Thrown Off the Ice

by Taylor Fitzpatrick

  Almost two weeks to the day after that conversation, Liam comes into Mike’s place like a damn whirlwind, which is unusual for the kid, if only because it’s not even ten in the morning and he doesn’t generally hit full hyperactivity until after noon. Mike likes the way Liam is in the morning: quiet — at least compared to the usual — kind of floppy, almost sweet.

  “It’s open,” Mike calls, even as the knob’s turning. He’s sick of getting up every time Liam shows up, which is all the fucking time. All of it. So he leaves it open, even though it makes him feel edgy, because no fucking way is he getting Liam a key, the idea of it is just — it’s easier to just leave the door unlocked if he knows Liam’s coming over, and Liam’s gotten better about not showing up out of the blue now that he’s earned the reward of not having to knock on the door if Mike is aware he’s coming, so they’re both good.

  Liam marches over to him.

  “Take your boots off, the fuck,” Mike says.

  “Clean,” Liam says, brandishing paper in Mike’s direction. And because he’s nineteen and an idiot, “So there.”

  “Oh no, now I can fuck you without a condom, I’m heartbroken,” Mike says.

  “I told you,” Liam says.

  “Yeah, weirdly I trust test results more than ‘I didn’t do anal, so obviously I’m all good’,” Mike says, and Liam gives him the finger.

  “Now?” Liam asks. “Can we go now?”

  “You don’t know how to wait for things, do you?” Mike asks. It’s a rhetorical question. Mike knew the answer to that within an hour of meeting the kid.

  “I have been waiting,” Liam complains. “I waited for my results, I waited for you to stop being—”

  Mike can’t say he’s particularly interested in Liam’s recounting of events. He doubts they’re going to be flattering. “Then you can wait until we have time for more than a quickie before going to work.”

  “We don’t have to leave for an hour,” Liam argues.

  “Yeah, well,” Mike says. “Maybe I want to take my time.”

  Liam’s quiet for a moment. “Yeah, okay,” he says, finally. Mike bets his imagination’s working over time.

  “Okay,” Mike says.

  Liam toes his boots off — “in the fucking hall, Liam, I know you know where those go” — and moves to straddle Mike’s hips.

  “Hi,” Mike says dryly, then, “Hey,” when Liam takes the book he was reading, puts it on the coffee table, thankfully still open, because it’s boring as shit, and Mike doesn’t think he’d bother trying to find his place again at this point, but not finishing it doesn’t sit right with him.

  “Hi,” Liam says, kisses the corner of Mike’s mouth.

  “I am pretty sure I said—” Mike starts.

  “Yeah, but you have time to get a blow job, right?” Liam asks.

  “I feel like this is a trick question,” Mike says.

  “Stop being suspicious and get your dick out,” Liam says, which Mike guesses he can go along with. He can humor the kid’s oral fixation for awhile.

  *

  As promised, Mike takes his time with it. Mike likes to take his time, honestly. Mike wouldn’t give up the quick dirty tumbles, they’ve got their place, but if he’s got time, he likes to take it.

  They’ve got time tonight. Plenty of it — no game tomorrow, and their flight out to California is in the afternoon, so it doesn’t matter if they have a late night. They’re fresh off a game, and Mike’s still got that hum of adrenaline running through him. It was a loss, but Mike’s long past learned not to carry that into sex, that holding onto it is how you lose your head, and not in a good way. Liam hasn’t quite learned how to shrug it off yet, and Mike finds the nights they lose are the nights he asks for shit he might not be able to handle, shit he shouldn’t, scowls like a kid deprived of treats when Mike doesn’t oblige. He’s not getting his way tonight, though. This is Mike’s show.

  “Either get me off or fuck me,” Liam says, bossy for someone with three fingers in his ass. “Preferably before I fall asleep.”

  “Yeah,” Mike says, watches a muscle in Liam’s thigh jerk when Mike rubs his thumb over the head of his cock. “Because you look really bored right now.”

