Power Play

by Avon Gale

  That made him relax a little, but it didn’t entirely erase his nerves at introducing Misha to his parents. That had more to do with the fact that Max was falling for Misha like the temperatures in a Minnesota winter, and the realization nearly made him run another red light. He was still legally able to drive, even though the accident had messed up his peripheral vision.

  “Max,” his father said. “I think you need a safer car if this is how you drive.”

  “I think you need a learner’s permit,” his mother responded. They both laughed.

  Max caught them giving each other a look in the rearview mirror. He suddenly wondered what his mom had thought about Emma, but they were pulling into Misha’s driveway, and it wasn’t the time for that conversation.

  Misha met them at the door, and Max could tell he was nervous. He had his coach face on, which was seriously hot but also made him look unapproachable. Max gave him an encouraging smile, but Misha just looked at him like Max was a rookie about to earn himself a bag skate.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Misha Samarin,” Max said. “Misha, these are my parents, Suzanne and Jim.”

  Max’s mom beamed and moved to shake Misha’s hand. “It’s so good to meet you, Misha. May I call you that? I know there are rules about Russian names. Isn’t that right?”

  There were? That was news to Max.

  “Is short for Mikhail. Yes,” said Misha, and his accent was heavier than usual. He was either nervous or doing it on purpose, though Max thought he only did the latter with Belsey. “But Misha is fine, of course.” Misha shook his mom’s hand and then his dad’s, and his eyes flickered nervously to Max, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Is it okay that I call you Misha?” Max asked slyly as they unloaded the groceries from the back of the Jeep.

  “Now you ask me?” There was maybe, just maybe, a tiny hint of warmth in Misha’s voice. “I suppose.”

  Max smiled and hefted what felt like two bags full of bowling balls into his arms. Then he went inside to find his mother exclaiming over the kitchen.

  “Oh, Misha. Bless you for volunteering your home. If I had to cook anything in Max’s kitchen, I might weep.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Max muttered. “I just don’t have a lot of stuff.” Like dishes. Or potholders. Or any idea how to cook things that need an appliance other than the microwave.

  “We brought you a gift, Misha,” Max’s father said, and handed Misha something in a paper bag, and he took it with his usual somber gratitude.

  Max had no idea what it was. He didn’t remember his parents specifically picking anything out for Misha, but he had a horrifying idea of what might be in the bag.

  “Thank you,” said Misha, and Max had to turn away to hide the smile as Misha put yet another bottle of midshelf vodka in the freezer.

  Max made a note to look up “Like father, like son” in his Russian book.

  As they put away groceries and assembled supplies, their conversation was easy and relaxed, centering mostly around the Spitfires. Max made everyone laugh with a retelling of the Jackhammers Bench Brawl—even Misha, though it was a subdued sort of chuckle. His parents enjoyed hearing about the various personalities on their team, though his mother made a face when Max mentioned Belsey.

  “That man,” she said and then shook her head and pretended to zip her lips. “That’s all I’ll say about that. He better not show up tomorrow. He is not getting any of my casserole.”

  “He wasn’t invited,” Max assured her. The mention of Belsey seemed to put a damper on the conversation for a moment. Belsey had that effect on people. But Max’s dad restored the equilibrium by asking Misha about his past coaching experience.

  Max was worried that Misha might fall back into his “cold and miserable Russian angst bucket” mode thanks to the mention of Belsey, but that didn’t happen. Misha did tense up a fraction when he mentioned coaching with the Boston Bruins’ AHL team in Providence, and Max expelled a breath when his parents reigned in their instinct to boo anything related to the Bruins. His dad had hated them long before his son played for their rivals. Max playing for the Habs just made it more convenient.

  The conversation switched to recipes and a baking plan, which Max tuned out. The less he was involved with the actual cooking, the better. He and his father chopped things, sliced things, and assembled various casseroles into dishes as instructed. By the time they prepped everything, Misha and Max’s mom seemed to have bonded over their ability to prepare grown-up food. It was a start.

  Max had seen Misha rubbing at his temples a time or two, which he hoped didn’t mean Misha had a migraine.

  “If you have a migraine tomorrow, you totally need to take your medicine instead of drinking vodka,” Max told Misha and hit him lightly on the shoulder.

  Misha scowled at him. “I do not have a migraine.”

  “I didn’t say you did. I just said to take your medicine if you get one.” Max waved a hand. “Don’t do that thing, the exist—exa—that thing you do.”

  Misha blinked at him. “I have no idea what word you are trying to say.”

  Max was going to program that stupid word into his phone so he could remember what it was. “That word that Belsey uses. About literature? Look. That’s not the important thing. The important thing is—”

  “Existentialist? Is that the word?”

