Page 17

“How was it?” Matt asked, when he got home later that night. For the last few years, he’d always been exhausted after games, eager to fall into bed. It was different now that he had Aiden in his life again, curled up against his side. He still felt exhausted, but his body was insistent about the fact that it wasn’t ready to sleep yet, that it wanted other things first.

Aiden looked up from under his eyelashes at him. It was the look that had really done him in, fifteen years ago. They were just such pretty eyelashes, thick and dark and a little curled. It was absurd, really, that Aiden looked like that still.

Aiden said, “I don’t think I ever want to do that again.”

“Sorry. I had hoped you wouldn’t be uncomfortable. Were they okay?”

“They were all friendly. It’s fine. It was fine. I’m just so fucking awkward, Matt. Just not cut out to be a WAG, I guess.”

Matt slipped his hand beneath the waistband of Aiden’s boxer briefs. It was cheating, kind of, to do that. “I dunno, it’s pretty nice coming home to you here. You do all of the WAG stuff already, except the socializing.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Aiden muttered, but he was already getting hard in Matt’s hand, teeth digging into his lower lip as he trembled with the force of trying not to push his hips up into Matt’s grip.

“Can I fuck you ?”

“Yes—okay— fuck , Matt, Jesus Christ —” Aiden’s voice broke on the last word, jumping up an octave. It was funny: Matt hadn’t done anything except stroke his dry, calloused hand up the length of Aiden’s cock and he was already falling apart under Matt’s hands and the weight of Matt’s body, rolled half on top of him.

“I think about you all of the time when I’m playing,” Matt said. Their mouths were so close together, not quite a kiss. Close enough that Matt could feel the words vibrating against Aiden’s lips.

“What do you think about?” Aiden asked, a little breathless. He had his hands in Matt’s hair, running them through it even though Matt kept things pretty short during the season. His mouth was hanging open, a little dumb, a sigh escaping when Matt took his hand away.

“You, waiting for me at home.” He spat in his hand and took Aiden in his grip again. “Sometimes I think about you waiting for me naked in bed at home.”

“I did that for you already, basically,” Aiden said, a little arch. His light brown eyes were intent on Matt’s face when Matt pulled away, crinkled a bit at the edges in a smile. It made Matt feel a little crazy, knowing that Aiden rarely met anyone’s eyes directly, but always looked at him like that.

It was like Matt could get glimpses of the way he’d used to be, before everything went sideways, before they vanished again. Mostly just in bed. Maybe that was all he needed to know: if things weren’t going well out of it, he could just use his body to let Aiden know how much he meant to Matt. “It’s never enough,” Matt said. “Take these off.”

He helped Aiden squirm and kick the underwear away, even though it was difficult, because Matt didn’t want to move and Aiden didn’t seem to want him to, either. He still had one hand gripping Matt’s hair, like if he would let go, Matt might get up and vanish, too. As if he could ever fucking do that. Aiden was painfully hard in his hand now, even harder when he moved his free hand to Aiden’s throat. He didn’t grip or press, just let it rest there, watched Aiden struggling not to push himself up into that, too.

It was objectively kind of insane, how easy Aiden was.

“What else do you think about?” Aiden blinked rapidly, like he couldn’t control it, couldn’t focus on anything and was desperately trying to anyway. Matt moved his hand again so he could touch Aiden’s eyelashes with one hand, feel the feathery movement against his skin. Aiden didn’t flinch away, just lay still under Matt’s fingers, gentle against his eyelids, his cheekbone, the line of his jaw.

“Just—you. Everything about you. The way your voice cracks when you’re turned on. Your pretty eyelashes, the smell of your hair, the way you taste—”

Aiden tilted his head up, his stupid needy little way of asking for a kiss without having to say it. Matt couldn’t help but give him what he wanted, remembering as he leaned down and drowned in Aiden’s mouth all of the other times he’d kissed Aiden like this, hundreds of thousands of kisses over the years they’d been together. He still felt as insane, doing it, as he’d done the first time, like he couldn’t believe this was his life, that it was happening to him.

“What else?” Aiden asked breathlessly.

“I think about—about how fucking easy you are, baby, how bad you always want it.”

“You just do something to me,” Aiden managed, in between kisses, “it makes me insane. You always have.”

“And I was thinking—I was thinking about some of the shit we used to do, back when we were kids.”

“Yeah?”

Even if his mind was in a million places at once, memory layered on top of physical reality, his body knew Aiden’s well enough to move on instinct, grinding against him, free hand back at his throat, the other one stroking, insistent and a little rough. The way Aiden had always liked it. It was working, if the way Aiden’s fingers were digging into Matt’s shoulders was any indication.

