Page 34 of Slew Foot (Scoring Chances #3)

By the time Mickey was done going through the concussion protocol with Dr. Pope, he was thoroughly tired of people staring at him with worried frowns and asking him a bunch of dumb questions.

It didn’t help that Coach Rasmussen had come to check on him and so had Connor and Tanner. But Rafe was nowhere to be found.

Mickey knew he had plans to meet up with his friend Zach tonight, so maybe they’d already headed out?

It was fine. Mickey didn’t feel any differently than he ever did after a game, so it wasn’t like he needed Rafe here fussing over him or anything. It was surprising, that was all.

Mickey would have expected him to pop his head in or something.

He was surprised by the wave of relief that washed over him when Rafe appeared a few moments later. But maybe he shouldn’t be. His feelings for Rafe didn’t seem to be getting any easier to deal with. In fact, they seemed to be growing.

And Mickey didn’t know what the fuck he was going to do about them.

“Can I come in?” Rafe asked.

Dr. Pope nodded. “You may. We were wrapping up here.”

Rafe’s gaze flickered across Connor and Tanner before landing on Mickey’s face. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” Mickey said automatically. “I don’t have a concussion.”

“Concussion results were inconclusive .” Dr. Pope said, shooting Mickey a little look. “We’re going to keep an eye out for symptoms the next few days, however.”

“You feel okay right now though?” Rafe asked, staring straight at him.

“Yes. I just want everyone to stop making a big deal out of this,” Mickey said, aware he sounded annoyed but seriously, this was getting ridiculous. He didn’t need to be fussed over.

“How would you feel if this was happening to me ?” Rafe shot back.

Mickey deflated a little. He’d definitely be all over Rafe about it if he’d been the one who’d taken a hit like that. But before he could admit it, Rafe turned to look at Dr. Pope.

“Should someone keep an eye on him tonight?”

“It wouldn’t hurt,” Dr. Pope said with a nod.

“Not it!” Tanner called out cheerfully.

Connor and Rafe both shot him a dirty look.

“What?” Tanner protested.

“You’re his roommate ,” Connor pointed out drily. “At home and on the road. If anyone should do it, it’s you.”

“Yeah, but then he ”—Tanner jerked his thumb at Rafe—“will be in there too. Besides, I had, uh, plans tonight.”

He looked a little shifty by the end, and Dr. Pope raised an eyebrow and muttered something about communicable diseases.

“It’s fine. Mickey can stay in my room tonight,” Rafe said.

“I can?” Mickey asked, blinking. On the one hand, he was glad Rafe had interrupted before Tanner could get into a dumb argument with their captain.

On the other hand, was it really necessary to spend the night with Rafe? Or wise, for that matter? Mickey still couldn’t believe Rafe had come out onto the ice to check on him. He was so going to get a chewing out from the coaching staff. And probably Connor.

Mickey was refusing to think about how much trouble he himself was going to be in.

“Yes,” Rafe said, his jaw taking on a stubborn tilt as he looked at Mickey. “You can stay with me. You watched over me when I was sick. Now I’ll watch over you.”

“It isn’t the same,” Mickey protested.

“It’s close enough,” Rafe said.

Mickey looked up at him and thought about how worried Rafe had looked, kneeling over him as he lay on the ice trying to catch his breath, and nodded.

“Yeah, okay.”

Maybe it was time they talked again. Because they couldn’t keep going on like this or it was going to impact the team even worse than it already had.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Rafe asked, frowning at Mickey as soon as they were in Rafe’s hotel room and the door closed behind them.

“I’m fine. Stop fussing .” Rafe had even carried Mickey’s bag down the hall after they grabbed it from the room he shared with Tanner. It was sort of sweet and chivalrous, but completely unnecessary.

“Then why do you keep rubbing your head?” Rafe asked, setting Mickey’s bag on the floor.

Mickey dropped his hand and peeled his suit jacket off, hanging it in the closet before he took a seat on the bed. “It’s nothing .”

“Do you have a headache?” Rafe asked. He was actually pacing now, staring at Mickey with a worried frown.

“Just a little one,” Mickey admitted, pulling his tie off. It had been bugging him since the plane ride. He’d taken something for it then, but it was back. Probably mostly his sinuses being unhappy about the dry plane air and changes in altitude.

“Did you tell Dr. Pope about it?” Rafe asked, making another lap.

Mickey forced himself to take a deep breath and not snap at Rafe as he undid the top few buttons on his shirt. “Of course I did.”

