Page 13

October

Ever since Aiden had gone to New York and then come home again, he’d been acting funny. Matt had watched the media availabilities the Libs had posted after the game, seen everything Gabe Walker had said about Aiden.

Whatever Aiden had said or thought about his relationship with Gabe, it was pretty clear that the kid was in love with him. To be honest, Matt couldn’t really blame him. He’d known Aiden when he was young and dumb and pretty; Gabe had gotten to know him when he was old and sad and hot. And basically his teacher. So it wasn’t really surprising.

But whatever had happened there, it had really messed Aiden up, like all of the progress he’d made with Matt had just evaporated into thin air. He was quiet for most of that night, didn’t even say anything when they got into bed together. Instead he lay still on his side of the mattress for a few minutes before he rolled over and wormed his way into Matt’s arms, a worried little frown creasing his forehead.

“Are you okay?” Matt asked.

Aiden mumbled into his chest, “I’m fine,” and shuddered a little when Matt ran his fingers through Aiden’s hair.

They fell asleep like that, and every time Matt woke up overnight, Aiden was still clinging to him, like a particularly anxious koala.

“Everything cool?” Matt asked, over breakfast the next morning. Aiden usually cooked for them, but he had taken a while to get out of bed, so eventually Matt put together bowls of coconut yogurt and fruit and granola and scrambled some eggs. And then Matt had had to go back into the bedroom, haul him out of bed and drag him into the kitchen.

“It’s fine,” Aiden said, but he was clearly still a million miles away. He swept his spoon through the yogurt, frowning.

“I have to go to Brossard for morning skate,” Matt said, after a bit. “You gonna be okay here?”

“Yeah.”

It wasn’t convincing, but Matt had to go to practice, so he left it there. By the time he came home, Aiden was still on the couch, head tucked low against his chest, the TV blaring in the background while he scrolled through something on his phone. He looked fucking terrible, that sad downturn at the corner of his mouth, dark circles under his eyes. The fingers of his free hand twisted around each other, one of the anxious, repetitive motions he made sometimes and were a clue that he was either upset or overwhelmed.

“Aiden,” Matt said, pausing the TV, “seriously, what’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” Aiden’s mouth seemed frozen halfway between a smile and a grimace. “Nothing.”

“You’ve been in kind of a strange mood since you got home from New York, and I was... I don’t know, I was just worried.” When Matt looked down at Aiden, Aiden licked his lips, and Matt had a second where he thought briefly about kissing him and just forgetting the line of questioning. It was easy to do that, but he needed to stop doing the easy thing.

Aiden laughed, although there wasn’t much humor in the noise. “You really don’t need to be concerned, all right? Not really your business, I’m totally fine, just, you know. In case you didn’t notice. Not exactly the world’s most cheerful person one hundred percent of the time.”

“So it’s okay for my business to be yours but not the other way around?”

“Matty...that’s not fair.”

“What happened to talking to me?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Clearly something’s wrong and I—don’t want you to be unhappy.”

“News flash, Matt, you really don’t have much control over that.”

“All right,” Matt said, and pulled himself away.

They sat on the couch, watching each other. Aiden still had that deer-in-the-headlights wariness in his eyes and Matt knew that even though it wasn’t visible, he was frowning. His mouth twitched. There was something strange happening on Aiden’s face, worry that flickered across before he could stop it, and Matt wondered whether the other shoe would finally drop.

Whether the thing he was waiting for all of this time would happen and Aiden would finally say, I’m going back to New York for good. He wondered whether Aiden was feeling that same strange combination of worry and sick relief. But Aiden was just curled in on himself, looking miserable, and Matt thought about all of the times Aiden had freaked out on him when he’d really just needed—

“Aiden.”

“ What , Matt?”

“Get up.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Get. Up.”

Aiden stood, as gracefully as he ever did, and it was only the way his mouth twitched that really betrayed how nervous and upset he was. “Look, Matt, I’m—”

“No. Don’t say anything.”

