Page 364

Story: Men of Fort Dale

“Oh God, my eyes,” Sean proclaimed.

“I didn’t sign up for this,” Ricardo said as though he didn’t care.

“Ayy, dinner,anda show,” Aidan crowed.

Sighing, Matt bent over and grabbed his towel to cover himself. “It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

“There’s a difference between seeing you naked because that’s how things go,” Sean started.

Aidan, of course, finished. “And walking in on you getting ready to get bent over our Christmas dinner.”

“We are kind of early,” Ricardo admitted.

Nick flushed. “Yes, you are.”

Matt couldn’t help but laugh at his boyfriend’s annoyed expression as he stomped into the kitchen, muttering under his breath. No doubt Matt would pay for the interruption later. If there was one thing he’d come to learn about Nick over the past year, it was that the other man could stack his frustrations up in the back of his mind and then take it out on Matt later. A few ripped uniforms and shirts were a testament to that.

Honestly, Matt looked forward to it.

“What if we’d been someone else?” Sean demanded. “Like his mom?”

“His mom would have announced she was coming early,” Matt pointed out as he adjusted the towel on his waist. “And she’d probably throw a party to know we’re still a thing.”

“She’s already tried!” Nick called from the kitchen.

Matt pointed in his direction. “He has a point. The whole damn family still calls him to make sure everything is good between us.”

Ricardo snorted, throwing himself onto a dining room chair. “As if you two have been anything but.”

Aidan sniffed. “They still owe me, like, forty bucks.”

“I’ve told you before that bet doesn’t count because you never actually had a pool collected,” Sean told him affectionately.

“Only because y’all were too chickenshit to actually take the bet!”

“Still doesn’t count as a bet.”

Matt smirked as he stepped around them, knowing their bickering was as much foreplay as Nick pinning him against the table. He knew they’d be perfectly happy to keep it up so long as they could and strode down to his and Nick’s shared bedroom. Moving in with Nick had been the easiest thing for Matt, and he tossed the towel on the rumpled sheets as he dug for his clothes.

The familiar sounds of his team bickering, talking and laughing drifted down the hallway, making a perfect accompaniment to the Christmas music in the living room. Matt let out a sigh of contentment as he pulled on his shirt, letting it wash over him. It had been so long since all of them had been together as one, he didn’t regret in the slightest that they’d chosen to stay home for the holidays.

“Doing alright in here?” Nick asked from the doorway.

Matt whirled around, frowning. “How the hell does someone your size move so quietly?”

“Practice,” Nick said, slipping closer and taking hold of Matt’s waist.

Immediately, he let go of his irritation and sank into Nick’s thick frame. Everything about what they were had been as easy as Matt had originally suspected. The affection and time spent, and the sex. They’d slipped into the pattern of being together with an ease that had unnerved Nick originally but had seduced him.

“Dinner’s done,” Nick murmured against his ear.

Matt wound his arms around Nick’s neck, ignoring the chatter from the other end of the penthouse. “It can wait. I want to enjoy this.”

“Just the two of us,” Nick said because he’d learned.

At the end of the day, that’s all there was to him and Nick, all there ever would be. And it was more than enough, and then some.

“Always,” Matt whispered, kissing him.

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