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ELEVEN

SHANE

Sleeping next to Patrick that night was easier than I could have hoped. He’d exhibited the same lack of interest and the same friendly distance as ever, which meant I didn’t need to fret.

He crossed the room and slipped under the cover.

His shorts were terribly short, and I couldn’t stop myself from glancing at his defined quads in the moment before he hid them from sight.

His torso, as stunning as Michelangelo’s David , was only an anatomical thing.

Yeah, I could appreciate the aesthetic, but I knew just how closed those doors were to me.

What did it matter that I slept next to a semi-naked Greek god when he didn’t want me?

And Patrick made it a point to put across.

Even so, drifting asleep had an overwhelming power of grasping the last threads of reality and braiding them with dreams. Still awake, I conjured the image of Patrick exactly as he was, lying behind my back, into an eager and passionate lover.

The snapshot was so powerful that I felt it entering me, my body desperate to coil, fingers itching to sink into something soft, toes curling until my foot was about to cramp.

I woke up to a ray of sunshine screaming into my pupils, burning away whatever dreams had left me breathless, and grew suddenly aware of the boiling warmth behind my back.

The searing spot was my lower back, where I could feel my T-shirt had lifted in my sleep.

That heat was not a branding rod or a pile of coals but flesh.

His flesh. His body pressed against mine like someone had stacked us together with a purpose.

I couldn’t decide whether I had woken up painfully hard from some lost dream or if the heat of his barely covered body pressed against my back did the trick, but I knew I wasn’t getting up soon. The coiling arm tossed over my middle wasn’t helping, either.

My breath grew shallow, and my throat was too tight to let me inhale any better. Even in his sleep, he found a way to torment me. Yet instead of slipping from under his arm and disappearing into the bathroom until this terrible erection went away, I sank deeper into the mattress and Patrick’s arm.

He exhaled, his warm breath caressing my bare neck, a tiny little snore escaping him, and I squeezed my eyes shut in hopes of sliding back into my dreams.

I failed.

My heart was beating too fast, and my body was running too hot to let me sleep.

I matched my breathing to Patrick’s and took effort to remember what it felt like to be spooned from the back.

I doubted I’d get to feel this anytime soon.

I simply didn’t have what it took to move from wanting to having these things.

The gap between my desire and my ability to demand its fulfillment could fit an ocean.

It was Patrick who came to his senses first. If I had nurtured some silly little idea that he would wake up and let his hand drift down the length of my torso, denying me my indecision and taking the reins, it didn’t happen.

“Fuck, you should get a part-time job as a body pillow,” Patrick crackled as he turned onto his back. “Sorry about that.”

It wasn’t until I said, “Uh, it’s fine,” that I realized just how dry my throat was.

Patrick had no problem getting up and strolling into the bathroom.

My gaze drifted down, but he was already facing away from me, and if there was anything to see, I missed it.

Instead, I gazed at his back, shoulders swinging, waist narrow, ass hugged by the shorts that seemed even tighter this morning.

When he reemerged, my crisis was averted, but only for a moment.

His blue eyes glimmered with droplets of water still clinging to his ridiculously long eyelashes, as if he’d splashed his face and decided not to bother with the towel.

He strutted around the room as I hopped out of bed and rushed into the bathroom to brush my teeth.

My head was spinning. There was another night ahead of us, and I just didn’t think I could hold myself together. I was splitting by the seams.

Thankfully, the day was a busy one. All morning was a buzz of activity.

The owners of the house had put out a huge breakfast, anticipating the hunger these young athletes seemed to possess at all times.

A mandatory hour of rest followed, so I carried my books to the living room and found a nice spot on the window bench to read and take notes.

After that, everyone went to the gym together, but the workout was not a demanding one.

I strapped the smartwatch to Patrick’s wrist, but I almost didn’t need to bother with it.

It was after the workout that Patrick and I had a debriefing session in a café across the street from the house while the other guys went in to rest.

Patrick talked about the excitement more than anything, but he didn’t seem willing to touch on the anticipation. Worse still, he wouldn’t even hint at the pressure.

This was their first game against the Arctic Titans in Detroit.