“I was thinking about the time you bought my jersey.”

Aiden didn’t answer at first, just swallowed so hard Matt could feel his Adam’s apple bob against Matt’s palm. His eyes were heavy-lidded when he looked up and said, “I only bought it so you’d fuck me in it.”

“It worked,” Matt said, and twisted his hand, a little mean, just hard enough that Aiden winced and groaned. “It fucking worked, baby.”

“You ruined it, though.”

“Like you could have worn it outside anyway. And we got enough use out of it, anyway, you wore it a few times, and I took those pictures—”

Aiden was laughing, now. “Jesus, those pictures. I don’t know how you ever convinced me to do that.”

“Didn’t need a whole lot of convincing, from what I remember.” He shifted his weight, ignoring Aiden’s noise of dismay and his grasping hands, moved a little farther down his body, pressing his ear against Aiden’s chest so he could listen to his heart for a second, the wild thump thump thump of it, ignoring the increasingly desperate way Aiden squirmed under him. “From what I remember you were pretty eager to show me whatever I wanted, huh?”

He’d saved those, on his phone, for a long time after, pulled them out to look at them when he was jerking off on the road. Aiden, on his knees in the bed with his back to Matt, so you could see the name and number so clearly. Aiden, legs spread wide, hand wrapped around his dick, the jersey rumpled up around his wrist, eyes hooded. Matt’s hand fisted in the jersey, almost sacrilegiously twisting the logo, as he pulled Aiden’s unresisting body up toward him. Aiden, bent over, from behind, with Matt’s hand splayed on his lower back. Aiden, with Matt’s dick—

“Something about having your name on my back,” Aiden mumbled, trying to push him farther down, “just made me kind of crazy.”

“You know.” Matt mouthed his way along the line of Aiden’s stomach, digging in his teeth just to make Aiden shudder. “Since you’re part of the WAG group officially, I could probably get you a playoff jacket.”

“Have to make the playoffs first,” Aiden muttered, his hands in Matt’s hair again. “ Please , Matty, I need—”

Face-to-face with Aiden’s dick, Matt couldn’t help smiling, lips pressed against the head, where he could feel and taste exactly how badly Aiden needed him. “We’re going to make the playoffs this year. And then I’ll get you your jacket. It’s been a while since you’ve worn my name, huh? I bet you’d look so fucking good wearing it—”

Aiden was propped up on his elbows now, staring down at him, eyes wide, pupils huge. For a second, it was like he couldn’t think of anything to say, like he was transfixed by Matt’s face, by Matt’s words. Matt could probably look at him like that for ages and never get tired of it.

Finally, he managed, “Matt, please .”

Matt pushed him back down again, took a second to give him what he wanted, the suction of his mouth and the swirl of his tongue around the head. He lost himself for a few minutes in the groan of relief that Aiden made, the sharp tug of his hands in Matt’s hair. Sometimes Matt thought he could do this forever, just listening to Aiden losing it underneath him, knowing how much he needed Matt to touch him. He stopped, pulling away and wiping the spit with the back of his hand.

Aiden gasped, “Matty, really ?”

“I was just thinking about the jacket—you’d like it? Wouldn’t you?”

Aiden was doing the thing he did sometimes, where Matt knew what the answer was, but he was being stubborn about it. He shook his head, even though his face was flushed and he was squirming underneath Matt, trying to get him to touch, to take him in his mouth, to do anything . “I—I don’t know,” he said, looking down at Matt again, almost sly.

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” Matt said, and went down on him again. Aiden didn’t answer, just thrust up a little too roughly into Matt’s mouth, needy, desperate.

“I just—I just—”

“But you would ? Everyone knowing you’re mine?” His voice sounded wrecked already, and it wasn’t because Aiden had been especially rough. The idea of Aiden wearing one of those ridiculous jackets with Safaryan across the shoulders in rhinestones or fluorescent paint or whatever Aino had picked out for that year’s theme was really—it was a really good mental image. Thinking about Aiden, after the games, naked in only the jacket, the way he’d worn Matt’s jersey a decade ago—that was overwhelming, too.

He went back down, savoring the sigh that Aiden made when he did it. Held Aiden’s hip down with one hand, the other wrapped around the base of his dick. Aiden was twisting between the points of contact, his eyes closed and his head thrown back against the pillow, one arm over his eyes, just as overwhelmed as Matt felt.

