Page 20

Chapter twenty

Pike

C oach's shrieking whistle announced the end of practice, and I immediately knew. It wasn't from anything Coach said or did—he stood at center ice with the same weathered expression he wore whether we'd scored or blown a two-goal lead. It was the way his eyes found mine across the rink. It set off a flock of birds in my gut.

"Carver. Pike. My office."

The words echoed off the arena walls. Around me, my teammates focused on gathering equipment and leaving the ice, but they also watched me with furtive glances.

I skated toward the bench. Each stride carried me closer to whatever reckoning waited behind Coach's door, and my fertile mind came up with a wide range of potential disasters: suspension, trade, or someone had seen Carver and me together and reported it to the suits. The rookie camp invitation could vanish with a single phone call.

Carver fell into step beside me as we headed toward the tunnel. He'd already set his jaw preparing for battle.

TJ called across the locker room. "You two look like you're walking the last mile. What'd you do, burn down the equipment room?"

I managed what I hoped passed for a casual shrug. "Guess we'll find out."

When we reached Coach's door, I hesitated. I wasn't sure I was ready for what waited inside.

Carver knocked once—sharp, decisive.

"Enter."

Coach sat behind his desk, arms crossed over his chest, studying us carefully. "Close the door," he said.

The click of the latch sounded like a cell door slamming shut.

He wasn't angry. He didn't have a white-knuckled grip on his clipboard. Coach looked tired, maybe.

"Sit." He gestured to two metal folding chairs.

I perched on one, and the office was small enough that Carver couldn't sit on the other without our thighs brushing. He assumed his default position—spine straight, face blank, and ready to take whatever punishment was coming.

Coach leaned back in his chair. It creaked in protest. For a long moment, he said nothing.

Finally: "You think you're hiding it. You're not."

My throat suddenly went dry. A prickly sensation crawled up the back of my neck.

Coach continued to speak. His tone was straightforward and matter-of-fact like he was discussing line changes. "I want you both to know what you do off the ice is your business. On the ice, I think we have a playoff shot this season, so I need your heads in the game. Can you give me that?"

Relief suddenly washed over me. It wasn't suspension or a trade. It wasn't the end of everything. Only acknowledgment with a question I could answer.

I nodded. "Yes, sir. Absolutely."

Carver offered a blank expression. "Yes, sir."

Coach studied us for another beat, and then he nodded. "We're done here."

We stood in unison. I turned toward the door, legs still unsteady, when Coach's voice stopped us.

He didn't look up from the papers on his desk. "For what it's worth, I've seen worse matches."

We were halfway back to the locker room before either of us spoke.

I grinned. "Well, that went better than expected."

Carver snorted. "Bar was pretty fucking low."

The locker room had mostly emptied by the time we returned. TJ was still there wrestling with a particularly stubborn piece of tape wrapped around his shin guard. He looked up as we entered, eyebrows raised in theatrical concern.

"So? Firing squad?"

"No," I said, dropping onto the bench in front of my stall. "Just lineup stuff."

"Lineup stuff that required a closed-door meeting?" TJ raised an eyebrow.

Carver added, "Coach likes his privacy."

I focused on unlacing my skates, grateful for something to do with my hands. Coach knew. Had probably known for weeks, to be honest. He didn't care. Or, he cared more about wins and losses than what his players did in their own time.

I rode with Carver back to his place. He was quiet. I slumped in the passenger seat, watching Lewiston slide past the window—strip malls and gas stations giving way to residential streets lined with triple-deckers that had seen better decades.

I finally broke the silence. "Coach practically gave us his blessing. I didn't expect that."

"Coach said he's seen worse matches. That's not exactly a ringing endorsement."

I examined his profile as he drove. "You know what I think?"

"Enlighten me."

"I think you're looking for reasons to worry because the alternative—that this might actually work out—scares you more than getting caught ever did."

He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel as he navigated the turn into his parking lot. "Maybe it does."

We ordered Chinese from the place down the street—nothing fancy, only cardboard containers of lo mein and sweet and sour chicken that we ate straight from the cartons while a Bruins game played on mute in the background. The commentators gestured soundlessly at replays while we conducted our own quiet conversation about everything and nothing.

I speared a piece of broccoli with my plastic fork. "Mercier's been giving me looks ever since Augusta. I think he knows something."

"Mercier gives everyone looks. It's his job." Carver sprawled at one end of the couch, sock feet propped on the coffee table. "Goalies notice everything. Comes with the territory."

"They've been different. More... knowing."

"Well, now he can know all he wants." Carver gestured at the TV with his beer bottle, where a Bruins player was arguing with a referee. "Look at this idiot. Two minutes for being stupid."

A commercial came on—something absurd involving a dancing insurance gecko—and Carver laughed. It wasn't his usual snort of derision. It was a playful laugh. I stared with a goofy smile on my face.

"What?"

"Nothing. Just..." I shook my head, still smiling. "You know what's weird? I feel lighter. Like, physically lighter."