“What can I do for you? I want to do something.”

“You can sit down and stop pacing for one,” Mickey said drily. He unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt.

Rafe did stop, but he crossed his arms over his chest and glared instead. Mickey wasn’t sure he’d call that better .

“Fine. Whatever.” Mickey sighed and stood, shrugging out of his shirt and carefully laying it over a nearby chair. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

Rafe stepped between him and the bathroom door. “What if you fall?”

Mickey squinted at him. “How many times do I have to tell you I feel fine? I’m not dizzy or anything.”

“But you could get dizzy.”

“I could also get kidnapped by aliens,” Mickey said drily.

Rafe tilted his head, like a confused puppy. “You believe in aliens?”

Mickey stared. This was the person he was in love with? Really? Out of the eight billion or so humans on the planet, this was the one he’d fallen for?

“No.” Mickey’s tone was flat. “I don’t. Not the type who would kidnap us anyway. It’s statistically improbable that alien life forms would evolve to be humanoid or even similar enough to behave like they do in movies.”

Rafe looked even more confused.

Mickey resisted the urge to rub his head. Rafe would be all over him about it being a sign of a concussion.

“Look, back to my original point. By the time Dr. Pope was done with me, the bus was about to leave, and I barely got a chance to clean up, remember?” he continued, pointing toward the bathroom. “I’m going to get in the shower and wash off. And I’m going to take my time with it.”

Rafe made a little noise of protest as Mickey pushed past him.

“If you’re that fucking worried I’ll fall, you can come in with me!” he flung over his shoulder, sick of being fussed over.

Rafe didn’t say anything, so Mickey closed the door behind him and undid his belt and trousers with a relieved sigh. He folded the pants and set them on the bathroom counter. He’d just pushed his underwear to the floor when the door swung open.

Rafe made a funny noise and Mickey glanced in the mirror to see him dressed in nothing but shorts, staring at Mickey’s bare ass.

“I was joking , by the way,” Mickey pointed out. People didn’t always get his sense of humor but really? Rafe wasn’t that dense.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t joking either.” Rafe crossed his arms over his chest.

Mickey rolled his eyes and stalked over to the shower. He turned the water on and adjusted it until it was the perfect temperature. When he stepped inside, Rafe did too.

So, they were doing this, apparently.

Rafe closed the shower door behind them, trying to stare anywhere but at Mickey’s bare ass and back.

Because wow, he was even more gorgeous than Rafe had realized.

It was one thing to see a guy in the locker room but it was another to step into a hotel shower with him. To see him up close and personal.

Mickey acted like Rafe wasn’t even there.

Instead, Mickey dunked his head under the running water and wet it. He reached for the hotel shampoo and turned away from the spray, closing his eyes and tipping his head back so he could wet his hair.

At least he wasn’t arguing anymore?

Rafe stood there with damp athletic shorts clinging to his thighs, his gaze locked onto one of the shower tiles over Mickey’s left shoulder, his heart beating too fast.

Because he’d realized there was a problem with his plan to keep Mickey safe. If he got hard, there was no way Mickey wouldn’t see it. It took a lot of willpower to keep his gaze where it was supposed to be. It would be so easy to let himself look. And he wanted to.

The way Rafe’s cock had stirred at the sight of Mickey’s naked body when he stepped in the bathroom told him they were way past the point of him pretending he didn’t have those kind of feelings for his teammate anymore.

Rafe knew he was being stupid, worrying so much about Mickey when he’d seen other guys get hurt worse and never acted like this before.

He’d never bolted off the bench to check on a teammate.

He’d never badgered his way into their shower with the stupid excuse of being worried they’d hit their head.

No. Mickey was clearly different.

Rafe hadn’t even been like this with Logan .

“Are you going to just stand there then?” Mickey asked, scrubbing shampoo into his hair.

Rafe blinked, focusing on his face. “What do you want me to do?”

Mickey let out a weird laugh that sounded like it was being strangled out of him. “You have no idea.”

“So tell me,” Rafe said.

But Mickey shook his head, finished scrubbing, then tilted his head back to wash the foam away.

A trail of bubbles slid down his neck and before Rafe could stop himself, he followed the trail of it, watching as it wandered over Mickey’s firm pecs, flat abs, finally slowing when it reached his pubic hair.

The hair was darker than the hair on Mickey’s head, but not by much, and right in the middle of it was a very hard cock.

Rafe swallowed thickly.

“You’re hard,” Rafe blurted out before he could stop himself.

