Page 17 of The Fall

I want to reach for him again, bridge that tiny distance. Say something, something that will make sense of all this heat and fear tangled together inside me. A thousand words hover on my tongue, but my voice dies. The moment stretches, then dissolves.

He wets his lips like he’s about to speak again, but instead he nods and lets out a breath that fogs between us. I let go of his jersey, feeling each thread slip through my fingers.

We skate off the ice together, a foot of space between us.

My heart is hammering as I stand outside room 214. It’s Blair’s room, and I trace the numbers with my fingertip.

I can’t stop thinking about practice, about his lips against mine, and the heat of his touch in the middle of the rink.

What if we weren’t a secret anymore? I’ve spent so long hiding, and the thought of being open about who I am, and who we are to each other…

I’ve never, ever considered it. I have never, before two days ago, thought I’d even be here, trying to understand what it means to want to be out, to be a professional athlete in love with a man. It’s so much, and it’s happening so fast?—

But it’s not. I’ve been working up to this for a year, haven’t I?

What would it be like to love him openly? I imagine us at team dinners, his arm draped casually over my shoulders, sharing plates and stealing bites from each other’s forks. Could I kiss him at center ice after a win?

I imagine telling my dad. My dad, God, why hasn’t he called in the past two days? He usually blows up my phone before and after my games. Did I—does he already know? Did it go… badly?

It doesn’t matter. Blair’s worth it. We’re worth it.

I want this, I want him , and I want us , bathed in sunlight instead of lurking in shadows. I’m still high on the taste of him, on the way he kissed me, a kiss that claimed me.

The hallway feels too narrow, and I’m too far away from him. I rap my knuckles against the door before I can second- guess myself. From inside their rooms, I hear the low rustle of my teammates’ TVs, the sound of their voices as they talk on the phone with their wives and girlfriends and parents.

I hold my breath, waiting.

Footsteps approach. The deadbolt disengages.

His hotel room door swings open, and there he is, filling the doorway. Blair Callahan, dark hair and broad shoulders, his eyes the deep blue of the ocean. He’s wearing a black T-shirt that hugs his shoulders, the sleeves tight against his biceps, and his chest is wide enough to hold the world.

Have we done this before? Slipped into each other’s rooms on the road for pregame naps and postgame overnights? It feels right to come here. My own hotel room was achingly empty, and all I could think about, perched on the edge of my bed, was getting back to him.

The tension bleeds out of his shoulders as he smiles, that slow burn that starts in his eyes and spreads down to his mouth. That’s my smile, the one he only gives to me.

“Hey.” His voice is rough velvet. He doesn’t say a word, stepping back. I move before my brain catches up, and his hand ghosts over my lower back as I pass.

Heat radiates off him. The scent of coconut and Key lime on his skin is like summer and sunbeams and sand between my toes. He smells like home, and some jumbled-up part of me, some deep-seated instinct, is whispering, “Yes, here. With him.”

The door clicks shut behind me. It’s a usual hotel room—bed, window, bathroom—and everything is in its place: sneakers by the closet, gear against the wall. A half-empty bottle of Gatorade sits on the bedside table next to a pair of earbuds. His suit hangs in the closet, waiting for the game.

The bed is right there, and we both gravitate toward it. Blair sits first, and when I join him on the edge of the mattress, it dips under our weight like we’re sinking into each other. It’s so familiar, so instinctively in sync, like we’ve done this a thousand times before. Maybe we have.

I want to kiss him again. I want to tell him everything I’m feeling: how much I want this life with him, how much I want him, but I’m tongue-tied and paralyzed.

He leans back against the headboard, stretching out one long leg until it brushes mine. Our knees touch when he settles in.

It’s easy to relax with him, to fall into his orbit. We trade low-level bullshit about the team, full of quiet laughs and moments where all we do is look at each other.

“Game later.”

I smile. “We’re going to crush them.”

Blair chuckles. It’s stupid how much I love the sound of his laugh. “You mean you’re going to crush them.”

“You say that like it’s a foregone conclusion.”

“It is.” He nudges my knee. “With you on my line? We’re unstoppable.”

Our conversation flows about the upcoming game, about Coach’s pep talks, about how Axel always manages to eat three full plates at the buffet.

He angles toward me until our thighs graze together. His heat seeps into my leg like sunshine soaking into sand. He leans back on one arm, unfolding a long line along my side that holds all my attention.