Aiden stared at him, wordlessly. He looked ridiculous, his face stricken and his cheeks red, still in his bare feet and boxers, muscles tense like he was trying to decide whether he wanted to fight or flee. He looked down at Matt, still on the couch, and swallowed hard. He crossed his arms over his chest like he was trying to cover his nipples, and Matt thought about saying no, move them , but this stuff was always a delicate balance, not doing too much too soon.

“Kneel on the floor.”

Aiden blanched, head whipping back like Matt had slapped him. “What?”

“I told you not to say anything, Aiden.”

Aiden’s face flushed darker, and he hesitated for a second before his body did what Matt had told him to do. He moved so gracefully, even now, years of goalie training and acrobatics on the ice in every easy line of his body. Aiden knelt on the floor, next to the coffee table, awkward and embarrassed. His eyes flickered from Matt’s face and back down: if he was a prey animal you would’ve been able to see the whites. But Matt could see the line of his dick, slowly getting hard under his boxers.

“Spread your legs a little wider. And sit up with your back straight. Balls of your feet on the ground. Don’t let your weight rest on your heels.” He felt like his voice was admirably steady, considering the way his hands were clenched in fists, the way he was so fucking nervous about doing the wrong thing and making something worse. The way he was always so undone by Aiden’s easiness, his malleability, that his skin felt like it was already prickling with goose bumps.

Aiden shifted. He did what he was told, eyes turned demurely down to the floor. In that position, he couldn’t just rest his weight on the ground, but had to actively brace himself up. If Matt made him stay there for a long time, it would probably get a little painful. He licked his lips, a bit nervously, and said, “How long...?”

“Until I tell you to get up.”

“Or you’ll what?” Aiden asked. He looked up suddenly, unable to look away from Matt’s face. His eyes were very wide and darker than usual. Fishing, now, trying to rile Matt up.

“Stop asking questions, Aiden.”

Something about the way that Matt had said it sank in, because Aiden didn’t ask or say anything else, just knelt on the floor where Matt had left him and watched. Matt turned the TV on and sat back against the couch, propping his feet up on the coffee table, very carefully not looking at Aiden even though he was so aware of him that he felt like an electric current ran between them. He couldn’t keep from looking sometimes, checking from the corner of his eye every now and then to see how he was doing.

Aiden was admirably still, like this was just another hockey exercise. The position had to have been awkward, knees bruising against the cold hardwood floor. Matt admired the visible strain in his thigh muscles. He had muscular legs, not as thick as a skater’s, but defined in a way that Matt could see every line of them. Aiden might have been in fantastic shape, but human beings weren’t made for this kind of sitting. Not without cushioning. Not for this long.

But he kept at it, his posture ramrod-straight, and Matt could hear the way his breathing slowly calmed, got deeper and slower even while his face flushed red. Knowing how Aiden must have felt all twisted up inside, the pain of the position and the humiliation of it, of the desire to please—it was fucking heady, almost a little like being drunk. It took almost everything he had in him not to look, not to stare like a beggar at a feast, to keep focused on the TV.

Aiden wasn’t any better. Matt could see him, every little movement of his hands, every sideways flick of his eyes. Waiting. Watching.

Matt realized he hadn’t even been paying attention to what had been on the TV, but the episode was over. He turned it off and went back into the kitchen to wash the dishes Aiden had accumulated across the course of the day and didn’t look back. Didn’t tell Aiden he could get up; didn’t tell him it was over. He chanced a look over his shoulder and Aiden still knelt there, head bowed, just breathing.

He poured himself a drink of water. He considered dumping it over his head. He settled for splashing it into his face, blinking. It didn’t do much to get his head together.

By the time Matt went back into the living room and sat down on the couch, Aiden was shivering a little. Matt said, “Come here,” and then when Aiden started to stand, “I didn’t say you could walk.”

“Matty—”

“I didn’t say you could talk.”

The way Aiden looked at him, anguished and full of desire, eyes huge and dark, almost undid him right then and there. Aiden wasn’t thinking about whatever had been bothering him anymore. All he was thinking about was Matt, all he was thinking about was what they were doing together. On his hands and knees, he crawled across the floor. It wasn’t far, but he did it slowly, like every movement was at once a humiliation and an excitement, head bowed. The tension in his shoulders was fucking amazing, and when he was finally sitting at Matt’s feet, Matt couldn’t help himself.