  Mike, for all he doesn’t mind Liam pliant and humming with endorphins when Mike sinks into him, doesn’t want that tonight. He wants Liam strung out with arousal, the sort of fever hot he gets when he’s close, every nerve singing and every muscle gone tight. During post-orgasm fucks Mike has to go easy on him, make sure he’s not giving more than Liam’s oversensitive nerves can take, and Mike doesn’t think he can go easy on him tonight. He’s not sure, for all he’s said, that he’s got his head on straight right now, those weeks of anticipation a slow boil that’s built to something too big to push aside.

  “How do you want to do this?” Mike asks.

  “However you want me,” Liam says, with a ridiculous bat of his lashes, but ends up rolling over in silent answer. He gets on his hands and knees, which just so happens to be exactly how Mike wants him.

  It feels strange, slicking his cock without rolling a condom on first. A little degenerate, which is fucking rich considering all of a few weeks ago he took Liam over his knee and spanked him until he sobbed, and a few weeks before that got Liam off with the barest touch of his hand and his fingers digging, vicious, into bruises littering his body. As far as the shit they do goes, this is pretty fucking pedestrian, but it’s getting to Mike like nothing else ever has.

  He presses his mouth to Liam’s blushing shoulder, guides himself in before Liam gets halfway through a goad, “Hurry the fuck—” before he cuts himself off with a rapid inhale, Mike sucking in a breath of his own.

  The difference isn’t so much in the feeling itself — Mike can now confirm that every guy who claimed sex was immeasurably worse with a condom was lying through his damn teeth. Liam feels hotter around him, and Mike feels more, but the difference, in the end, is mostly in Mike’s head.

  That’s not to say it isn’t different at all. It is. It is because every thrust of his hips is like punctuation that Liam’s his, no one else’s, his to touch and taste and take, and that won’t be true forever, he knows, but it’s true right now.

  It’s different because Liam says, tight and punched out, “I can fucking feel you,” and it’s not something he hasn’t said before, not even something that should hit Mike in the fucking gut the way it does — it’d be a problem if Liam couldn’t feel him — but it gets his hips stuttering, fingers digging into Liam’s hips before he can restrain himself.

  Different because Mike can’t stop thinking about leaving a mark, not on Liam’s pretty, easily bruised skin as he has so many times, but in him, Liam falling asleep that night with Mike still deep inside him.

  Mike’s not going to last, not with the way everything’s tying together, the tight wet heat of Liam, the panting exhales, the sound of their skin slapping together — and it is skin, just skin, nothing between them. He manages to get a hand around Liam first, thankfully, barely lasts long enough for Liam to go tight around him, moaning pretty little words into the pillow, words Mike wants to swallow whole.

  After, Liam’s lazy, fucked out. He’s always pretty lazy after he comes — or, after Mike comes, because Liam’s forever greedy, and he’ll overcome post-coital laziness in a fucking second if that means he can get another orgasm out of the deal. Liam hums contentedly as Mike idly strokes a hand over the sweaty curve of his spine, cants his hips back when Mike’s hand sweeps lower.

  “Seriously?” Mike asks, amused.

  “Haven’t done your job yet,” Liam says.

  Mike smacks the back of Liam’s thigh, hard enough to sting, and Liam just spreads his thighs. His hole’s slick with lube, come, a little red, and Mike rubs his thumb over the rim. He has to be sensitive, oversensitive, but he always pushes back towards Mike instead of away. Mike hooks his thumb in, watches his come trickle out of Liam. It’s possibly the hottest thing Mike’s ever seen, and Mike’s
had his fucking pick of them since Liam Fitzgerald’s dirty mind and incredible ass entered his life.

  “You’re fucking filthy,” Mike says. “Literally got my come dripping out of you.”

  “So make sure it stays in,” Liam murmurs.

  “Yeah?” Mike asks, and Liam pushes his ass back.

  “You’re so fucking greedy,” Mike says.

  “You like how greedy I am,” Liam says, sounding a little smug about it, and Mike would argue, but frankly he’d rather indulge them both.

  No way he can go again, but Liam can, breath hitching against Mike’s mouth as Mike fingers him. It’s filthy in the best way: the squelch of lube and come, how hot and wet he is around Mike’s fingers, the soft keen when Mike nudges against his prostate. It barely takes a hand around him, Mike’s thumb circling the sticky head of his cock, before he’s coming again, teeth in his bottom lip, eyes squeezed shut, that face Mike loves, where he looks like he doesn’t know if it’s good or too much or maybe both.

