Home and Away (4 page)

“What?” Callum said, wincing. “I’m not judging.”

“Sounds like it from where I’m sitting,” Rupert said, obviously amused.

If Callum were in Rupert’s shoes, he wouldn’t find it funny at all to be judged—which he wasn’t doing. But still. He tried to explain. “No, I mean, I…I admire it.”

“You admire me being gay? How delightfully patronizing.”

“I don’t admire you for being gay, asshole. You either are or you aren’t. That would be like admiring someone for their shoe size. What I
admire
is that you’re so, you know, honest about it. Open. That you don’t care who knows or wonders or guesses, or whatever. Which is,” Callum rushed to clarify, “as it should be. But in this business it’s just…hard. I’m guessing. I mean, I don’t know.”

Callum bit his lips, determined to stem the tide of verbal diarrhea.

Rupert arched one brow. “I’m overwhelmed by your support. Perhaps we should sing Kumbaya now.”

Callum flopped back on the couch, refusing to smile. “Ugh. Shut up. I hate you.”

Jack stood. “I think we need another round of drinks.”

Rupert strode into the arena the next morning, not regretting, but still aware of the beers he’d drunk on an empty stomach the night before. He wasn’t a complete lightweight, as a rule, but it had been a while since he’d had even a single drink. It had been unexpectedly nice to sit and relax for a while, even if the conversation had focused on work and Callum had still been a royal pain in the arse. Still, it had been pleasant enough that he’d not wanted to end the evening in order to go in search of food.

Now, though, Rupert was feeling the repercussions of that decision. He’d slept better than he had in weeks, but woken up with a fuzzy head and the burning desire to drink a gallon of water. A very large cup of tea and his granola-bar breakfast had taken the edge off, but he needed some quiet time in his office to get him the rest of the way there. He had two separate lists of tasks he wanted to tackle today, and another he’d been drafting in his head that needed to be transferred into the app on his phone he kept for these things.

“Good morning, Rupert,” Sheila said as soon as he entered the team’s offices.

“Sheila.”

He noted Jack and Callum were already ensconced in the conference room they’d annexed sometime over the past week. Callum rose and came to the door as soon as he saw Rupert.

Rupert felt his muscles tightening, a knee-jerk reaction apparently not cured by one night of friendly drinks.

“Good morning,” Callum offered, pleasantly enough, and Rupert told himself to chill out. “Any news?”

Rupert paused in his retreat to his office. “Pardon?”

“About Oliver—that’s his name, right? Your brother?”

Rupert blinked at him stupidly for a moment before answering. “Nothing.”

Callum frowned. “I’m sorry.”

Rupert would have believed Callum capable of many things, but empathy would not have made the list. He’d been wrong, it seemed.

“Thank you,” Rupert said. “For asking.”

It struck Rupert that this was the first time either of them had been the least bit gracious with each other. He was a bit ashamed of himself, really.

That was the first day in the two weeks since Callum had arrived that Rupert didn’t check up on the construction project once. It was also the first time Callum and Jack sought him out in the afternoon to give him an update.

It was the start of a détente of sorts. Each morning Callum would ask after Oliver, and sometimes do so again later when he and Jack stopped by or Rupert poked his head into their conference room on his way out. By a week in, Rupert only had to shake his head as he rushed to his office one morning before an important call, seeing Callum waiting in the doorway, the question on his face. Callum’s responding frown was fierce. He looked as frustrated as Rupert felt.

Shaking off a ridiculous flash of warmth, Rupert dashed to his desk and grabbed his ringing phone. An hour later, the Ice Cats were down a seasoned defensemen but had a new, desperately needed left wing to fill out their second line, and a draft pick.

In spite of the thrill Rupert got from the challenges of the work, the negotiation and back-and-forth, he never forgot that, in the end, these were
people
he was dealing on and off the team. It made it hard. Still, he was unprepared when, later that afternoon, the freshly traded defensemen came barreling into the Ice Cats offices, bellowing his name.

The entire room fell into shocked silence. Rupert froze where he stood in front of the new trainer’s desk, his heart jackrabbiting into his throat.

“Smythe! What the fuck have you done?”

