Page 12 of Cold Comeback (Richmond Reapers #1)

He was quiet for so long I thought he'd fallen asleep. Then, he twisted the hospital bracelet. "Everyone thinks it was a dare. Or a meltdown. The singing, the livestream, the tequila."

I waited.

"It wasn't. It was my birthday. I was alone in a hotel room for three days while the team was on a West Coast swing. I was in a slump, and they left me behind at home. I wasn't the golden boy anymore. No calls. No teammates checking in. No family."

His voice was matter-of-fact, but I heard the hurt underneath.

"I needed to feel something. Anything. I hit 'go live' because it was the closest thing I had to someone noticing my existence."

The traffic light ahead turned red. I turned to look at him. In the dashboard glow, he appeared younger. More fragile.

"And what happened after?"

"They let me take the fall. Said I wasn't focused and wasn't committed to the program." His laugh was bitter. "Nobody asked why. Nobody wanted to know why their golden boy was drunk and alone on his birthday, singing Miley Cyrus to strangers on the internet."

I was quiet for a long moment, processing. "Wrecking Ball."

"What?"

"That's what you sang. 'Wrecking Ball.'" I glanced at him. "Even falling apart, you picked the perfect song."

"It was just what came on—"

"No." The certainty in my voice surprised us both. "You don't accidentally pick a song about loving someone so hard it destroys you when you're drunk and alone on your birthday. You don't accidentally choose a song about being the one who breaks everything."

His breath caught.

"They saw a train wreck. I see someone brave enough to show the world how he was breaking." The light turned green. I didn't move. "Most people hide when they fall apart. You put on a show."

"Gideon—"

"That's not weakness, Thatcher. That's the most goddamn courageous thing I've ever heard of."

Behind us, a car honked. I drove through the intersection, letting my comments float between us.

Back at the hotel, Thatcher tossed his duffel by the door and sank onto his bed. The hospital had given him a care sheet and two Tylenol. He was exhausted.

"You want the bed closest to the AC or the door?"

"I don't care. I'm not sleeping anyway." He rubbed his temples. "Head's too scrambled."

I sat on my bed, facing him across the narrow gap between our mattresses. Close enough to touch. Far enough to pretend it was ordinary teammates sharing space.

"The boards," he said quietly. "I can still feel them against my back. Like they're still there, you know? And for a second, when I couldn't get up right away—" He paused. "I felt invisible again. Like maybe I'd just disappear and nobody would notice."

"I noticed."

"You charged that guy like he'd shot your dog."

"I was angry."

"At him?"

My eyes met Thatcher's. "At the idea of losing you."

My words were honest, terrifying, and nothing like the careful captain-speak I'd mastered.

Thatcher leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Gideon."

The way he said my name—quiet, certain—undid the remaining shreds of my careful distance.

I crossed the space between our beds and sat beside him. Our thighs touched. He smelled like hospital soap.

"I needed to know I was real again," he whispered.

"You're real. I see you."

He touched my thigh. I reached out and tangled my fingers in his hair.

When our lips met, it wasn't desperate like before—it was careful at first, reverent, his tongue tracing mine like he was memorizing me. Then, the reverence broke, and it was teeth, heat, and the grind of his hips, like he'd been starving for this.

"Gideon," he breathed. My hands trembled as I reached for his shirt.

I don't tremble. I don't fall apart.

"Are you sure?" His fingertips followed the ridge of my collarbone, deliberate and searching. "Because I need this to be real. Not just—not just you taking care of me because I got hurt."

His words hit hard. He wasn't asking if I wanted sex. He asked if I saw him as more than another problem to solve—another teammate to manage.

I caught his wrist and held his hand against my ribs. "You think I'm here out of duty?"

I needed to see his face when I pushed him back against the pillows. Needed to watch how his features shifted and what made his breathing change. Control had always meant knowing exactly what would happen next.

Thatcher's hands wrapped around the back of my neck, pulling me closer, and suddenly the script flipped. His thumb traced a small scar near my jaw.

"I wondered about this," he whispered, lips following the path his thumb had made.

He'd been watching. Really watching. Noticing details about me the same way I'd been stealing glances at him.

"Is this okay?" I pressed my palm flat against his chest.

"Mmmhmm."

I pushed his shirt up, exposing a band of pale skin just below his ribs. His skin was hot under my hands, solid muscle twitching.

After I worked the buttons open, he watched me, eyes wide and searching. I kissed a spot above his heart, then lower, nuzzling the salt of his sweat.

I traced a circle around a nipple with my tongue, slow and deliberate, until he arched his back and moaned softly.

"Fuck," I hissed.

Thatcher wriggled out of his shirt, tossing it to the floor with a soft, nervous laugh.

"Your turn," he whispered. His fingers fumbled at the buttons of my shirt, tentative at first, then bolder. I let him undress me, holding his gaze as the fabric peeled away and my skin prickled in the cool air.

He traced my ribs, counting them like piano keys. His lips were softer than expected, almost gentle, and I had to close my eyes to hold myself together.

We kissed again.

We didn't need to go further, but it didn't stop us from pushing the boundary—his hand sliding low against my jeans, mine gripping him hard, both of us chasing the friction until every nerve in my body screamed his name.

When Thatcher pressed against me, grinding slow and deliberate, I bit back a sound that would have carried through the thin hotel walls.

He gasped, and I covered his mouth with mine, swallowing the sound.

"The walls are thin," I whispered against his lips.

"Don't care." He grabbed a handful of my ass. "Let them hear. Let them know I exist."

I kissed him harder, losing any pretense of control, grinding until we were both wrecked and gasping, two men on a shitty hotel bed proving to each other we were still here.

As we came up for air, we collapsed onto Thatcher's bed, breathing hard in the artificial darkness.

I spoke first. "I should probably sleep in my own bed."

"Probably."

Neither of us moved.

I listened to his breathing slow and felt his heartbeat settle against my ribs. I heard Knox's television and Pluto's snoring two rooms over through the thin walls—the usual sounds of a team on the road.

But this—Thatcher curled against my side, my hand in his hair, and the taste of him still on my tongue—it wasn't normal at all. It was a dangerous chapter left out of my leadership manual.

"Thatcher?"

"Mmm?"

"Tomorrow, when we get back to Richmond. We should talk. About what this means."

"What do you think it means?"

The honest answer lodged in my throat: It means I'm falling for you and it terrifies me. It means every rule I've built my career on is crumbling. It means the team that trusts me to lead them might lose that respect if they knew their captain can't keep his hands off a teammate.

"I think," I said carefully, "we're in territory neither of us has mapped before."

Thatcher didn't answer. After a few more minutes, his breathing evened out. Tension leaked out of his body.

The careful performance fell away in sleep—no practiced smile and no deflecting humor. It was a man who'd spent his birthday alone, singing to strangers because it was the only way to prove he existed.

I studied the bruise spreading across his shoulder, dark purple against pale skin. My fault, somehow. I'd given him my tape, protection, and superstition, and it hadn't been enough to keep him safe.

When I tried to slip away to my own bed, his hand caught mine—unconscious, instinctive. His grip was firm even in sleep, like he feared I'd disappear.

I sat back down.

Thatcher's hand in mine was like stepping off the edge of everything I'd ever known about being a captain. About being safe. About being alone.

I didn't go to my own bed. Instead, I stayed awake until the digital clock read 5:47 AM, watching him breathe, and wondering when keeping someone else safe had started mattering more than protecting myself.