agreed it was an Olympics fling, right? They’d decided not to let it go beyond the opening ceremonies.
Okay, so he’d texted Hawk a
Sorry, dude, that sucks
when the hockey team fell out in the quarterfinals. Hawk had texted back a thanks, then texted again when he’d missed the podium in the halfpipe finals. Just a
Sorry, babe. You were amazing
But now that the Games were over, he wasn’t sure if Hawk would be okay hearing from him, or if he should drop it.
But he missed Hawk in ways he’d never anticipated. He missed Hawk’s smile, the way his silvery eyes lit up with it. He missed the no-small talk clause. And he missed that big, hot body.
So he turned on the Colorado ThunderSnow game against Boston, flopped on the couch, and held his phone with his thumbs over the keyboard. If he texted now, Hawk wouldn’t see it until he got out of the game in about an hour, at the earliest, so he wouldn’t sit and wait for three dots to appear…
He’d typed out
Hey, man, watching the game. You look great
when his phone rang.
Oh. Caleb rolled his eyes. It was his mom. Great. He loved her very much, but she was difficult at best, and she hadn't called since before the Olympics. Still, he knew if she had started calling she wouldn't stop until he answered so he went ahead and clicked the green button.