Page 39 of Pucked Up (Punk as Puck #2)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-ONE

HUGO

My reaction to seeing the footage of Reid had been unexpected, mostly because it had felt a little too similar to the first time I’d seen it.

The thing I didn’t tell people—the thing I barely told my therapist and never myself—was that was how I found out Reid had been hit by a car in the first place.

He was with the team. He was supposed to be safe. Life was just…normal. And then I flicked past ESPN, and Reid’s face was plastered all over the screen. And just like that, my life turned upside down, and it would never go back to the way it was, no matter how normal we eventually felt.

I thought, for a moment, I was going to lose it in the hotel hallway. Then Boden was there, and he’d held me. And he’d whispered things to me I’d wanted him to say for so long. I was struggling to believe them, even as I could feel the warmth of his presence just a few feet behind me .

“I hated myself for a long time after Reid’s accident,” I said once we were inside the room.

Boden cleared his throat. “Can you turn around so I can see your mouth?”

Fuck. How could I forget? I spun slowly. “Sorry, I?—”

“No. It’s okay,” he said, the truth showing all over his face. “It’s okay. Just repeat yourself, please.”

My breath shook in my chest, but his request was an easy one. “I hated myself after Reid’s accident because even when he started accepting his reality, I would go to bed every night hoping to wake up to some miracle that his spine had healed itself.”

Boden chuckled and shook his head. “You don’t think he wanted the same thing?”

“I know he did. But it was my job to let him have those feelings. I was supposed to be supportive.”

Boden took a step closer. “You’re saying you weren’t?”

With a heavy sigh, I lifted my hands and set them on his waist now that he was close enough and now that I knew I was welcome.

He leaned into me just slightly. “You sound like my old therapist. And yes, I was supportive. But I felt like a bastard because I don’t think I ever totally accepted our life as it was.

Every time I talked to my parents after, I felt like I’d betrayed them for the way they raised me. ”

Boden shook his head. “It’s not the same.

Being born with and losing are two totally different things.

Just ask Micah about the guys on his team.

He and Jonah don’t give their teammates shit who weren’t born blind.

They give them grace. And not just temporary grace.

You were allowed to mourn what you’d lost.”

My therapist had said that too. So had Reid, the couple of times I was drunk enough to confess the truth. He’d laughed and put his curled fingers against my jaw and asked me to lie on top of him because he could still—every now and again—feel pressure so long as it was heavy.

He’d kissed me silly and told me I could be as sad and as angry as I wanted. That he was worried because I wasn’t as sad and angry as he would have been if our situations were reversed. “Right before he died, he told me he’d been afraid I was going to get tired of it all and leave him.”

“Were you?”

I bowed my head, but not too far so Boden could still make out my lips.

“No. It hadn’t even occurred to me. But I went to a support group once, and it was full of people who had left their spouses and were trying to deal with the guilt of it all.

The group leader was validating their choices because, well, I suppose it was their job.

I wanted to dive across the room and hit them and ask them how they could do it. ”

Boden let one crutch go and tipped my chin up. “But you still feel like a villain?”

“No. I feel like a man who maybe isn’t as strong as he needs to be sometimes.”

“So…” He bit his lip, and I could see he was trying to hide a smile. What the hell? “You’re a person, then? ”

I blinked. “Well…euh. That’s…”

“Hugo.” He shook his head and sighed. “You need a nickname. You have all these sweet ones for me, and I have nothing. Just your name.”

Something in me cracked and released tension like slow fizz. My hand touched the side of his jaw, and I met his gaze. “I love the sound of my name when you say it.”

“Hugo,” he said again.

A shiver ran up my spine, and I realized then I was done talking about Reid. I was done living in the past. I wanted to exist for him. For this.

For us.

“I didn’t think you’d be here with me like this again.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he admitted. “Along with a hockey stick, my pride, and my ego, I had my head shoved deep inside my ass.”

I burst into laughter at the mental image. “I like your friends.”

“It’s telling that you know they’re the ones who said shit like that to me.

” He softened and leaned to the side to set his crutches against the wall before returning his arms to me.

They cinched around my waist tightly, and his chest bumped into mine.

He was shorter, but he didn’t feel smaller to me.

I felt safe in his arms, like I could curl up there and live out every day.

