Page 16 of The Fall

Eight

The chill of the Philadelphia practice rink smells of scoured ice and damp rubber. The air is thin in my lungs, and my body feels foreign inside the familiar armor of my pads.

The team is a loose knot of jerseys and helmets at center ice, their chatter a rumble of inside jokes and confidence. I hear Divot’s laugh and the low rumble of Simmer talking to Hollow, but the sounds seem to travel through water to reach me.

Can I still do this? Can I be the player they need me to be?

Blair catches my eye, and the corner of his mouth lifts.

“Let’s move, let’s go!” Coach’s voice booms over the ice, and the knot of guys unravels.

We fall into laps around the rink. The rhythmic scrape of thirty blades on ice is a cadence I know by heart in my muscles. I follow Hollow and Hawks, letting their pace pull me along. A burn starts in my lungs, a scream in my thighs with every push, but it is a clean, sharp pain, a good pain.

Blair materializes at my side, his stride impossibly smooth. I dig my blades deeper, matching him, pushing into that place where the body works, where thought recedes.

“Pick up the pace!” Coach barks. “Hawks, keep your stick on the ice!”

We shift to tight turns and sharp bursts of speed. My lungs are burning and my legs are screaming, but it’s glorious. It’s the fire of coming home. Blair is beside me, stride for stride, and we’re flying.

“All right, boys, let’s get a good skate in! You know the drill!”

I hope I do.

Pucks begin to fly, sharp cracks against sticks and boards.

My own movements are a surprise; each stride, each shot, each pass is a memory that exists in my sinews and joints.

I take a pass on my backhand, pull it close.

A slight feint, a push of the puck through a defender’s skates, a quick snap of my wrists, and the twine bends at the back of the net.

We break into offensive drills, forwards up, defensemen back.

I line up on the blue line, and across from me is Blair, facing off against Hayes.

Hayes is shit-talking a mile a minute, promising us that we won’t get through him, we will never score, we’re going to embarrass our families and our future children.

“Show us something sweet, Kicks! Shut this mother up!” Hawks shouts.

Our eyes meet. A wave of certainty passes between us. The wide expanse of ice shrinks, becomes a channel between us.

“Go!” Coach calls.

He doesn’t look away as we take off. The puck is a whisper of rubber on ice when he passes it, a solid thwack when I receive it, the impact humming up the shaft of my stick into my arms. His return is flawless.

Every pass is a perfectly weighted sentence in a conversation only we are having.

We exist in our own pocket of time, a closed circuit of purpose.

The minute shift in his grip, the way his fingers tighten around the stick, tells me everything. He wants to push the pace. I welcome it, crave it.

He weaves, picks apart Hayes, leaves him scrambling to catch up, and then dekes Mikko.

He angles his stick—one quick shift of his wrist—and the lane is there.

I’m already moving, my skates digging, kicking up a spray of ice.

I pivot, feel the torque in my core. The puck hits my stick, settling perfectly into the curve of my blade.

“Shoot it, Kicks!” Coach bellows.

I’m not playing for Coach. I’m playing for the look in Blair’s eyes.

I don’t watch my shot dance over Hayes’s diving attempt at a save or find the millimeters between Axel’s shoulder and the crossbar. I don’t watch the net bend or turn to celebrate with the rest of my practice team. My eyes are locked on Blair.

I have never felt so completely alive.

Coach’s whistle blows, and the moment fractures. Blair bumps his glove against mine.

“Water break!”

The boards rattle as Blair coasts into them beside me. We are shoulder-to-elbow-to-knee, our chests rising and falling, our heat mingling in the cold air. Our skates are inches apart. The world outside this small space, outside the scent of his sweat and the sound of his breathing, is a muted hum.

Sweat soaks me, but inside, I’m burning. Blair squirts water into his mouth and all over his face without ever taking his eyes off me. “Looking good out there.”

“You, too,” I manage.

Every time he breathes, it’s all I can do not to melt. The only thing that could make this practice better would be him pushing me into these boards, right here, right now, ice forgotten.

God, I’m fixated. I want to trace every bead of sweat rolling down his neck with my tongue.

I want to pull him into a dark corner of this rink, strip off his gear piece by piece, here amid the echoes of sticks and shouts and Coach’s whistle, get my hands inside those pants, get my fingers around his cock.

Everything in me screams to pin him against the boards, taste the salt of his sweat on my lips.

