Butterfly Page 15

  “Or we could stay in bed,” Fisher suggested, and pushed back against him.

  Leo caught his breath sharply and rolled off fast, landing with both feet on the floor. He yanked the sheet off Fisher’s legs in the next instant.

  “Get the fuck up,” he ordered, sounding furious, and Fisher sat up. Leo looked furious, spots of color high in his pale cheeks and fists clenched by his sides. Shame swamped Fisher, but Leo spoke before he could.

  “You don’t get to do that,” he hissed.

  Fisher opened his mouth but Leo cut him off.

  “You don’t get to use me to try to make yourself stop hurting,” he continued. “You’re better than that, Fisher.” His voice gentled and he took a step closer. “I know you’re grieving, but that’s not okay.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Fisher blurted. He covered his face, tears stinging. “Fuck, I’m—”

  Leo stepped between his knees and wrapped his arms around Fisher’s shoulders. Fisher pressed his face to Leo’s thin T-shirt and let the tears fall as Leo rubbed his back.

  When the worst had passed, he took a steadying breath. “I love you,” he said against Leo’s stomach.

  “I love you too, asshole,” Leo murmured. “You’re not yourself right now. But don’t ever do that again.”

  “I won’t,” Fisher mumbled. “‘M gonna go shower.”

  “Excellent idea.” Leo let him go and Fisher stood. There was nothing but affection in the smile Leo tilted up at him, and Fisher thumbed his chin briefly before turning to the dresser to look for clean clothes.

  In the shower, he braced a forearm on the wall and let the scalding water rush over him, eyes closed against the steam.

  It had been a week since his life had blown up in his face so spectacularly. He’d lost the man he loved and the job he loved in less than an hour. The first, he’d done himself. The second had been accomplished by Calum going directly to the dean and lodging a complaint against Fisher for ‘inappropriate conduct’.

  Should’ve punched him when I had the chance, he thought. Accusing me of coming on to him. Ludicrous.

  There’d been nothing to be done. The dean had seemed regretful, but it was Fisher’s word against Calum’s, and the school had an at-will firing policy. They didn’t have to give a reason for letting him go.

  He could fight it, he’d been told by multiple people, including several parents who’d reached out when they heard the news. Laurel Hollingsworth was a lawyer, and Margaret Charpentier was married to one, and they’d both told him lawsuits could be filed, he could go to the union, there were things that could be done.

  Fisher didn’t want that. He didn’t want the whole ugly mess dragged into the light, laid bare for everyone to gawk at and pick over. The dean had offered him a choice—refuse to leave, be fired, and take his chances in court, or quit and be given a good reference when any future place of employment called looking into his past.

  Already bruised and brittle and so close to being broken, Fisher had taken the easier choice. Maybe he’d hate himself for it later, but he didn’t have the energy or the heart to fight.

  He turned off the water and stepped out, not looking at himself in the mirror as he toweled dry.

  His bed was neatly made with fresh sheets when he came back out, but Leo was nowhere to be seen.

  Fisher found him in the living room, on his stomach with his feet in the air as he talked to Maya, who had her head on her paws but was thumping her tail every time Leo finished a sentence. Fisher stopped to watch them and Leo glanced up, a smile spreading over his face at the sight of him.

  “You look almost human again,” he said, kissing the top of Maya’s head before bouncing to his feet. “Hungry?”

  “Not if you’re cooking,” Fisher said.

  Leo grimaced. “Obviously not. I brought the ingredients, you’re making the meal.”

  “I guess working in a grocery store has its perks,” Fisher teased, mostly for the face Leo made. “How’s that going, by the way?”

  “Other than the fact that I hate people and dream of running away and never working another customer service job for the rest of my life?” Leo shrugged. “Fine. At least I get a discount.” He followed Fisher into the kitchen and hopped up onto the counter as Fisher inspected the contents of the bags he’d left on the table. “So what are you making?”

