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Holy fucking shit. I must be out of my mind.

It was the only explanation for why I had gone and kissed my captain.

I kissed him. Oh, by the Night Goddess. Why the fuck did I do that?

I rested my back against the wall by the door. Slumping in a suit wasn’t something one did. I remembered my mother telling me about a hundred times to behave myself when I wore formal attire to their company parties.

“Maxmilian! Stand up straight; don’t slump. You’ll get creases in your suit.”

Goddess, I had hated the events they organised for their investors, shareholders, and business partners. The frequent meltdowns I’d had as a child got me out of them. But as soon as I’d been able to play neurotypical long enough to get through the events, it had been on.

The adorable Gruber children were paraded around to show everyone how happy our family was.

Marie, my younger sister, had enjoyed them. Her ADHD had made her the life and soul of every party, a cute, energetic girl with pigtails and pompous frilly dresses to hide the feathers. And then there was me.

Earnest and bored Max, who never fit in and wasn’t mad about it.

I smirked into the dim room when I remembered the last time my mother made me go. It had been their company’s Christmas party about ten years ago. Sixteen-year-old me had shown up looking like a character from one of my favourite anime; I had worn a black futuristic overall with combat boots and the sides of my head shaved.

Goddess, Mum had hated that. She had me escorted out of the ballroom and nobody ever said a word about it.

I should get that haircut again. That was a good look.

I’d been so lost in my memories, I’d completely forgotten I should be panicking.

I fucking kissed Arne Bendixen!

I was probably lucky he didn’t punch me in the face.

The team hardly ever discussed sexual orientation; you just dated whoever you dated. Yet, I was pretty sure Arne was straight. On the rare occasions I’d seen him get hit on, it had only ever been female-presenting people. And even if he was queer, I was sure he wouldn’t be into a pansexual mess like me.

Yet, the look on his face had told a different story. His eyes had dipped to my lips so much, even my autistic ass couldn’t have mistaken his intentions for something else.

Pattern recognition on point, Max. It doesn’t help that he’s just so pretty.

For a minute, I considered calling in sick, but maybe that wasn’t the best impression to leave on the last night of my first training camp with the team.

You can’t avoid him, anyway. He’s your captain. You shower together. And he has such a nice cock.

Which I shouldn’t have noticed. At all.

I usually didn’t. Contrary to what my ex-boyfriend had accused me of, I never ever lusted over my teammates. For one, getting hard in the shower sucked. It happened occasionally to all of us. No matter how exhausted we were after playing; winning gave you—and your cock—a postgame high. We usually just ignored it. The times in which you’d get teased for a boner were long gone.Thank fuck.

But I also didn’t go around sexualising every person I met.

Just your captain.

My smartwatch vibrated with the timer I’d set so that I wouldn’t miss the feast.

Time blindness. It’s so much fun.

Okay. You are a capable adult. Well, a clueless Night Raven cosplaying as a capable adult. You can do this. It’s going to be alright. He kissed you back…

I checked my suit in the full-length mirror and tried to fix my stubborn curls but gave them up as a terrible job. They never did what I wanted.

On my way down to the ground floor, I pulled a hair tie out of my inner pocket and put my hair up in the kind of bun I wore for my workouts.

I hated it when wet hair touched my face. Ugh. The mere idea of it made me shudder. Dry hair wasn’t a lot better, but I could at least stand it. Not today, though.