Like You’ve Nothing Left to Prove

A NineStar Press Publication www.ninestarpress.com Like You’ve Nothing Left to Prove ISBN: 978-1-64890-630-5 © 2023 E.L. Massey Cover Art © 2023 JICK (@jickdraws) Edited by Elizabetta McKay Published in March 2023 by NineStar Press, New Mexico, USA. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any material form, whether by printing, photocopying, scanning or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact NineStar Press at [email protected]. Also available in Print, ISBN: 978-1-64890-631-2 CONTENT WARNING: This book contains sexual content, which may only be suitable for mature readers. Depictions of homophobia in sports, racial slurs, scenes depicting and discussing a panic attack/social anxiety disorder, injury from sports concussion, and epileptic seizures from a brain injury. Like You’ve Nothing Left to Prove The Breakaway Series, Book Two E.L. Massey Table of Contents Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Epilogue Acknowledgements About the Author To Deacon. My Hawk. The best dog in the world. Chapter One THE PROBLEM WITH dating a celebrity is that sometimes they have to do ridiculous things like take a call from their agent on Christmas Eve when they should be cuddling with their boyfriend. Something about a sponsor and a New Year’s appearance and an upcoming photoshoot that had to be rescheduled? Eli lost the thread pretty quickly. He watches all of Alex’s games and has made an effort to actually understand hockey rules (though what actually counts as goaltender interference is still a mystery to him). He thinks his boyfriending duties are pretty well covered. He doesn’t need to know which jockstrap Alex is currently endorsing or whatever. So Eli is reading Great Expectations, proud of himself for getting a head start on next semester’s readings, hoping his boyfriend comes to bed soon, and feeling very sleepy. Though that could be the Dickens. Actually, that’s not fair. He enjoys Dickens a fair amount. But Great Expectations is certainly no Bleak House. He flips the page and glances up as Alex paces into the bedroom from the hallway, where he’s been in and out of earshot for the last half hour. Eli’s parents are asleep at the opposite end of the house downstairs, and his sister, Francesca, is still awake next door if the music coming through the shared bathroom door is any indication. “Hey,” Alex says, tossing his phone onto the top of the dresser. “Sorry about that.” Eli waves Great Expectations at him in a conciliatory manner. “No problem. But since you’re up, I left my Chapstick in the bathroom.” Alex gives him a fond look that Eli is still getting used to: a little squint, a little crooked smile, a raise of one eyebrow. “Is that a request?” Eli tries to look as cozy and pitiful as possible. “Please?” Alex rolls his eyes but slips through the bathroom door and switches the light on, painting the wood floor gold. “I loved him against reason,” Eli shouts after Alex, “against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.” “I already said I would get it,” Alex shouts back. “You don’t need to woo me with Dickens.” “Ah, but I must always woo you, my love,” Eli argues, affecting a terrible English accent, “With Dickens or otherwise.” “Can you do your wooing a little more quietly?” Francesca yells from her bedroom. Eli stifles his laugh in the duvet. Alex turns off the light, runs into the cedar chest, swears, and then crawls up to flop inelegantly on top of Eli. He tries, very ineffectively, to apply the Chapstick for Eli until, laughing even harder, Eli wrestles it away from him and does it himself while Alex pretends to pout. “Hey,” Alex murmurs, smudging the words into Eli’s neck, “do you maybe wanna do that thing where you drag your fingernails up and down my back until I fall asleep completely blissed out on oxytocin?” Eli slides his book and then the Chapstick onto his nightstand and moves his hands automatically to Alex’s shoulders. “How did you know? That’s exactly what I wanted to do.” “Oh.” Alex makes a point of settling in further before going absolutely boneless. “Well, that’s perfect, then.” The bruises on Alex’s side look particularly stark when painted in moonlight, and Alex is warm and sleepy and vulnerable. His curled fingers in the periphery of Eli’s vision make Eli’s chest ache in a way he can’t explain with anything other than love. This soft, tactile man, who smells like VapoRub and Eli’s detergent, is so far removed from the visceral, overconfident Alexander Price, whose skill and notoriety sell out hockey arenas. In the dark and the quiet of Eli’s childhood bedroom, it almost feels as if they’re two different people. Except Eli is the only one privileged enough to know this gentle night-time version. “Mm,” Eli agrees, dragging his nails lightly, so lightly, up the expanse of Alex’s back. “Perfect.” * ALEX WAKES ELI up at 7:00 a.m. on Christmas morning. “Hey,” he whispers urgently into Eli’s temple. “I want to call James.” “You what?” Eli growls somewhere in the vicinity of his sternum. And, okay. Admittedly, saying he wanted to call his ex-boyfriend might not have been the best way to go about waking up his current boyfriend. “Sorry. Sorry. I know it’s early but I was laying here thinking. And I realized I’m ready. I’m not afraid to talk to him anymore, and I know he’ll be awake but probably not downstairs with his parents yet because his mom