  “I don’t even know what we have yet, give me a minute.” When Fisher glanced over his shoulder, Leo was watching him, sadness in his bright green eyes. Fisher twitched irritably. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Like what, someone who’s had his heart broken? How would you like me to look at you?”

  “Preferably as someone who doesn’t want your pity,” Fisher snapped. Leo had brought him an artichoke, some asparagus, tomatoes, and a bushel of carrots. With typical Leo-like lack of attention to detail, he’d most likely shoved the most colorful vegetables he could find in a bag and called it a day. Fisher sighed and turned to find a knife to start chopping them up.

  “I don’t pity you,” Leo said softly as Fisher turned on the oven and set out the cutting board. “But I do think it’s time to talk about this.”

  Fisher shut the drawer with more force than necessary. “No.”

  “We’re talking,” Leo said. He kicked his feet, crossed at the ankles, and met Fisher’s flat glare with sunny equanimity. “You wanna go first or shall I?”

  “There is nothing to talk about.” Fisher grabbed the artichoke and began peeling it.

  “Au contraire—” Leo caught himself just as Fisher went still. “Fuck. Sorry. But that right there proves we need to talk about this.”

  Fisher set the knife down carefully. “I’m a grown man, Leo, I can handle hearing words in… another language.”

  “You can’t even say the word French!” Leo said accusingly.

  “So what?” Fisher snapped. “You want me to admit how fucked up I am? I’m fucked up, Leo, okay? He used me, he broke my heart, he did everything you said he’d do. I fell for him when I said I wouldn’t, because I’m a fucking idiot. And now I’m jobless and worse off than when I started and in love with a fucking hockey player, and everything sucks. So what is there to talk about?”

  “There’s the fact that from everything you’ve told me, he’s in love with you too.”

  Fisher spun. “So what?” he repeated. “Did you miss where he lied to me? Where he had every opportunity to tell me the truth and didn’t?”

  Leo bumped the cabinet with his heels, eyes steady on Fisher’s. “That’s exactly how I know he’s in love with you.”

  That stopped Fisher. He sputtered but couldn’t come up with words.

  “You’re a smart man, Fish,” Leo said. “Think about it. If it was just sex for him, if you meant nothing more than somewhere to get his dick wet, why wouldn’t he have told the truth? Why wouldn’t he have risked it, even with the possibility of you kicking him out? He’s rich, famous, incredibly good-looking—he could have anyone he wanted with the crook of his finger.”

  Fisher glared at him, but Leo just arched a brow.

  “But he chose to stay, to see you, to be—I’m assuming—monogamous while he was with you, despite being clear upfront that he might want to sleep with other people.” Leo paused. “Was he? Monogamous?”

  Fisher nodded reluctantly. “At least as far as I know. But I don’t know, Leo. He traveled all the time. He could have been sleeping with new people in every city, and how would I have known?”

  “God, I love you but you’re dim sometimes,” Leo sighed. “Fish, baby, try and think about it logically for a minute. I know you’re angry and hurting, but just—use that big brain of yours. When he traveled, how often did you two talk while he was gone? Text or calling.”

  Fisher glowered at him but gave it serious, if unwilling, thought. “He’d go dark for at least five hours a night. I don’t know about mornings as much, that was when I was in class anyway. But he’d usually text me when he woke up and then vanish for a
few hours. We’d text off and on the rest of the time unless he was on the plane.”

  “So the first bit was likely when the games were on and he was playing,” Leo said, nodding. “And mornings were probably for practices and traveling, maybe media shit.”

  Fisher stared. “Since when do you know hockey players’ schedules?”

  “Since my best friend fell in love with one,” Leo retorted, kicking his feet again.

  “Past tense,” Fisher muttered. He turned back to the artichoke.

  Undeterred, Leo continued. “Which means that other than games, practices, and actual travel time, he was in pretty much constant contact with you. But you still think he was running around sleeping with everyone else?”

  Fisher hunched his shoulders and kept slicing. “Why not?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean,” Fisher said, turning around again, “why would he have bothered? You said it yourself, he could have anyone he wanted. I was the one who wanted monogamy, not him. So what was in it for him?”