When Matt pulled away again, Aiden actually whined, an almost animal noise of dismay. Good, Matt thought, the weird, savage part of him that Aiden had woken up oddly satisfied.

“Maybe I’ll fuck you while you’re wearing it,” Matt said, jerking Aiden off, too slow for Aiden’s liking. He was panting, now, trying to set the pace, until Matt shoved him down again. “Maybe I’ll fuck you while you’re wearing it, and nothing else, and then I’ll make you wear it to the game the next day.”

“ Oh, ” Aiden was saying, and Matt could feel every flinch of his body, every shiver that wracked it, every shift of muscle underneath him, skin so warm it practically burned him. Matt, trapping him with his own weight, thought that maybe—“Oh, Jesus, if—if it’s anything like the jersey, everyone’s going to know .”

“Know what?”

“Please, Matt, I’m so close—”

“Know what ?”

It was a knife’s edge, here, pushing him but not pushing him too hard. Aiden was capable of insane self-control when he wanted to show it. It was a side effect of being a goalie, of years of mental strength practices and meditation. And of Aiden’s own peculiar personality. But sometimes, when Matt did this to him—practically choked himself on him, fingers teasing his rim, ruthlessly using every single trick he’d learned about Aiden’s body over the years—it was almost too much. Aiden liked to suffer, and Matt liked to watch him suffer, but it was the balancing act on the precipice that was the hardest part. Aiden was sweating, moisture beading his forehead, and he was biting down hard on his finger to keep from crying out.

“Please,” he said, his voice very small.

Matt took his mouth and his hands away, shook his head. “Aiden. Know what ?”

Aiden was stubborn, hated crying even in the intense moments during sex, but his voice was practically sobbing when he gasped, “That I’m yours, that I’m yours, that I want to fucking—I want you to cover me with it, I want everyone to see it—please, Matt, I have to come —”

They hadn’t been messing around very long today, but something about the idea of it had always lit a fire in Aiden, an answering flame in Matt. Aiden was close, and Matt couldn’t deny him that. He stopped talking and took Aiden in his mouth again, pushed right up against his fist gripping Aiden’s cock, mean and merciless.

Aiden’s thighs clenched around his head, and all Matt could hear was the roar in his ears. All he could smell was Aiden’s skin. All he could see was Aiden’s body, close up in flashes. All he knew was how good it felt to do this to him, to figure out the puzzle, the pins of the lock to slot into place to turn Aiden into this, a groaning, pleading, shifting mess of a man underneath him.

When Aiden came, he yanked Matt’s hair so hard that his eyes watered, made a strangled noise that was half a sob and half a groan. It took Matt a second or two to swallow and finally lift his head up, and he took the quiet moment to stare down at Aiden. He was still breathing hard, rumpled and loose and vulnerable, face still flushed.

“Matty,” he managed, “what do you want me to—”

“Just stay there,” Matt said. His voice was unsteady, strained. “We might not have the jacket, but I want—let me give you what you wanted.”

“Yeah?” Aiden might have looked languid, relaxed, but his whole body tensed again when Matt said it. “What are you...oh,” he said, when Matt moved up to straddle his thighs, hand wrapped around his own dick. “Yeah. Fuck , yes.”

Matt was so exhausted from the game and so worked up from getting Aiden off that he knew it wasn’t going to take long, especially when Aiden was looking up at him like that, eyes huge and dark, like he both wanted to devour Matt and be devoured by him.

Matt wanted that. Matt wanted to devour him, wanted to keep him here forever, wanted to take him everywhere and show him off so everyone who saw him knew he was Matt’s, that he got off on being Matt’s, that he wanted—that he wanted—

He had to grab the headboard to brace himself when he came, the force of it almost knocking him off-balance. It wasn’t a shiver as much as a punch in the face, so sudden and intense it was almost painful. When he opened his eyes again, Aiden was still staring up at him, except he had come striping his chest and a little splattered on his cheek. He took one finger and wiped it across his face. Then he put his finger in his mouth, meeting Matt’s gaze directly as he licked the come away, and Matt’s dick gave a pained little jerk, like it was trying to do it all over again.

Aiden sat up again and leaned forward to kiss him, so different from the hungry, desperate kisses they’d shared just a few minutes ago. It was a sweet press of his lips against Matt’s, almost grateful. “I don’t need a jacket.”

“I know,” Matt mumbled into his mouth, “but if we do make the playoffs, I’m going to make sure you get one.”