  Mike kisses his jaw, the sweaty hair at his temple, his mouth, before getting off the bed. Liam reaches back blindly when he does, fingers curling around his wrist in a loose shackle. “Just cleaning up, give me a minute,” Mike says, and Liam makes a protesting noise but lets go of him.

  Mike cleans himself up quickly, wets a towel with warm water. Liam hasn’t moved an inch in Mike’s absence, and doesn’t move other than to spread his legs while Mike cleans the lube and traces of come off his thighs, careful, because he knows even the softest cloth probably feels rough right now, every one of Liam’s nerves still lit up.

  “On your back?” Mike says, when he’s done, and Liam groans like Mike’s asking the world of him, but rolls onto his back so Mike can clean him off. The sheets are a fucking disaster, and Liam’s no better, but Mike honestly isn’t sure Liam would willingly stand long enough for Mike to change the sheets. It’s a big enough bed to avoid the wet spot, especially with how clingy Liam can be, so Mike just ditches the cloth in the bathroom and gets into bed, can’t help the quirk of a smile when Liam immediately rolls onto his side, his head on Mike’s shoulder, fingers tangling in his chest hair.

  “Maybe next time I’ll clean you up with my mouth,” Mike says.

  Liam groans. “I can’t go again yet,” he says.

  “I said next time,” Mike says.

  “But now I want to go again,” Liam whines.

  “Save some energy for next time,” Mike says.

  “I have endless energy,” Liam says, and honestly, it sure as shit seems like it sometimes.

  “That was okay, right?” Mike asks.

  “That’s a stupid question,” Liam mumbles.

  “Liam,” Mike says, because he knows it was, but he still needs Liam to confirm it.

  “That fucking rocked my world, two thumbs up, would do again, like, right now if I was capable of it,” Liam says.

  “You can barely keep your eyes open,” Mike says, and Liam blinks at him, slow and heavy-lidded.

  “Tomorrow then,” Liam yawns. “And the day after, and—”

  “Go to sleep, kid,” Mike says, covering Liam’s hand on his chest and squeezing.

  “Hmm,” Liam says, lacing his fingers through Mike’s, and it doesn’t feel worth the effort to pull away.

  Chapter 14

  They come crashing toward the end of the season. It’s a crash right into a brick wall, since they’re sitting out of contention once again, looking at another long off-season. April arrives, and Liam’s still his —

  Liam’s still his.

  Mike’s not going to lie, heading their separate ways for the summer has him feeling edgy, considering last summer. Liam seems to pick up on that, gives him this rambling speech about how he doesn’t want anyone else and Mike doesn’t have to worry, but that only gets Mike more tense. He doesn’t put much stock into the promises people make.

  Not that Liam should even have to promise. Mike’s still furious with himself, because even though they didn’t promise each other a single solitary thing this time last year, when Liam picked shit up with that cardboard bland Canadian boy, the first thing Mike felt was betrayed, like he had any goddamn right to be.

  He didn’t have the right then, and he doesn’t have the right now — not that whether he has the right to be upset will make any difference in how he feels about it. It’s out of his control, and he resents Liam for that, for being someone Mike would feel the loss of.

  Liam keeps talking about making plans to see one another, but the distance between them is the same as it was last year, and there are other problems besides. Halifax is a pain in the ass to get to, but that’s not really the issue: Liam lives with his folks during the off-season, a decision Mike doesn’t understand, but can’t really judge either way. Still, that means if he did go to Halifax his options for accommodation would be too ludicrous to consider.

  Mike what, sleeping on the Fitzgeralds’ couch and sneaking into Liam’s room like they’re both teenagers? Liam telling his parents he’s moving out for a week because his thirty-one year old whatever-the-fuck is coming to town? As far as Mike’s aware, the Fitzgeralds are blissfully ignorant of the fact their precious only child has been spreading his legs for a guy more than ten years his senior since he was a blushing beautiful virgin, and frankly, Mike would prefer that stay the case. There’s the same problem with Liam coming down to Duluth: what excuse for that would Liam give his parents? How would Mike explain going hermit to his family for however long Liam was around without making it sound more serious than it is?