  “You can’t be this stupid,” Leo said despairingly. “Fisher.”

  “I just—” Fisher blinked a few times. “He said he didn’t want it. Me. To settle down, be… whatever. More than fuckbuddies.”

  “Because everyone always says what they mean and never lies to themselves,” Leo said, but he sounded sympathetic. “Maybe he didn’t want that at first. You told me he’d been hurt. And by the way, if you haven’t read some articles about him, you really need to do that. It’s gonna explain a lot. But people change, Fish. What people want changes. Maybe he hadn’t really faced it yet himself, but it sounds to me like he was coming around to the idea of being with you, really with you.”

  “Not enough to trust me,” Fisher muttered. “He practically went into nuclear meltdown mode at the thought of me knowing where he lives. That fucking hurt, okay? We’d been together for like five months, I still didn’t know his name, and he nearly had a panic attack at the idea of being that vulnerable with me.”

  “Of course it hurt. Hand me those baby carrots.” Fisher obeyed and Leo ripped the bag open to pull one out. “But he did it, didn’t he? He trusted you. I think that’s pretty fucking significant, Fish.” The carrot crunched as he bit into it. “Can I ask you something?”

  Fisher almost laughed. “Can I stop you?”

  “Why do you hate hockey so much?”

  Fisher went very still. When he glanced over his shoulder, Leo was watching him, feet crossed at the ankles.

  “It’s….” Fisher sighed. “Complicated.”

  “Contrary to appearances, I’m capable of grasping complex issues and ideas,” Leo said dryly. “Try me.”

  “My ex,” Fisher said. He set the knife down again and turned, resting his hips against the counter. “Peyton.”

  “Such a bro name,” Leo said, biting into another carrot.

  Fisher ignored that. “You know most of it. He didn’t want to acknowledge me because he wasn’t out. Plus he never had time for me, was always working out or going to games. All he could talk about was hockey. Everything was hockey. He was obsessed with it. The only way to shut him up was to—well.”

  Leo snickered. “Time-honored method.”

  “I just… I wanted to be that important to him. I wanted to be his focus. I resented hockey because it took him away from me. And when I broke up with him, I told him that. I didn’t quite stoop to making him choose between us, but I made it pretty clear why it wasn’t going to work.”

  “And he chose hockey.”

  Fisher lifted a shoulder. “He said he was sorry I couldn’t support his dream, and he wished me well, and that was it. He didn’t try at all to keep me.” He shrugged away the old remembered sting. “I swore I’d never be with someone who didn’t put us first. Didn’t matter what he did, he had to be committed to our relationship first and foremost.”

  “And you think Felix wouldn’t be.”

  “He’s a professional hockey player,” Fisher spat. “It is quite literally his life. You think anything could compete with that?”

  “You do realize that there are a lot of married hockey players? Happily married ones? Some of them even have children.”

  “What works for them won’t work for me,” Fisher snapped.

  “Oh, you’re special, is that it?”

  Fisher glared at him.

  “What makes you different?” Leo asked. “And don’t say it’s because you have a penis.”

  “It’s not,” Fisher said. “It’s just… I don’t fit the mold, okay? I’m not what any hockey player is looking for. And that’s fine with me.”

  Leo sighed. “You’re just not even gonna try. That’s what’s so fucked up about this.”

  “There’s nothing to try for!” Fisher shot back. “He didn’t fight for me, he didn’t ask me to forgive him or to try again. He just let me yell at him and then he left. He walked away.”

  “And there it is.”

  “There what is?”

  “He didn’t make enough of an effort for you.” Leo kicked his heels and popped another baby carrot in his mouth.

  That silenced Fisher momentarily. “That’s… ridiculous,” he finally managed.

  “Is it?” Leo began ticking off points. “He didn’t want a relationship to begin with, even as you guys spent more and more time together, until basically any time you were both free, he was over here. You took him to the farmer’s market, Fish. More than once, which for you is tantamount to a proposal. You fell in love with him, and I’m pretty sure he was falling in love with you right back, but when the shit hit the fan, when everything went to hell, you got scared and you told him to leave and he did. Just like Peyton.”