“Aiden...” He reached out to touch Aiden’s face, hand gentle on his cheek, fingers dragging over his lips, and Aiden made a little whine, unembarrassed, shaking with the force of trying to hold himself back until he was given permission.

“You’re so good,” he said, before he could stop himself. He sounded like he’d been bag-skated, breathless and clipped. “Not at the beginning, you never are, but you’re... god , you’re so—what do you want, Aidy?”

There was the unspoken question in the words: Is this okay? Are you okay?

Aiden licked his lips again. He was still almost naked, cock straining against his boxers, a little damp patch visible where it rubbed against the fabric. He looked tortured, like it pained him to say it. It was always this moment that Matt had fucking lived for, both figuring out what Aiden had wanted when he was too worried to say it or too fucked up to untangle it, and making him admit it.

“Can I take off your belt?” Aiden said, after a long quiet, and Matt could feel the breath between them, ragged but somehow at the same speed, like he was breathing in the air Aiden exhaled.

“My belt?”

“Please?”

“Yes.”

With another one of those graceful movements, Aiden leaned forward carefully, deliberately. He unbuckled Matt’s belt and started to tug it from the loops as Matt canted his hips up to help. It was just a regular leather belt, not particularly thick or wide, but it would do. Aiden folded it in half, tested the pull of it between his right hand holding the buckle and his left slipped through the loop, and then held it out to Matt. Nervous. Waiting.

Matt took it from him, slowly, not entirely sure about it but still wanting it so fucking badly. “Why do you want this?” he asked, his voice rough-edged even to his own ears. He wasn’t sure, at this point, if he was asking Aiden or himself.

Aiden swallowed. “I want you to hurt me.”

Matt knew it wasn’t the whole truth. He’d spent literal years trying to figure out the whole truth. What it came down to was that Aiden wanted this and maybe needed it sometimes. And maybe he should have been working out his shit in other ways. But this would do for the moment.

“That’s not really an answer.” Matt traced the line of Aiden’s face again, this time with the edge of the belt. Aiden looked at him, shuddering, tormented with need and hesitation and a strange kind of affection. “Why do you want this?”

“I... I don’t know. I just... I do.”

Matt didn’t know either, but he just did. Aiden was still watching him, all of the hesitation gone. He was kneeling between Matt’s legs, his arms resting on Matt’s thighs. “Will you, Matty? Please?”

The word rocked through him like he was the one who’d been hit, and he gave up on waiting. “Stand up,” Matt said, and Aiden stood, stumbling a little at the rush of blood to his legs and toes. And Matt was on his feet too, arm held out to Aiden to lean on as he shifted back and forth, trying to get rid of the pins and needles. His hand gripped too tight, bitten-down fingernails digging into Matt’s skin. It was kind of painful, but also kind of nice.

“Where do you want me?” Aiden asked, and Matt couldn’t help it, learned forward and kissed him, messy and passionate, on the mouth. Aiden sighed into it, eyes slipping shut, and let Matt take him apart bit by bit, one hand tangled in Aiden’s hair, pulling hard enough to make him hiss, the other still gripping the belt.

“The wall,” Matt said, when he finally pulled away.

He felt in control and out of it, voice sandpaper raw as he watched Aiden stumble to the living room wall, found a little space between the tasteful prints that Matt had hung to make it seem less lifeless when he had been living here alone. Braced his forearms against the wall and bent forward so his forehead pressed against the green paint. Matt’s hands fit like they belonged in the waistband of his boxers, tugging them down. Aiden was completely naked now, every inch of that ridiculous body exposed, and he was shivering.

“Aidy,” Matt said, and Aiden shuddered again. Matt wondered desperately what the fuck he was thinking, but instead of asking, traced the edge of the belt over Aiden’s skin. First carefully and gently, pulling away and touching him again. He could feel Aiden forcing himself to hold still, the muscles in his back so tense and his fists clenched with such anticipation that Matt thought he might actually break apart.