“Okay.” Something brief and strange shifted across Aiden’s face, a shadow Matt didn’t understand and didn’t want to see. “Look. I’m going to go use the bathroom and get cleaned up. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll be right in after you,” Matt said, but then he lay down and, before he knew it, was asleep.

It seemed like every time Aiden started to get used to things, Matt went on another roadie. This one was to Winnipeg, Minnesota and Chicago. He would be gone almost a week, and as the day of the first flight approached, Aiden could already feel the dread building up in the pit of his stomach.

The problem was, no matter how well things were going, until Aiden figured out how he needed to shape the rest of his life, it was always going to be like this. The problem wasn’t Matt, whether Matt was there or not: it was that Aiden was drifting through the water without any direction or anchor.

He got through the first few days just fine. He met Aino for coffee, and they went for a walk in Mont-Royal, sipping their drinks. She looked cute as a button, wrapped up in her huge parka with a beanie hiding most of her lion’s mane of hair. Aiden, on the other hand, was constantly swearing and shaking out his hand as hot coffee leaked out from under the lid and fell on the web of his fingers.

“I’m glad you decided to come!” Aino said, politely ignoring his problems. “I was worried about you, you know. You don’t often answer on the group chat.”

His phone had started buzzing not long after he’d attended that first game with Aino and he realized that he’d been officially added to the WAG chat. At first he’d scrolled through the messages—it was mostly welcomes from numbers he didn’t recognize. Aiden exhaled, and said, Thanks, everyone, it’s great to be here , and muted the chat. Saving their contacts seemed overwhelming. He hadn’t even re-saved Matt’s number yet. So he didn’t do anything else with that chat.

“I’m sorry,” Aiden said, unable to meet her eye. “It’s not that you all haven’t been incredibly nice and welcoming. It’s just I... I get a little weird with social stuff sometimes. I’m not very good at it.”

“You did just fine at the game. I especially liked getting a goalie’s perspective on some of the game.”

Aiden surprised himself by laughing. “It’s good to hear it from a defenseman too, I suppose.”

She glanced sideways at him, her blue eyes shrewd. “I don’t want to pressure you into doing anything, you know. I just know it can be lonely in a new city where you don’t know anyone, and these girls are really a good group. I know it’s not the same as what you’re used to, probably, but we’re more than happy to be a resource or company for you. Whatever you need. And it’s pretty busy. Matt hasn’t had a partner for a long time, so I’m the one who does a lot of the charity events and parties and organizing.”

“Please don’t expect me to do that,” Aiden said, gripped by a sudden chill of terror.

Aino laughed, surprisingly loud for such a small woman. “Absolutely not. I mean, if you wanted to, you could. But somehow, I get the feeling you aren’t really up for that.”

“No,” Aiden said, and shuddered.

She nudged him with her elbow. “Well, I am just saying. I am more than happy to meet for coffee or lunch whenever you want, if it’s too much to see everyone at once. We can even mostly talk about hockey.”

“Thank you.” It was sincere, even if he couldn’t see himself taking her up on it. She’d get sick of his shitty conversation and foul moods soon enough, anyway. No need to overdo it too early and drive off the entire group of wives and girlfriends as a result.

He went to the gym; he went for a run. He successfully baked a loaf of bread without burning it. He read a book and watched a movie. He made himself an unremarkable dinner.

On the second day he wandered around Montreal doing something he had tried to do since coming up there, which was find small things for the apartment that he could sneak in, things Matt wouldn’t notice but would appreciate when he saw them—a piece of art that reminded him of Matt and the Royal, or a small kitchen appliance Aiden thought he’d be able to appreciate, or a book Matt mentioned but didn’t own—but he had trouble finding anything that outing.

By the third day he was going a little stir-crazy and ended up taking apart the kitchen and deep cleaning it and reorganizing all of Matt’s cabinets. Then he tackled the living room. Then the bathrooms. By the time he was done, Aiden felt a little worn out but mostly frustrated with himself. As far as productive uses of his time, it could be worse, but ultimately, it was meaningless.

By the fourth day, he had run out of things to organize and ways to occupy himself, but he had an appointment with Dr. Gauthier. During that appointment he studiously did not mention the way he felt like he was slowly losing his mind. Whether she could pick up on that anyway was anyone’s best guess.

By the fifth day, he did push-ups until he ended up in a sweaty puddle on the floor, arms too sore to move. Then he did some more.

Aiden spent most of the sixth day curled up on the couch, flipping through various sports channels, not really paying attention to much of anything. He tried to make a list of things he could see himself doing with his life. He crossed off most of them, but he kept coming back to one option.

He crossed it out.

Wrote it down again.