He considered my comment, rolling his beer bottle between his palms. "No big surprise. I've been dragging around guilt like a Zamboni. I think we just cut the towline."

The metaphor was so perfectly Carver that I laughed out loud. "Did you compare your emotional baggage to ice maintenance equipment?"

"If the analogy fits." He grinned, and that laugh bubbled up again. "Have you seen how much those things weigh? I've been carrying that weight around for weeks."

I set my container on the coffee table and shifted closer until my knee pressed against his thigh. "So what happens now?"

"Now we finish this terrible Chinese food and watch hockey players make questionable life choices."

"I meant—"

"I know what you meant." He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close. "Now we stop hiding."

"Carver?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For being brave enough to let Coach see us."

He squeezed my hand. "Pretty sure you were the brave one. I was only trying not to shit myself."

I laughed, and the sound echoed off the walls of his small apartment.

The transition from couch to bedroom wasn't dramatic. Carver didn't put on any sultry music, and we didn't leave a trail of clothes down the hall.

Carver just stuffed the rest of the sweet and sour chicken into his mouth, while I tried to pretend that wasn't weirdly hot. We traded sleepy smiles as we cleared takeout cartons and flicked off the TV.

"Guess we're doing this," he said, wiping his hands on a napkin like we were about to settle a poker debt.

"We've done this," I reminded him as I wove my fingers together with his and tugged him toward the bedroom. "But tonight, we're doing it with ambiance."

He snorted. "Is that what we're calling my dusty-ass bedroom now? Ambiance?"

I kissed the edge of his jaw, where stubble met soft skin. "You're not gonna be able to hide how romantic you are forever, old man."

"Who says I'm trying?" He promptly tripped over his laundry basket.

I caught him by the waistband of his jeans. "You always this clumsy when someone's trying to seduce you?"

He braced a hand against the wall. "Only when it's working."

I walked him backward until his knees hit the edge of the bed. "You gonna fall for me again?"

"Oh, I'm already falling." He playfully toppled back onto the mattress like a fainting Victorian heroine. Arms flung wide. Sigh included.

I climbed on top of him. "Wow, that was dramatic. Do you need smelling salts or a rescue inhaler?"

"Shut up and take your shirt off." He grabbed me by the belt loop.

We collapsed into a heap of knees and elbows and increasingly inappropriate giggles. It took five minutes to get his jeans off because we kept getting distracted by things like ticklish spots.

Eventually, I ended up straddling him, shirtless, one hand pressed on his muscular pecs, the other slapping his already stiff cock against mine. I stretched out my index finger to touch a scar on his shoulder. "Tell me about this one. Sword fight with a pirate?"

He rolled his eyes. "Boarding call that wasn't. Kid from Springfield. Thought he was—" His voice caught as I rubbed our cocks together, "—tough."

I kissed the scar. "Was he?"

"He cried when they stitched me up. Said he didn't mean to hit me that hard."

"A gentle soul." I lowered my body onto his and kissed a nipple while I touched a thin line near Carver's ribs. "And this one?"

"Skate blade. Rookie year with the Forge. Practice accident."

"Did you cry?"

"I bled all over the ice and yelled at Mercier for saying I looked like a Red Wedding extra."

I pressed a kiss just below the scar. "Well, I think you look more like a very sexy lumberjack who survived a tragic forest fire."

He laughed. "God, you're weird."

"And you let me undress you, so what does that make you?"

"A man with questionable judgment and excellent taste."

"Exactly." I kissed my way down his stomach, slow and deliberate. His breath hitched, and his fingers tightened in the sheets. "Pike."

"What do you need?" I looked up at him as my tongue touched his shaft, cradled in my fingers when I started to lick.

"You and whatever you're about to do."

What I was about to do made him curse, laugh, moan, and go nearly cross-eyed. I teased, then soothed. Explored, then claimed. He gave back just as much—mouth, hands, and heat, all generous and open and his.

At one point, he tried to flip us over and got tangled in the sheets. We both nearly hit the floor.

I laughed hard. "We're graceful as hell."

He groaned while I swallowed his cock up to the hilt.

We found new ways to touch each other and turned curiosity into a shared sport. I discovered that if I traced slow circles along the inside of his knee with my thumb, he made a startled little noise—half gasp, half laugh—that sent shivers up my spine. He figured out that kissing the edge of my jaw just right could make me forget how to form coherent words.

Somewhere around round two—when we were already sweaty, breathless, and halfway under the covers we'd given up trying to keep in place—Carver opened the nightstand drawer and pulled out a bottle with a raised eyebrow.

"Maybe I can add some of that ambiance." It was a bottle of massage oil, and he held it up to my face like a magician revealing his final trick.

"I suppose it was either that or light a scented candle and summon our ancestors." I reached for it. "Hand it over."

I pushed until he rolled over onto his belly, and I squeezed the oil onto the small of his back, letting some of it run down between those muscular ass cheeks.

