Timeless: A Gay Hockey Time Travel Romance by Declan Rhodes

Author:Declan Rhodes [Rhodes, Declan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2024-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

TWELVE

NICO

“Did you see that? Hilarious.” Dylan laughed and pointed at the sitcom on the TV screen. We watched as a befuddled working-class character tried to navigate the customs of the ultra-rich at a party.

His increasingly desperate efforts to blend in were comical. Dylan’s laughter was contagious. As the show cut to a commercial break, I looked around the apartment, eventually settling on the thick photo album on my bookshelf.

The worn leather cover called to me, promising a treasure trove of memories from my past that I could share with Dylan. Unable to resist the pull of nostalgia, I rose from the couch and crossed the room.

“Hey, what’s that?” Dylan asked, his attention shifting from the TV to me as I carefully removed the album from its shelf.

“It’s my family photo album.” I ran my fingers over the cover with a wistful smile. A few loose photos slipped from between the pages and fluttered to the floor. I crouched down to gather them up, smiling at the familiar faces.

Returning to the couch with the album in hand, I settled in beside Dylan. “Want to take a look inside?” I asked. It was an opportunity to connect my past with the present, giving him a glimpse into the world that shaped me.

“Of course.” Dylan grinned, wrapping an arm around my shoulders as we huddled close. “You know, in the future, we use remote controls for the TV, so you don’t have to get off the couch to turn the volume down.”

“Lazy much?” I asked. I’d heard about remote controls for the TV, but they were expensive, and it wasn’t a far walk to turn the knob.

Dylan strolled over to the set to turn the sound down.

“Why don’t you just turn it off?” I suggested. With a solid click, the picture flickered and faded into a lingering little dot.

When he returned, I started flipping through the album’s pages. It took me back to another part of my life. Dylan placed his hand on the page to stop my flipping.

“Look at you, so adorable.”

I was nine or ten, wearing beat-up hockey gear with my untamed, wavy black hair tumbling from under my helmet. There were photos of me posing with my hockey stick and holding my treasured puck signed by Phil Esposito when I went to a game in Boston with my uncle.

After I turned two more pages, Dylan pointed at a picture. My smile had a big gap in front where I’d lost a tooth in a game, but he was more interested in the teammate next to me. “Is that Kowalski?”

“Yep, that’s him.” A wave of nostalgia swept over me. “He was cute then, eh? I met him when we played on a Bantam team together. He’s always been there for me, even when things get tough.”

“Tell me about this one.” Dylan pointed at another image of me. I stood beside a stern-faced man with a bowl cut of graying hair.

“That’s Dad. Mom’s responsible for the unfortunate hairstyle. I insisted on going to the barber.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.