“I don’t want to hold you back,” I murmured.

He sucked in and let out a heavy breath. “We need to talk about it. I know you know about my afternoon with Vincent.”

I couldn’t help the smallest smile. “Ouais. I know about your afternoon with Vincent.”

“He’s very fond of you,” Boden said. There was caution in his tone, and I wondered if Vincent had told him about our night.

“We were friends before Reid passed. And before things get ambiguous between us, you should know he and I slept together.”

Boden stiffened. “I’m not a virgin, so I’m not going to judge you, but when was the last time?—”

“The last and only time was a few weeks after Reid’s funeral. I was sad, he was sad. We were both there. I hated myself after because although it wasn’t cheating, it felt like it. I wasn’t ready to let Reid go then.”

He didn’t ask me if I was ready now. He knew. He had to know.

Boden met my gaze. “Is there anyone else?—”

“No.”

He scowled. “You don’t know what I was going to ask.”

“Of course. Ask.”

“Is there anyone else you might have feelings fo?—”

“No.”

“ Hugo !”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. I took him by the waist and lifted him just a little, spinning him toward the bed, then carefully backing him up until his legs hit the mattress. His cheeks went pink, and his pupils blew wide.

“I know I said I was falling for you, but that was a lie,” I told him.

His face looked like it was about to shatter.

“I have fallen for you. I’m in love with you.

Maybe that’s ridiculous because we haven’t spent a lot of time with each other, but that was how I fell for Reid.

There was a single dinner, and I knew then that he was it for me. ”

“When did you know about me?”

“At the bar. The moment you looked up at me, I knew you could be something. But you had rules, and I could tell you were holding a lot of pain. I didn’t want to add complications to that, but when the universe put me back in your path, I knew I had to try.”

Boden closed his eyes in a long, slow blink. “You let me go. When I ran, you let me go.”

Curling a hand around the side of his jaw, I waited for his eyes to open. “You were already dealing with so much. I didn’t want to make everything worse. I would have loved you quietly from afar for the rest of my life if that’s what you needed.”

“I thought…” He stopped and shook his head. “I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know what to think! But right now, I know I want this.”

My heart, which started to feel mended, trembled against my ribs. “Just for now?”

His eyes widened. “No, I—that’s not what I meant. I’m saying that I have no fucking idea what my future is supposed to look like, and it could get complicated because you’re the Wolves’ coach, and I can’t guarantee how long I’ll be able to stay in Boston, but if you’re willing to try?—”

“I’m willing to try.” I had to kiss him, so I did.

I tipped my head down and bent my knees and used what little strength I had left in my arms that night to pull him against my body.

His tongue was warm, and soft, and demanding as it coasted over mine.

He bit at my lips as though the kiss wasn’t enough, and I rocked my hips into him, my dick half-hard and desperately trying to get harder.

“Hugo,” he gasped, pulling back. “What if I have to leave?”

I met his gaze. “I love your friends. I love the team. But I love you more.”

He swallowed thickly. “So…you’d?—”

“Yes.”

“Will you stop that!” He smacked me on the chest with the back of his hand. “Let me talk.”

I grinned and waved my hand as if to say, go on .

“You’d come with me? Anywhere I want?”

Tipping my head low, I said up against his ear, “Yes. Anywhere you want.”

I thought that if I ever did have Boden in my arms again, it would be frantic, frenetic, intense. I thought it would be ripping clothes off, mouths devouring every inch of exposed skin. At the time of that fantasy, that had seemed right for us, but now I realized how wrong that was.

I stripped him down slowly, tasting bits of flesh with lips and tongue as he let me expose him to the cool air of the hotel room.

I took my time kneeling at his feet to peel away his trousers, tearing at the straps of his orthotics to free his legs and feet, then up—resisting every instinct to tear the buttons of his shirt, instead popping each one through the little holes until I could run my hands over the coarse hair on his chest.

He was so fucking beautiful.

“What?”

Oh. I’d spoken aloud without realizing it. I lifted my face to him and repeated it. “You are so fucking beautiful.”

His cheeks bloomed pink, and his gaze darted away, but he didn’t deflect or argue, which, for him, was progress.

He sat there squirming under my attention but pliant and almost starved for my touch.

He chased each pass of my hands over his body, and when I urged him down onto his back, he went more than willingly.