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Jerke smirked at me when I left the ice, drenched in sweat but grinning madly.

“Lorenz?”

“Yes, Coach?”

“Are you ready for some ice time tonight, son?”

“Yes! Of course I am.”

“Good.” He contemplated me for a moment. “It was good to see you play today.”

“It felt good.”

Like it did before the depression hit me.

Coach Jerke seemed to know what was on my mind. “We’ll get there again. I believe in you.”

“Thanks, Coach.” I choked on the words, turned, and followed the rest of the team into the locker room.

I’dalmostforgotten how fucking good it felt to have a stadium full of fans cheering you on. Or how fantastic winning felt, and how much it turned me on.

I was glad to have my own room for the night. Jules was on my mind when I stood in the shower, rivulets of hot water running down my body. I squeezed some body wash out of the bottle and spread it all over my length.

Fuck.

I shut my eyes and leaned my forehead against the cool tiles and angled my body so the water wouldn’t wash away the foam.

I fucked my slippery fist. God. The lewd sounds of my hand flying up and down my cock made me even harder.

I thought of Jules’ lean chest peeking out from the laces of his tunic and the strawberry red freckles dotting his skin. I bet his nipples were the same colour…

“Fuuuck,” I groaned, hips snapping forward as my climax rammed into me. My cum splattered on the tiles. I stroked myself through it, breathing hard.

You’re fucking starved, Nik.

I wasn’t proud that I’d wanked to the thought of Jules. But after this dry spell, I had to take whatever got me going. Once I’d rinsed off, I cleaned the wall and turned off the water.

I pulled on a pair of boxers—dick-to-hotel-sheets contact was the worst—and collapsed into bed.

God, I’m wiped.

I started the recording of the storm I listened to every night on Kraken Video and fell asleep almost immediately.

It reminded me of the summer storm raging in Jules’ forest, and how safe I had felt in his home.

The summer storm video was what saved my ass over the next couple of weeks. Dr Schmidt hadn’t exaggerated. The testing he put me through was one of the most taxing and difficult things I had ever done in my entire life. They made me revisit my childhood and made me talk about my father when all I had ever done was suppress every last memory of that man for the past twenty-odd years.

They made me dig through my school years and through all the painful shit I had ever experienced. I hated the part that tested my intelligence. I wasn’t dumb, I knew that. But the anxiety I had answering the questions was out of this world. What if they tell you there is nothing wrong with your brain, and you’re just bananas?

It took them a week to finalise my results, and it was one of Dr Schmidt’s colleagues who gave me the news.

“Mr Lorenz, it was pretty clear. We can say with certainty that you have ADHD.” All the tension left my body. And only afterwards, as relief flooded me, did I realise how much I had feared that it was all just in my head.

“Okay, I don’t know if I should be happy or sad now.” It was the truth. I didn’t know how to react. All of me was strangely numb, as if I was watching as a bystander.

“That is completely normal. We experience that a lot with late diagnosed patients. It will take some time for you to wrap your head around everything. Take your time, Mr. Lorenz.” She gave me a kind smile.

“What does that mean for my job?”