Page 30 of Forbidden Hockey

An immeasurable amount of time passes before he lets go and stands up. He scoops up the cash.

“I’ll leave this with Jack’s tip out. I’m paying for the beers.”

He leaves, and I laugh.Possessive bastard.But I love it, every bit as much as I love the ghost of his hand around my foot.

Dirk, Age 23

Guess it’s the night for lust. Jack left with someone about an hour ago, and he’s already slipped away to drop a few fire emojis in the group chat. I haven’t seen Jack this excited about anyone in a long time, but Mercy’s reviving him.

Trav sits at the bar, our eyes meet, that familiar buzz of desire kicks in, and I forget how to breathe right. We don’t need words at this point. I know what he wants, so I make it and set it on the bar top in front of him.

My screen beeps—drinks for server tables—so I get busy making them. When I turn around, a man, a handsome one, has his hand on Trav’s shoulder, smiling at him in a way no one has any right to smile at him. There’s a drink in front of him that I know I didn’t put there. I turn to glare at Casey, who’s on bar with me tonight, as if he’s betrayed me. But there’s no way he could know about how I secretly lust after Trav, because I haven’t told anyone.

Technically, not even Trav.

It’s obvious the man wants to get his dick wet, and he actually fucking thinks Trav’s gonna be the one sucking him off later. Yeah, like hell that’s happening. I storm over, snatch up the man’s drink, and down it, not giving a fuck that I’m still on shift.

“Get out,” I deadpan. He’s not moving fast enough, and I’m seconds away from taking him outside to rearrange his goddamn nose. He trips over his feet on the way out the door.

I don’t do anything other than shake my head at Trav.No.

But no what? No men? No man but me?

I don’t know.

This has gone way too far, but I don’t know if we can stop this now that we’ve started. We’ve pressed an invisible button, a very forbidden and highly dangerous button, and ripping ourselves from this newfound Dirk and Travis gravity would prove fucking impossible if we tried.

I do my cashout in Trav’s office later, because I’m a fucking simp that just wants to be near him, and I’m pretty sure it was me who went way over the line tonight, so I should apologize at some point. It’s just, I don’t feel very sorry. Apologies should be authentic. All I’ve got is an “I’m sorry I didn’t take that guy outside and make him spit Chicklets.”

But maybe, eventually, I’ll drum up something close to remorse.

I wait for a lecture, for some kind of speech about how way wrong we would be.

It doesn’t come. We sit on opposite sides of the desk, with only the snapping of the spring-loaded bill holders occasionally breaking the companionable silence, blanketing us.

“Hey, I was gonna ask you something,” he says.

Here it comes. This is where he puts his foot down and strips me bare with a few quiet orders: stop being jealous, stop flirting, and stop orbiting him like I’m the moon chasing Earth. It’s about time. Someone needs to stop this, and he’s the more adultier adult, so it should be him.

“What would you have bought from the sex shop? When you were thinking about dating Sophia?” he tacks on.

Only, he knows I wasn’t thinking about dating Sophia. Ever. It took me a whole week, but I finally convinced him that I’ve never been into women, and it wasn’t likely I ever would be.

Has Sophia become code for him? A spin on what I’d been doing that night?

And fuck, that was a whole season ago. He’s still thinking about it? Or did my jealous fit give him the courage he needed to ask?

“If we’re actually talking Sophia here, yeah, I would have needed a strap-on with the largest dildo we could find.” My cheeks heat a little, and my cock wakes up further past the general state of arousal it’s in when I’m with Trav.

Trav’s nose wrinkles. Okay, so we weren’t talking about actual Sophia.

“But if Sophia were a he, and he already had a sizable appendage?—”

“He does,” Trav says in a low voice, almost a growl.

I shudder, taking a slow breath. This is brand new territory. This is dangerous fucking leaps and bounds past the cutesy, cheesy shit we’ve been toying with. My hand moves to my throat, clutching the soft hollow.

“Do you like to be tied up?” he asks, not waiting for my answer.