By the time we were approaching another round of orgasms, we were both so slippery it was less like foreplay and more like adult Twister. We had to pause at one point because my thigh squeaked against his side, and we both broke down laughing.

Eventually, we gave up pretending we were civilized and let everything get messy—hands everywhere, oil coating our skin, and our laughter dissolving into moans and whispered names.

By the end of it, we were tangled in a nest of kicked-off sheets, covered in glistening streaks and pools of cum, smelling like eucalyptus and victory and at least a little bit like the inside of a fancy spa that horny hockey players had ransacked.

My chest heaved. "Okay, this was at least one and a half orgasms better than a spa day."

A lazy grin spread across Carver's face. "And here I thought I'd have to start charging you by the hour."

I flopped onto my back. "Oh, puh-leeze, if this was a massage, you missed a whole bunch of pressure points. Very unprofessional."

He rolled onto his side and poked me just beneath the ribs—preciselywhere he knew I was ticklish. "You saying I need more training?"

I yelped and twisted away. A brief, flailing wrestling match ensued—half-hearted grappling and giggling threats. Carver pinned my wrists above my head and leaned in like he was about to deliver a dominant proclamation.

Instead, he kissed the tip of my nose.

I blinked up at him. "What the hell was that?"

"Intimidation tactic. Did it work?"

"Hard to say. It might require further testing."

Carver released my wrists only and slid his hands down my arms. He whispered in my ear. "I like this version of us—the one that laughs."

"We always laughed, even when we were pretending not to fall for each other."

He dropped a kiss onto my collarbone. "Yeah, but now I don't feel like I'm gonna get benched for liking you too much."

"You like me?"

"Oh, shut up."

"No, seriously. Youlikeme— in that way?" I batted my lashes. "Are we gonna hold hands in the hallway tomorrow? Pass notes? Write each other's numbers on our sticks?"

He rolled his eyes and reached for the massage oil again. "You keep talking, and I will find out what happens when I use this on your feet ."

I gasped. "You wouldn't dare."

"Oh, I would. And you're ticklish. Remember that."

I tried to scramble away, but he caught me again, and before I knew it, we were tangled up in another burst of fingers teasing and lips finding places we hadn't gotten to yet.

Later—when the laughter had quieted, and the room had gone still except for our breathing—we lay facing each other, noses almost touching.

"You good?" Carver asked, voice thick with sleep.

"More than," I whispered. "We're not hiding anymore."

"Damn right, we're not. Took us long enough."

I traced the line of his jaw with one finger. "No more shadows."

"Not with you."

Carver drifted, breathing deeply and even against my shoulder, but not quite asleep. One arm remained draped across my chest, fingers splayed over my ribs. Every few minutes, his thumb would move in a lazy circle as if he were reassuring himself that I was still there.

"You're thinking too loud," he mumbled against my collarbone.

"Can't help it. My brain won't shut up."

"What's it saying?"

I considered the question, trying to sort through the jumble of thoughts and emotions that had been churning since we'd left Coach's office. "That this might be real. We might actually have a shot at something lasting."

His arm tightened around me, pulling me closer until there was no space between us. "Scared?"

"Terrified, but for once, I feel like I'm beginning to plan for success."

"Success," he repeated. "What does that look like?"

"I don't know yet, but maybe that's okay. Maybe we can figure it out as we go."

A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "You realize this is the opposite of your usual approach. Mr. Contingency Plan is suddenly okay with winging it?"

"Only with you. I'm learning to trust the process."

"The process." I heard amusement underlining Carver's words. "You make it sound like a hockey drill."

"Maybe it is. Maybe that's how we get good at this—practice, repetition, doing it over and over until it becomes instinct."

Carver's laugh was soft. "Leave it to you to turn a relationship into a training regimen."

"Is that what this is? A relationship?"

"Yeah," he said with no hesitation. "I think it is."

I chuckled softly. "Good. Because I was starting to run out of creative ways to describe you to myself."

"What have you been calling me?"

"Everything but your name, mostly. My mentor when I needed professional distance. My secret when I was feeling dramatic. My person when I was being honest." I traced the scar along his shoulder, following its path across his collarbone. "But I like boyfriend better."

"Boyfriend." He tested the word like he was tasting something new. "Haven't been anyone's boyfriend since college, and she was female."

"How does it feel?"

"Pretty damn awesome, to be honest. Like jumping out of a plane without checking if the parachute's packed properly."

I kissed his chest, right over his heart. "For what it's worth, I think your parachute's in pretty good shape."

We weren't hiding anymore. The thought circled through my mind like a mantra, each repetition making it feel more real. Coach knew. The team would figure it out soon enough if they hadn't already. And maybe, eventually, my parents would know, too. Perhaps someday, I could bring Carver home for Christmas and introduce him as more than just my mentor.

Maybe someday we wouldn't have to qualify anything at all.

The digital clock clicked over to 2:34 AM, and I finally felt sleep beginning to pull at the edges of my consciousness. Carver's arm remained heavy across my chest, his breathing deep and even. Safe. Content. Mine.