Rupert turned on unsteady legs as the man turned toward him and squared off, as if intending to check Rupert clear into the next province.

“Can I help you, Derek?” Rupert asked, wishing his voice was stronger but pleased he’d managed to say anything at all.

“You son of a bitch. What did you do?”

“I traded you,” Rupert said baldly, betrayed by the quaver in his voice. “Your agent said he’d let you know.”

“Yeah, he told me,” the man sneered, striding closer.

Rupert stepped back, furious with himself for it but too aware of the fists clenched at the other man’s sides. He forced himself to look Derek in the eyes. “Did you have a question, then?”

“I’ve been good for this team, and this is the thanks I get? Traded to some shit team in East Bumfuck?”

The people of North Bay would probably disagree with that designation. Also, it was to the west, but Rupert carefully refrained from sharing these observations. “It’s a good team, Derek, and they’re paying you well. You’ll do them a lot of good, and we needed to make some changes.”

“Make some changes? How the fuck would you know, you little—”

A hand clamped down on Derek’s shoulder.

“Think carefully before you speak,” Callum said in a deadly calm voice.

The cold, furious look on Callum’s face was terrifying, but it wasn’t directed at Rupert. In fact, Rupert now realized he’d been getting off easy when it came to bearing the brunt of Callum’s anger.

“You’re going to defend him?” Derek asked, gesturing at Rupert dismissively. “He doesn’t know shit about hockey. I can’t believe you’re letting him ruin this team.”

Rupert noticed that some of his colleagues and staff looked offended on his behalf, and tried very hard to ignore those who appeared to agree with Derek’s assessment.

Callum moved to stand with Rupert, their shoulders brushing as Callum crossed his arms over his chest. “He knows as much about hockey as you or I. And he knows a hell of a lot more than both of us combined about how to run a business, which is what this is. If you don’t like it, get out of the game. But if you want to keep playing,
anywhere
, I suggest you shut the fuck up.”

For the next several seconds, Derek did a perfect imitation of a freshly landed carp. Rupert probably didn’t look much better. He pinched himself to be sure he wasn’t dreaming the whole thing.

Without another word, Derek spun on his heel and stormed from the room.

“Well,” Jack said from the conference room door, breaking the heavy silence, “that was unpleasant.”

“You have a gift for understatement,” Rupert said. He nodded at Callum. “I thank you for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” Callum said, his voice as gruff as his manners.

They stared at each other in the ensuing, increasingly awkward silence. Rupert’s phone buzzed in his hand and he looked down automatically to see a text message on his screen.

Found him. 37 Chiltern, W1, London. Apt 3b. Above the wedding shop.

“Oh my god,” he breathed, his stomach plunging to the floor. His hands, already unsteady from excess adrenaline, now shook so badly it took him three tries to enter his passcode.

“What?” Callum demanded. “What’s happened?”

“I think they found him.”

Jack was suddenly at his side. “Let’s go in your office. Come on.”

Rupert let himself be herded through the door. Callum closed it behind them.

“What going on? Is he okay?”

“I don’t know,” Rupert cried, still trying to get his hands to cooperate enough to hit the correct icon.

With a growl, Callum snatched the phone from Rupert’s hands. Callum was a presumptuous bastard, but Rupert couldn’t be bothered to get upset. He gestured at the phone. “Check the text messages.”

“All I see is an address. Tell me what to write back.”

“Ask if it’s Oliver. Ask if they have him. Is he okay?”

Callum manipulated the phone with remarkable dexterity, and Rupert wondered inanely if it was an unintended benefit of goalie training. When the phone buzzed again, Rupert pressed himself to Callum’s side so that he could see the screen.

Appears to be okay. With young woman. Nanny? Have not approached. Cannot take custody. Only you. Do not want to spook kid or nanny or mother.

Rupert clutched Callum’s arm, his brain sprinting from one problem to the next. He needed to get to London. He should pack. And buy a plane ticket. Call his solicitors. He needed to make a list of—

“What does he mean about custody?” Jack asked from Callum’s other side, snapping Rupert out of his spiraling panic.