I want to grind against him until we’re both shaking, until?—

I’m throbbing, imagining my lips and my hands on every inch of him from the neck down.

Hayes thunks against the boards beside me, nudging me with his shoulder. “Rocking it, Kicks.”

Where the fuck am I? Right, practice. It takes me a second to find my voice. “Yeah?”

“Hell yeah.” Hayes grins. “You know this is practice, right?”

“Feels good to push.” It’s not only hockey I’m trying to get out of my system, though.

Clearly. Every stride, every shot, every bead of sweat is a poor substitute for what I really want.

It’s all a stand-in, and it’s not enough, but it’s the only way I can keep from combusting right here on the ice.

Hayes cuts his eyes toward Blair, who’s turned to talk to Divot. “Or,” Hayes says, “you like to show off.”

I slam my elbow into his stomach, and he laughs. Blair looks back over, and our eyes meet again.

How did I ever live without this feeling?

Practice eventually ends with Coach giving us a pep talk for our game tonight against Philly. Once he’s done, the guys start skating off, eager to hit the showers, get back to the hotel, pack away a couple thousand calories at lunch, and go lights-out for the pregame nap.

I linger, cutting lazy circles at center ice.

Blair hangs back, too, watching me.

The guys glide past, their voices fading until we’re the only ones left under the lights.

“Show me that give-and-go one more time,” he says.

We move into position, our gazes still fixed on each other.

He skates hard down the boards, cuts sharp, and I shadow his every move.

He slides the pass tape-to-tape. I return it.

We are two halves of a single motion, a perfect, unspoken rhythm.

We finish and come to a screaming stop chest-to-chest, breathing each other in.

He reaches up, brushing his gloved hand against my cheek. A fleck of ice from my hair falls and melts against his glove.

“Torey.” My name is a quiet vibration in the air between us.

I open my mouth, but no words come out. There is only the rise and fall of his chest, the heat of his body so close to mine. He leans forward until our helmets touch. He traces my jaw with his fingers. I squeeze my eyes shut, leaning into his touch. Kiss me, please.

He slides his hand behind my neck, drawing me closer. Our lips are a breath apart.

“I love you,” he whispers.

Everything stills.

Then there is no space left at all. He surges in, his mouth claiming mine. His lips are rough from the cold, and the salt of his sweat and the faint bitterness of the rink air on his skin pull me deeper into him. His salt and my adrenaline rush through me like fire in my veins.

My stick hits the ice as I grab fistfuls of his jersey, yanking him against me. The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding hot against mine, tasting me like I’m what he’s been starving for. I moan into him.

For a moment, there’s nothing but our mouths, hungry and needy, our breath mingling and the scrape of stubble. I’m greedy for more, more friction, more of everything he’s willing to give under these unforgiving lights.

Heat pools in me, my cock straining as he fits his thigh between my legs. I don’t want this to end. God, I can’t let it end. The ice beneath us and the empty arena around us fade. There’s only this hunger, this unbearable need to be closer to him.

This is it, this scorching, perfect connection. This is what I’ve craved my whole life, this feeling of finally, finally being in the one place I was always meant to be, with the one person I was always meant to be there with.

A door slams shut, the sound cracking through the quiet surrounding us. Blair pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes wide and searching mine.

Coach? Security? A teammate coming back for something forgotten? God, we’re right in the middle of the rink. Anyone could see us. Forget my joke of a career, what about Blair? Photos could already be uploading, the NHL’s newest secret scandal. Everything changes if the wrong person sees us.

“Blair,” I whisper. “Someone could see.”

But he doesn’t pull away. He exhales and drops his helmet to mine again. “I don’t care.” His eyes are fierce, resolute.

My heart stutters. The world becomes the dark flash of his gaze and the hot fog of our mingled breath. A tremor runs through his hand where it cups my jaw, steady but enough to reveal so much more beneath his words.

I want to say something brave that matches the certainty in his eyes and answers the fear we’re both feeling, but I can’t. I knot my fingers in his jersey, not ready to let go.

“But I know we need to talk about that,” he says.

He pulls back and clears his throat. The sound is small, but it echoes between us, sharp as a skate edge on fresh ice. There’s a depth to his voice, an echo of a conversation I can’t remember.

He lets his hand fall away slowly, reluctantly. My skin tingles where his glove was, a ghost imprint that won’t let go.

“The boys will be wondering where we are.”