The Titans would come to Chicago for a game a month from now, and it sucked that the Saints had to play on someone else’s turf when they had a history of losing to this team.

If there were such things as archenemies, the Titans fit the bill.

The rink was packed this evening, and Patrick still seemed to be keeping his cool.

There was a general sense of anticipation in the locker room.

It felt a little like watching a medieval fantasy movie, and this was the eve of battle.

Guys sat on their benches, checking that their gear was strapped on correctly, holding their sticks, stretching their calves, nervously humming, or simply moving around in circles.

Easton gave a little speech of encouragement, but it didn’t shift the mood in the locker room.

It was interesting to observe my own feelings in the middle of it all. The tension wasn’t reserved for the players. Even the animosity towards the Titans spilled over to me.

I could be developing a bias , I thought. Remaining impartial was far more difficult than I’d ever imagined.

When the game began, Patrick sat calmly on the bench, waiting for his turn, but I watched with fervor. The crowd was not on our side, cheering on their home team rather than offering some support for the enemy.

The Titans were led by a fast and fiery guy, Phoenix, who had a prominent tattoo covering his neck and a skill on the ice that matched Patrick’s.

He knew how to get his guys going, and the Titans dealt a devastating blow to the Saints in the first round.

The period ended with an abyss between the two teams.

When Patrick entered the game in the second period, after Coach Webber and Easton agreed on a new strategy, it seemed like it was too late.

The blow to their confidence was almost too much to salvage.

The battle was fierce. The gap was too big.

Patrick blazed like a wildfire, lighting up the night sky, baiting, switching, and dancing on the ice like it was a game of life and death.

I had never seen him so furious and passionate at the same time.

He was a storm that could make you believe in gods because only Zeus or Odin could have imbued him with such rage.

I was so engrossed in the game that I struggled to remember to take notes. Aside from the welling admiration for Patrick’s skill, I couldn’t hide from the sneaking feeling of envy. It sat there, deep in my chest, eating away at my soul.

I wanted to be out there, to feel the ice under my blades, to feel the thrill of that moment when you tried your best to evade the beast hurtling toward you.

I clutched the notebook and heard myself cheering on the Saints as they closed the gap between them and the Titans.

At the last minute, Elio rallied the Saints and brought them to a tie.

If they were riding a wind of hope, it was soon eviscerated. Coach Webber sent out the best of the best into the third period, but the Titans did the same thing. It was like a clash of gods, of beings that were superior to me in every way.

The tug-of-war left me wrecked as the teams deadlocked, upending one another every few minutes to an increasingly more tense crowd.

It was in the very last minutes of the game, with the Titans leading, that Easton brought them to a tie.

The Titans returned with a vengeance, wanting their win both for what it would do to their team morale and for the sake of the tradition of beating the Saints.

My heart banged against my rib cage as I watched Patrick move through the ranks, his signature moves all on display like he wanted to be predictable.

He swung left and right, slipping the puck under his stick and revealing it in unexpected moments, facing guys twice his size and sliding between them like they were unmoving monoliths.

But he headed straight for Phoenix, who was just as quick and ruthless.

It felt like my heart had climbed into my throat. My speeding pulse pounded inside my skull.

Phoenix went straight for Patrick with no chance of taking the puck off Patrick and the Saints’ defense and with no Titans nearby to offer him help. He was on a destructive mission just to prevent the Saints from winning.

Patrick had had this in the bag until Phoenix landed in front of him and sent them both crashing into the boards, the puck skidding away in Patrick’s last act of fury.

My gaze skipped from the puck to the mess of limbs slamming against the boards.

A pained expression on Patrick’s face broke my heart, but the crowd erupted in boos, and I looked at Elio, snatching the puck and sending it straight between the goalie’s legs, breaking the endless, grueling tie and winning the Saints an unlikely, unprecedented win.

Patrick stumbled to his feet while Phoenix skated away furiously. The buzz of joy roared from the ice as the Saints gathered in the middle, the ones on the benches pouring into the rink, and my vision blurred with genuine tears of joy.

Across the rink, skating like one of the furies, Patrick lifted his head, his gaze spotting me instantly. The grin he wore in that moment was bigger and warmer than any I had ever seen.