“Yeah,” Mickey rasped, turning his hips away, like that was going to hide anything. “Sorry. It’ll go away.”

“No, it’s flattering,” Rafe said truthfully.

“You say that like any human being with a sex drive wouldn’t get hard at the sight of you,” Mickey said with a snort.

Rafe shrugged, glancing down at his now-wet athletic shorts. He was definitely getting hard too. “Tanner didn’t get hard when he showered with me when I was sick.”

“Oh.” Mickey blinked.

“And he’s like the horniest guy I know,” Rafe pointed out.

Mickey laughed, finally relaxing a little and looking more like his usual self. “True. Still. I mean, you know I want you. But I don’t mean to make it awkward.”

“I know,” Rafe said. And he did know both of those things.

But he also couldn’t stop staring at Mickey’s cock.

It was uncut and a nice size. Not crazy huge or anything ridiculous but the right size for his body. The kind of cock that would feel nice in Rafe’s hand.

He swallowed hard, surprised by the sudden desire to reach out and take his dick in his hand and stroke.

It was uncut. The shaft curved upward and had a big, flared head that would feel so good fucking him.

Rafe shivered, imagining Mickey pushing him down into a mattress, one palm between Rafe’s shoulder blades as he pressed slowly into his ass … Rafe suddenly couldn’t think of anything else. Couldn’t breathe from wanting it so much.

“Rafe?” Mickey whispered.

“Yeah?” he said, not much louder.

“I don’t mind you looking at me but, uh, it’s not exactly helping this go away.” Mickey gestured vaguely toward his groin.

“I know.” Rafe swallowed, his skin buzzing, gaze still locked on Mickey’s dick.

Rafe could almost imagine what it would be like if he took Mickey’s cock in his hand.

How his skin would be slick from the water and how it would feel to grip it and stroke.

To kiss Mickey while he rubbed his cock and hear him moan against his mouth.

“You’re—you’re, uh, getting hard too.”

Rafe did glance away then, looking down to see his cock was tenting his shorts now. “Yeah. I am.”

“Okayyy.” Mickey let out a shaky sigh. “I—I don’t know what the play is here, Rafe.”

Rafe looked up to see Mickey staring at him, looking a little lost. His hair was flattened against his forehead and water ran down his face.

For the first time, Rafe noticed he had a little sprinkle of freckles across his nose, maybe from the sun he’d gotten during bye week. His lips were pink, and Rafe reached out without thinking, brushing his thumb across the upper one.

It was full and curved. Rafe wanted to press his lips to Mickey’s and know what it would feel like then.

Mickey sucked in a breath. The air came whooshing out a moment later, warm against Rafe’s thumb.

Rafe dragged the pad of it against Mickey’s lower lip and his eyes fluttered closed. He stumbled a little and Rafe grabbed him, pressing Mickey back against the shower wall, their chests rubbing together.

Mickey leaned his forehead against Rafe’s shoulder and clutched his upper arm, fingers biting into his skin. “ Rafe ,” he said huskily.

“I know. This isn’t helping either, is it?” Rafe said quietly.

Mickey shook his head.

But neither of them moved.

There was just the sound of water falling and making the air steamy. The smell of the hotel shampoo and the feel of Mickey’s chest rising and falling against his.

Rafe brushed his lips against Mickey’s temple.

Mickey shuddered, the movement ripping through his whole body. He held Rafe even tighter and made a little noise like he was in pain.

Rafe slid a hand along his back to steady him. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know anymore.” Mickey lifted his head, little grooves appearing between his eyebrows. His eyes were filled with so much worry Rafe wanted to reach up and smooth the look away, kiss him until his eyes went soft and happy. “I want to be strong, but this is a lot , Rafe.”

“Me touching you?” Rafe frowned too.

“ All of this.” Mickey stepped back to lean against the tiles and there was something raw in his voice.

“I want to be everything you need and not push you for anything more but Rafe … I can’t stop thinking about you .

I can’t stop wanting you. And you’re sending me all these mixed messages and I can’t … ”

His voice broke off and Rafe hated how hurt Mickey sounded. How desperate .

“Tell me what to do,” Rafe begged.

“I can’t.” Mickey looked up, his eyes a little red.

“Not this time, Rafe. This is all on you. I’ll give you time to think about it but if you want me, want to be with me, then tell me.

Or tell me to walk away and I will. I’ll find a way to get some more space between us until I can get over you. But this in-between has to end.”