“Before my father passed away, he arranged for me to have custody of Oliver, as his mother had never seemed interested in having anything to do with him. But when I arrived in London, she was doting on him, and I foolishly believed she’d changed. I left him with her,” he confessed, ashamed, his voice gone hoarse. “It was only a matter of months before she started to be harder to reach, but eventually I would hear back. Would see Oliver on Skype. Then a few months ago—”

Callum started typing.
We’re on our way.

Rupert couldn’t seem to hold onto any one thought for long. “We?”

“Jack, can you look into flights?” Callum asked.

Jack practically sprinted from the office.

Callum turned to Rupert. “You shouldn’t go alone. You don’t know what you’re going to be dealing with, and someone might need to be with Oliver while you’re handling the fallout. Not to mention, have you ever travelled with a young child?”

“I hadn’t really thought…”

“Is there someone who can help you in London? Or someone else you can take? Lamont, maybe?”

Rupert shook his head. There was no one else. And certainly not his best friend, Reese Lamont, who could barely leave his house, let alone the country, without having a paralyzing anxiety attack.

“No, I—” He looked at Callum, utterly overwhelmed. “I have no family.”

“You have Oliver,” Callum reminded him.

“Yes. Yes, of course,” Rupert said. “I just meant—”

“What about friends?”

“None that could get to London in the matter of hours.”

“Okay. Then, I’ll go.” Callum said, looking as incredulous as Rupert felt about that offer. “I mean, if that’s—”

“Why would you help me? You don’t even like me,” Rupert said, bewildered.

“He’s a
child
. Barely more than a baby, Rupert.”

And oh, god, Rupert knew that. Just hearing someone else say it, hearing the concern in Callum’s voice, brought the panic rushing back.

He was so far out of his depth that the water was closing over his head faster than he could begin to swim. Suddenly, the bane of his existence looked like the only life raft he could reach. “Yes. Okay. Thank you. I just—”

“We got this,” Callum said with a reassuring amount of confidence.

That made exactly one of them who thought they had any idea what the fuck they were doing.

That night passed in a blur. Jack was a godsend, booking them an early flight through Toronto that would get them into London the following evening. Callum didn’t know what he would have done without his help, since Rupert was so overwhelmed, he was useless. Callum had secretly dreamed of seeing the always perfectly put-together Rupert completely out of sorts, but now was really
not the time
.

Callum dragged their asses through packing up laptops and paperwork at the office, then to Callum’s hotel for his bag and passport. Once they arrived at Rupert’s hotel, another extended-stay set up like Callum’s, Callum practically had to shove Rupert in the direction of the bedroom to begin packing.

Callum stayed in the kitchen to call Garrick.

It was getting late and Callum worried that Garrick wouldn’t answer. He kind of wished no one had when a sleepy-sounding Rhian Savage picked up the phone.

That
was an answer to a question Callum hadn’t wanted to ask. Then he heard his sister’s voice mumbling in the not-very-distant background and almost hung up the phone.

“I hear you’re going to London,” Garrick announced by way of greeting once the phone had finally been passed to him.

Callum sighed. “Jack called you, didn’t he?”

“Probably no more than two minutes after he left your side.”

It wasn’t like Callum didn’t know Jack was Garrick’s oldest friend. Then another thought occurred. “Oh god. And Savannah knows?”

“Of course,” Garrick said with a chuckle. “We got to witness the activation of the Morrison phone tree. Pretty impressive.”

Callum rested his forehead against a kitchen cabinet. “
Great
.” He loved his family, he really did, but they had a compulsive need to be all up in each other’s business. Not that he had any right to bitch, since he’d made this trip to Moncton with the express purpose of forcing Garrick and Savannah to sort out their super weird love lives.

But still.

Deciding he’d deal with questions from his family when they arose and not one minute before, he turned the conversation to what needed to be done in the next couple days and secured Garrick’s promise to do whatever he could from Boston. Then Callum called Reese, who was far more interested in why Callum was going to London with Rupert than on the business issues the trip might create. At least Reese offered to have his assistant arrange for rooms at Rupert’s usual hotel in London, taking one thing off Callum’s plate.

It wasn’t ideal, but between Reese, Garrick, and Jack, and it almost being the weekend, he thought he and Rupert could disappear for a few days without the whole world, or at least one professional hockey team, falling apart.