  There’s no real way to see each other that Mike can figure out, right up until his agent offers up a solution in a single stroke less than a week after Mike gets back to Minnesota, bringing up an MMA guy in Toronto that Mike knows at least a couple of NHL guys have trained with.

  “He’s got a free time slot, and it might be a good idea to get some specialized training in,” his agent says. “Considering fighting’s as important to your game as everything else.”

  He’s being kind when he phrases it that way: when it comes down to brass tacks, the hits he throws — whether it’s checks or punches — are the only important part of Mike’s game. It’s not like he’d get anything from learning fancy footwork or working on his shot. His three whole goals last season didn’t much help the team. Kids like Liam, they’re the skilled labor, and Mike’s job is to do the grunt work.

  Still, grunt or not, he wants to be good at what he does. Well, he is good at what he does, but he wants to be better. With the role he has, time slips away so fast that if you’re not facing retirement by thirty it means you’re fucking elite, and Mike’s about to turn thirty-two with a contract expiring at the end of next season. He wants to keep going. He doesn’t know how to do anything else. He’s got his body, his fists, knows how to use them as a weapon, and he’s got fuck all else.

  Mike tries not to think about retirement, what he’s going to do with himself when he can’t play anymore. He’s been good with his money, responsible, invests what he doesn’t spend, is frugal with what he does spend. Honestly he’s in better financial shape, long-term, than the guys making five times what he does and blowing it on fancy cars they trade in every few years, mansions they can’t begin to fill.

  Still, the money isn’t going to last forever, and Mike’s barely got a high school diploma, hasn’t worked an actual job that didn’t involve strapping on skates and taping his wrists since he was eighteen years old. Fuck knows what the job market’s going to think of that, beyond, ‘uh, no thanks’.

  Mike wants to stay relevant as long as he can, as long as they keep signing him, as long as his hands last, so Mike heads to Toronto a month after the start of the off-season. Liam meets him there, not exactly hiding the fact he’s there for Mike, that if Mike was still in Minnesota he’d still be in Nova Scotia. Still, Toronto’s got some of the best damn training there is and Liam’s taking advantage of that, so Mike’s a little comforted by the fact that Liam’s not lounging a
round all day waiting for him to get back from training. Not wasting his time.

  Mike’s not stupid enough to agree to sharing a hotel room, but he does check if there are any adjoining suites, and that means Liam spends the first day in Toronto periodically and delightedly opening the door between their rooms and greeting Mike. It’s like a goddamn game of peek-a-boo. He’s fucking ridiculous.

  “Come the fuck here,” Mike says, the third time Liam does it, and Liam grins and crawls onto the bed beside him.

  “Hi,” Liam says.

  “You mainline caffeine or something?” Mike asks.

  “Just happy to see you,” Liam says, then, like he knows Mike’s about to shy away, “I missed getting laid.”

  Well, that’s something they’re in agreement about, at least. Mike runs his hand down Liam’s back, thick with summer muscle, palms his ass.

  “We going to fuck?” Liam asks.

  “Think I was implying that there, yeah,” Mike says. “That a problem?”

  “But you never wanna fuck me in hotels,” Liam says. “You changing your mind?”

  “In this particular case,” Mike says. He sure as shit didn’t come all the way to Toronto and get a fucking suite not to fuck Liam.

  Liam grins. That grin always makes Mike nervous.

  “Don’t think this means you’ve got carte blanche to start jumping me on the road again,” Mike warns. “It’s not exactly the same when we’re surrounded by twenty guys.”

  “What’s carte blanche?” Liam asks blankly.

  “For fuck’s sakes, who’s the Canadian here?” Mike asks.

  “I don’t get it,” Liam says.

  “It’s French, dumbass,” Mike says.

  “I got a C- in French?” Liam ventures.

  “And you’re hoping playing oblivious is going to get you out of agreeing,” Mike says.

  Liam gives him a winning smile.

  “You’re such a fucking brat,” Mike says, and hates that he’s completely unable to keep the affection out of his voice.