The first blow caught him on the left shoulder, hard and sure, and he gasped. The noise was loud, ragged, almost obscene. Matt knew he was good at taking it, especially when the belt was folded like this, didn’t even have the full power of his arm behind it. Aiden shook under the force of it, the force of everything else he probably wanted.

When they were doing this, it was easy to fall into a kind of fugue state, arm moving on instinct. The second blow. The third. He was moving his arm, fast, so Aiden wouldn’t know where to expect them, so the blows would fall from all sides. On Aiden’s shoulders, his ass, his thighs, his biceps.

Matt felt him cringe underneath the force, his hands screwed into fists, his eyes squeezed shut. His body flinched, but he didn’t move, just took the blows in silence, at first. It felt so goddamn good to do this, knowing that for whatever reason, this was what Aiden wanted and needed, and Matt could give it to him.

He focused on particular areas, the belt licking again and again on already tender parts of Aiden’s body, drinking in the noises Aiden couldn’t quite keep himself from making, gasps and whines and groans, stupid words, pure nonsense falling out of his mouth. Matt’s name, over and over again, stupid endearments, a litany of nonsense about how good it felt, please, keep going, please, more, how much he wanted Matt to fuck him.

Matt should have been in control. He should have been, but it was impossible to do it when Aiden reacted like that, when Aiden was losing it under him, when his skin was straining and singing under Matt’s hands, hot to the touch. Matt couldn’t stop running them over and over the muscles of Aiden’s back, tracing the thing he’d created with the belt and his hands alone.

“Matt...oh, Matt , I need...”

And somehow, he had already turned and fallen into Matt’s arms, face buried in Matt’s chest, every piece of him burning, beyond embarrassment, beyond almost anything. Aiden probably didn’t even know what he needed, and Matt could barely get his head straight long enough to figure it out.

But when he shoved his hand down between them to wrap his palm around Aiden’s dick, Aiden came immediately, just like that, from being forced to kneel and be flogged and then touched tenderly. He looked up and his face was an echo of what Matt felt: completely lost, felled by desire and stupid fucking feelings. Somehow, that made it a little better. Knowing he wasn’t alone.

Fucking him after that was almost an anticlimax. They ended up on the couch, half-collapsed because Aiden’s legs could barely hold him up anymore, Aiden on top of Matt, the two of them struggling to get him out of his pants. Aiden was like a drunk person, fucked up and clumsy as he leaned over Matt, who couldn’t do anything except stare at him to see if he was okay, the only thing he could feel a maelstrom of need and terrible, painful fondness.

“Thank you,” Aiden breathed, and in response, Matt dragged his fingers down the abused flesh of Aiden’s back, and then they weren’t talking anymore.

After it was over, Aiden lay on top of Matt, half-asleep. His weight felt completely relaxed, boneless and satisfied. Matt stroked his back gently, knowing it was probably still burning.

“Ugh, Matty,” Aiden mumbled. “For someone who says he doesn’t like hurting anyone, you’re really good at hurting me.”

“Unfortunately.”

“No-o, not for...not for me.”

Matt was quiet for a while after that, as their breathing slowed, sweat cooling to an uncomfortable chill. He said, “So do you want to tell me what was wrong?”

Aiden was silent too, before he said, finally, “I... I had a hard time going back to New York. It—it didn’t really feel like home anymore. Too many things are changing. I’m just...not really where I wanted to be? In a lot of ways. And I’m just...frustrated, and I want to be better, and I don’t know how to.”

“You’re doing pretty good as far as I can tell, Aiden.”

“Thanks.” He sounded frustrated still, like whatever he was saying wasn’t enough. “I know I’m trying, it’s just...”

“Aidy,” Matt said, and rolled Aiden off of him so they were lying side by side on the couch instead. He knew his face probably looked stupid as hell. Way too fucking soft. Aiden couldn’t meet his eyes. “Really, you’re...doing just fine. From my vantage point. From one person who should probably have it figured out by now to another.”