Title: Like You’ve Nothing Left to Prove
Series: Breakaway, Book Two
Author: E.L. Massey
Publisher: NineStar Press
Release Date: 03/14/2023
Heat Level: 2 – Fade to Black Sex
Pairing: Male/Male
Length: 66200
Genre: Contemporary, contemporary, gay, interracial, new adult, sports, ice hockey, uni student, ice skating, professional athlete, physical disability, anxiety disorder, coming out, service dog, cooking/foodies, stanning, social media, hashtags, homophobia
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Description
As the headline-stealing captain of the Houston Hell Hounds, nineteen-year-old Alexander Price has one goal: the Stanley Cup. He’s got the talent. He’s got the drive. But he’s also got an anxiety disorder and his therapist on speed dial. And, oh yeah, he’s gay. And he’s not willing to hide it anymore.
At eighteen, figure skater Elijah Rodriguez has already had his Olympic dreams crushed by an accident that left him with a seizure disorder and an existential crisis. Now a popular vlogger and freshman in college, Eli is trying to figure out what his new future will look like. Which is a little difficult because, oh yeah, he’s dating Alexander Price.
Eli and Alex are happy. It’s sort of a new state of being for both of them. But Eli is out, Alex isn’t, and their very visible “friendship” is already raising eyebrows. They have a plan: Alex will make their relationship public at the end of the season, hopefully with a Stanley Cup in tow. But what happens when that plan is derailed by an overzealous fan who outs them—right before the Hell Hounds’ playoff run?
Like You’ve Nothing Left to Prove
E.L. Massey © 2023
All Rights Reserved
Eli came out to his family on his fourteenth birthday.
It was a Saturday, and he’d spent the morning at the rink with Cody. And then he’d come home, done his chores, because even on his birthday, the goats were needy, adorable bastards. And then he’d collapsed, exhausted, on the couch.
He got to pick what they ate for dinner, and he chose Tres Golpes since breakfast-for-dinner was the best and also Francesca had decided she hated plantains that week and, at eight years old, she was quite possibly the most annoying person ever. Watching her suffer through clearing her plate was its own gift.
He was kind of a dick at fourteen.
But then he’d opened his actual presents and, of course, his mother had bought him clothes and then made him try on the clothes and then nearly got teary when he came out in a button-down that felt too tight around his throat. She hugged him and sighed about her baby growing up and asked if he had plans to ask someone special to the upcoming eighth-grade spring dance. When he said no, she took it upon herself to open his seventh-grade yearbook and go through the various girls she thought might be good candidates, with Abuela occasionally giving her input.
And he knew they didn’t mean anything by it.
They weren’t trying to upset him.
But he was fourteen and full of hormones or whatever, and he’d had a very long, tiring day. Suddenly he was unbuttoning the shirt as if it was the problem, throwing it onto the floor and yelling that he didn’t have a crush on any of the girls in his grade, and why couldn’t they just leave him alone?
Which, of course, had the exact opposite effect. Five minutes later, he was sitting on the couch half-naked, surrounded by his family and crying that he was maybe, possibly, definitely gay, and please don’t send him to a place he’d seen on the news where the kids did bootcamp exercises and prayed a lot until they were “fixed” or whatever. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with him.
Surprisingly, it was his father, not his mother, who pulled him into a crushing hug and said, of course, there was nothing wrong with him, and they would never send him to a place like that, please don’t cry, and they loved him and would always love him no matter what and maybe go pick up your new shirt before Mamá gets over her shock and remembers that you threw it, tags and all, onto the floor.
So he’d picked up his shirt, laughing a little, and was hugged by first Mamá and then Abuela, who was honestly the one he was most worried about.
“You’re not mad I’m gay?” he had to ask.
“There are worse things you could be,” she said.
“Like a fútbol player,” Francesca said. She was at a stage where anything the other family members liked, she vehemently opposed. Exhibit A: plantains.
“There is nothing wrong with fútbol players,” Abuela chided, and then, aside to Eli, she murmured, “Feel free to bring one home.”
It was, quite honestly, a little anticlimactic. For years, he’d imagined worst-case scenarios, wondering if he should come out at all or just wait until after college, like Cody planned to do. But he just…couldn’t. College was too far away and, unlike Cody, he didn’t think the worst-case scenario applied to him.
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E. L. Massey is a human. Probably. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her partner, the best dog in the world (an unbiased assessment), and a frankly excessive collection of books. She spends her holidays climbing mountains and writing fan fiction, occasionally at the same time.
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