In the lull between words, I study the planes of his face, the cut of his jaw, the arch of his brow. He is a sculpture come to life, hard angles and smooth curves. I need to sketch him. Those sketchbooks from our house; I’ve clearly picked it back up this year. Was he my muse?

Blair bumps his knee against mine. A quirk touches his lips. “Torey.” His voice is a caress. “What are you thinking about?”

There’s only one way to answer: “You.”

His gaze darkens, pupils dilating until only a thin ring of storm blue remains. The air changes, charged. He shifts closer, his thigh against mine.

I soak up every detail in vivid Technicolor. The play of lamplight across his face. Each slow breath, the expansion and contraction of his chest.

He ghosts his fingers over my knuckles. Blair’s hands are calloused from a lifetime of gripping a hockey stick, but they’re gentle on my skin. I crave his touch, the feeling of being anchored to him. We bring our foreheads together.

He slides his hand to the nape of my neck. The gentle pressure guides me closer until our breaths mingle. Time suspends as we hover in this moment.

“Tell me,” he says against my lips, not quite touching. “Tell me what you want.”

I close the distance, pressing my lips to his. God, his mouth feels like a homecoming, and I melt into him, boneless.

The kiss deepens slowly, like honey dripping from a spoon. His lips were made for kissing me. He traces the seam of my lips with his tongue. When I open to him, the low groan that rumbles through his chest vibrates into mine.

His hands are on my waist, pulling me closer until our bodies lock from chest to thigh. I tangle my hands in his hair; the strands are a lifeline pulling me back from some distant shore. I want this, I want him, and I want everything that comes after this kiss.

Blair’s calloused hands are gentle as he cradles my face. There’s something raw about how vulnerable he looks right now: his cheeks are flushed pink, his lips are swollen, his pupils blown wide.

“Every time,” he breathes. “Every single time, you rock my entire world.”

God, there is no part of me that isn’t his.

He lays me back against the pillows and cages me between his arms. Our hips align. I arch into him, shameless, wanton. He maps a path down my neck with his lips, grazes his teeth over the point where my heartbeat hammers. His calloused fingers skim along my ribs, sliding under my T-shirt.

“So beautiful,” he breathes against my skin.

I’m desperate to feel him skin against skin. He sits back long enough for me to wrench his shirt over his head, strip me out of mine, and then he takes me down to the mattress again.

He tastes like salt and hunger, and I can’t get enough, can’t ever get enough. Blair’s hands roam down my sides and grip my hips.

He kisses a trail down to my stomach, mapping me with lips and teeth and tongue. He’s charting—to me at least—virgin territory. I fist my hands in his hair as he bites my hipbone, dizzy and drunk on his touch and the heat of his mouth.

“Tell me what you need.”

Jesus. “I need...” I swallow hard and force my words out, my voice shaking. “I need you.” Three words, heavy as a vow.

Blair’s blues flare, turn molten. He surges up, seizes me in a kiss that sears my soul. “You have me,” he says against my lips. “All of me, always.”

His fingers hook in the waistband of my jeans. The button pops free, and he lowers the zipper, inch by agonizing inch. My hips lift, begging?—

He tugs, slowly. My jeans and boxer briefs bunch around my thighs, and he sits back on his haunches and looks from head to toe.

I squirm. I’m achingly hard already. His eyes—blue and bottomless—lock on mine.

He flattens his hands on my thighs and holds me down as he straddles my knees. I’m hyperventilating, shaking, about to fly out of my skin. I’m going to come, and he hasn’t even touched me. All he’s doing is looking at me.

He drops a kiss to my hipbone, my inner thigh. He never takes his eyes off me.

My hands white-knuckle in his sheets. “Blair, please...”

He lowers his head, achingly slow. He flicks his tongue out.

Wet heat engulfs me and I buck against the mattress. I’m practically feral, and definitely unhinged, my back bowed, head thrown back, a keen caught in my throat. I’m lost to the slick slide of his lips, his tongue, his exquisite suction. I’m wound tight enough to snap.

He hums, low in his throat. I feel it everywhere . It’s agony, it’s ecstasy. He takes me deep, all the way to the root, then swallows around me.

Stars. Galaxies. Universes explode behind my eyelids. I scrabble at his shoulders, tug his hair. I’m desperate for an anchor; I can’t fucking breathe.

He’s relentless, driving me higher, winding me tighter. I’m babbling, spilling words out unchecked. Pleas, praises, his name, over and over.