Page 16 of True North
He rubbed the crust out of his eyes and reached for his phone to check his email and scroll through Twitter for a minute. Curtis had texted him about their ice time later that day, and JT replied to confirm that he’d swing by Curtis’s apartment to pick him up on the way into town. His mom wanted to know if he was coming for dinner; he set a reminder to reply to her about that later, after he had a chance to talk to Misha. He didn’t really want to subject Misha to dinner with his family, and hedefinitelydidn’t want to subject himself to that level of scrutiny. He could always leave Misha home by himself with a frozen pizza.
The demands of his stomach and bladder finally became too urgent to ignore. He put his phone back on the nightstand and sat up, and then made a totally undignified noise of shock and scrambled out of bed.
Someone had been sleeping beside him—was still asleep, in fact. It was Misha, JT realized as the initial spike of panic and adrenaline passed. The covers obscured most of Misha’s face, but JT recognized those big ears. Not that it could have realistically been anyone else.
What thefuck.
JT sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his face. He wasn’t a particularly light sleeper, but sleeping through Misha crawling into his bed and staying there all night seemed a little improbable. But he’d had no idea.
“Misha,” he said. He reached over and yanked the covers down to Misha’s waist. Misha was fully clothed, at least. Small mercies. “Misha! Wake up.”
Misha groaned and muttered something, his eyes still closed.
JT prodded at Misha’s side, oddly furious—or maybe not so oddly, because what the fuck had Misha been thinking? “Misha! You need towake up.” When Misha didn’t move, he prodded again, even harder, jabbing two fingers into Misha’s ribs. This was so fuckingweird; who just crawled into someone else’s bed like that? “Get up!”
Misha groaned again and finally stirred and yawned and opened his eyes. When he saw JT, he smiled at first, and then, as he took in JT’s glower, his expression shifted into guilt, and then, finally, into a blank mask that was impossible for JT to read.
“What the hell, Misha?” JT asked, knowing Misha wouldn’t understand his words but certain Misha could interpret his tone and body language. “You can’t do this, you can’t—this is mybed.”
Misha sat up. His unreadable watchfulness took on an edge of wariness. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s, uh. Scare?”
JT’s aggravation drained away and was replaced by sympathy. No surprise that Misha had been scared the first night in a new place after so long in the woods. He probably barely remembered what it was like to sleep in a bed. It wasn’t so long ago he’d been eating scrambled eggs with his bare hands. JT could easily imagine him waking up in the night, confused and alone, and wandering upstairs in search of some company. Joining JT in bed wasn’t the obvious decision, but it might have been even weirder to wake up and find Misha curled up on the floor at the foot of the bed.
“Okay,” he said. He wanted to say more, but Misha wouldn’t understand. When Misha’s wary look didn’t go away, JT hesitantly reached out to pat Misha’s knee through the duvet. “It’s okay. You want breakfast?”
“Breakfast,” Misha repeated. He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “Egg?”
JT smiled. “Sure. We can have eggs.”
Misha perked up immediately. He sat up straight, losing his hunched, defeated posture. The blankets pooled at his waist. He rubbed vigorously at his eyes and lifted the sheet to wipe the corners of his mouth. Then he rolled out of bed, stripped off his shirt, and pushed down his shorts.
He wasn’t wearing anything underneath. JT hastily averted his gaze from the soft shape of Misha’s dick hanging between his thighs, framed by a mat of dark hair. If Misha didn’t see anything wrong with crawling into bed with JT, he clearly didn’t mean anything by getting naked, and JT absolutely shouldn’t be looking.
“Wash,” Misha said, and made the same scrubbing-beneath-the-armpits gesture JT had used on him.
“Yeah, go for it,” JT said, which made Misha stare at him blankly. “I mean. Okay. That’s fine.”
Misha flashed a pleased smile and bounced off into the bathroom.
Alone, JT rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands until he saw sparks. Hell of a way to start the morning.
* * *
Before JT left to head into town, he used his phone to have a conversation with Misha about his plans for the day. Misha seemed unbothered about being left at the house alone while JT was skating and equally unbothered that JT was going to ditch him for dinner with his family. Made sense: he was used to being alone, and JT felt a little foolish that he’d even considered bringing Misha along to his parents’ house like Misha was a dog with separation anxiety. He was a little feral, but he was still a sentient, fully adult person and didn’t need constant supervision.
JT left Misha happily lingering over a cup of coffee at the picnic table, watching the ducks make their daily procession, and headed off to get Curtis. The morning was bright and fresh after an overnight storm that had blown in a cold front. Sunlight gleamed through the wet trees, and JT cranked down the windows and turned up the radio as he drove. He was in a good mood and was looking forward to his workout and maybe going to lunch afterward with Alex and Curtis, and then seeing his family that night—with no risk of any awkward questions about Misha.
Curtis was waiting on the sidewalk outside his building, sipping a smoothie from his travel cup. He rented a furnished apartment over the summers because he said that at nearly forty he was too old to live with his mom. JT pulled up to the curb and leaned across the passenger seat to call through the window: “You out here looking for a good time?”
“Ha ha, smartass,” Curtis said. He climbed into the truck and reached over to punch JT’s upper arm. “Show some respect for an old man.”
“You aren’t that old.” JT grinned as he peeled away from the curb. “I’m sure you’ll take it out on me on the ice.”
“I’ll tell Alex to blame you for his suffering,” Curtis said. Alex worked hard but was always vocal about how much everything hurt and how extremely cruel Curtis was.
As JT drove, they talked a little about the upcoming draft, and Curtis shared some free agency gossip he’d heard from a friend who worked for a different team. When that conversation wound down, they were quiet for a minute, and then Curtis said, “So, how are things going with your bear?”
“Well,” JT said, and stopped. Curtis had caught him off guard. He didn’t have a lie prepared and couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t the truth.