  Fisher opened and closed his mouth. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut.

  Leo hopped off the counter. “What’s for dinner?”

  It took Fisher another few minutes to find his voice. “Fuck if I know.”

  Leo sighed and pulled out his phone. “Fine, I’m ordering a pizza but you owe me.”

  27

  Later that night, once Leo had gone home with a kiss to Fisher’s cheek, Fisher sat down and turned on his computer. He stared at the search engine for a minute before squaring his shoulders and typing Felix Papillon in.

  Page after page of results popped up. Felix staring at the camera, wearing the teal and white Seabirds jersey. In the middle of a game, his helmet perched precariously on the back of his head—how did it stay like that, Fisher wondered—smiling brilliantly at someone just offscreen. Another picture of him, this time on a plane next to Saint, their heads together in discussion.

  The next picture was of Felix in a suit, arm around a handsome man with blond hair and perfect skin. The caption read, Felix Papillon and partner, aspiring actor Paul Brandon, at the Seabirds 2019 annual charity gala.

  Fisher was startled by the stab of jealousy that knifed through him. Felix looked so happy, his smile wide and pride in his bearing. Fisher took a breath, willing himself to calm, and looked closer. He didn’t think much of Paul, he decided. His smile didn’t reach his eyes, and while he was admittedly handsome, there was a sameness to his features that left Fisher unmoved.

  He went back to the search engine and typed Felix Papillon Paul Brandon in. More pictures and articles came up, fluff pieces about their life together, interviews with them sitting side by side on a loveseat, their thighs brushing. Henry was draped across Felix in one of the photographs, eyes closed as Felix smiled down at him.

  Was this who had hurt Felix so badly? Maybe Fisher was reading too much into things, but he thought there was a difference to the way Felix held himself in the pictures. The Felix he knew was coiled tight, tense and wary, always guarded as if against a blow. This Felix was… joyous, leaning against Paul with his head thrown back in a laugh as Paul grinned down at him.

  It made Fisher’s chest ache. He searched for Felix Papillon Paul Brandon breakup, but the only things he found were a few throwaway mentions of
an amicable separation, of Paul moving to Los Angeles to pursue his craft, how they were still close. Then how had Felix been hurt?

  Wren had mentioned his personal details had been leaked online. Fisher went back to the search engine again. Felix Papillon doxxed brought up a dozen articles, and he clicked on the first one without looking too hard.

  Felix Papillon, starting goalie for Portland’s own Seabirds, released a series of three posts across several forms of social media this morning, inviting fans to follow the clues hidden within the pictures. The winner will receive an exclusive one-on-one training session with the 2017 All Star Games attendee, a signed, game-used stick, and box seats to the Seabirds’ next home game.

  “Jesus Christ,” Fisher breathed.

  Followers were skeptical at first, the article continued, believing his account to have been hacked. But they were soon convinced by the cross-posts on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Who will be the first to reach the end of the treasure hunt? Stay tuned to find out.

  Fisher clicked on the next article. FELIX PAPILLON VICTIM OF VICIOUS PRANK, the title read. Under a picture of Felix glaring at the camera in full hockey gear, sweaty and furious about something, the article laid it all out.

  This morning, Felix Papillon’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were hacked. Sensitive information and pictures of him were released without his knowledge or consent, including his home address, financial details, and his phone number. The ‘treasure hunt’ was actually an elaborate hoax designed for maximum harm.

  “What the fuck?”

  Papillon is as notoriously private as he is charming, able to deflect invasive questions with a wry joke in his soft French accent or a quick jab at a teammate that leaves everyone laughing. A call to his agent yielded the following statement: “The attack on Felix this morning was dangerously personal, revealing information he’s guarded closely his entire professional life and causing him great emotional and financial damage. Make no mistake, this was malicious in intent, and we ask that Felix’s privacy be respected in the aftermath.”