  Max crossed his arms. “Yes. Thanks for interrupting.”

  “You were looking for the word. I was helping.” Misha popped a piece of a carrot into his mouth. His expression was as reserved as ever, but Max would bet his abysmally small paycheck that there was a sparkle in those dark eyes.

  “Uh-huh. Promise you will take a pill and not lock yourself in the bedroom and leave me with all these hungry athletes and food.”

  “I won’t,” Misha assured him. “I am afraid of what might happen to my kitchen.”

  Max heard a discreet cough and realized that he’d forgotten all about his parents. His face flushed, but he put on a normal-ish smile and turned around. There was nothing weird about that conversation, was there? Just a guy reminding his friend to take drugs instead of drinking away the migraines he sometimes got and needed to lay down in a dark room to get rid of.

  Totally normal. “You guys want to head back to the hotel now?” Max still owed Misha quite a few blowjobs and thought it might help Misha relax before what was sure to be a chaotic day.

  “Unless we’re all planning a sleepover,” his father deadpanned. He didn’t exchange a look with Max’s mom that said, “our son is banging the coach.” Not that Max knew precisely what that would look like. Hopefully he hadn’t just made it clear as day that he spent most of his time there and that his apartment was little more than a dusty, kind-of-messy storage locker.

  Max drove his parents back to the hotel and wondered if they were going to say anything or if he was just being paranoid. When they got out of the Jeep, they both hugged him and said how glad they were that he and Misha seemed to be friends and that they were proud of him for not letting the accident get in the way.

  Typical Ashford-family party line, so Max relaxed and figured he was in the clear. He wanted his parents to know, but he didn’t think it was a good idea to surprise his parents with his bisexuality the day before hosting twentysomething people for Thanksgiving dinner. They might not have a problem with it, but it would still be a shock, and he’d like a chance to talk to them about it, rather than just say, “Hey, I’m bisexual now, and can you pass the potatoes?”

  When he got back to Misha’s, he found him standing in the same place he’d left him, as if he hadn’t moved a single muscle in the time Max had been gone. “Hey,” Max said, coming up beside him. “That went fine. See? They like you. They said it was great we were friends.”

  Misha didn’t say anything, but he looked.... Max actually couldn’t figure out what Misha looked like—not sad, not unhappy or angry, but definitely not relaxed or amused. It wasn’t his coach face, but it was something similar. Too simila
r. Like the night Misha kissed him the first time, when he almost seemed defeated by Max’s refusal to hate him.

  “You okay?” Max bumped him with his shoulder. “Is it okay I came back, because I guess I could have asked you.”

  “It’s fine. Of course,” Misha said.

  Max felt a strange stirring of something very close to irritation and wondered if Misha would ever tell him when something was not fine.

  “Misha—”

  “Belsey won’t stop the man who is bothering Drake from coming to game,” Misha said. He said it slowly, carefully, but he still dropped the article at the end.

  Max felt stupid for thinking that Misha’s distress was about him. He leaned against the counter. “I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but unless we know the guy’s a threat to Drake... he’s probably.... Ugh. I can’t make the words come out of my mouth.”

  Misha stared at the ceiling. “I promised him, Max. That I would make it okay for him to be safe. And it’s a lie.”

  “Whoa. Whoa.” Max held up his hands. “You did what you could, and I’m sure Drake will appreciate it.” It wasn’t a very sympathetic thought, but Max occasionally found their drama-prone goalie to be a bit much.

  “That is not the point. I am the coach. I need to make sure my players can play.”

  “You do,” Max agreed. “But come on. You can’t go around letting them make unreasonable demands either,” he said carefully. “And Misha, I like Drake, but it’s one guy out of a—well, maybe not a thousand, but you know what I mean—in a crowd. Drake really can’t lose focus that easily.” And if he did, God help him if he ever played hockey in Montreal.

  Misha looked at him, but there was no hint of censure on his face. “Belsey said he would entertain the request if I could prove to him that the man was a threat to Drake.”

  “You could go around him, I suppose,” Max said, uneasy at the thought of Misha getting in trouble. In his opinion, the Spitfires needed Misha way more than they needed Drake.

  There was a flash of something like anger in Misha’s eyes, and his mouth tightened into a flat line. “No. I will not do that.”

  “Why?” Max asked and peered at him. That was a strange reaction. Usually the thought of undermining Belsey made Misha react in exactly the opposite way.

  “It would not be good for the team.” Misha’s tone suggested he was done with the conversation. But he followed it up with “What do I do, Max? You are very good with these things. How do I tell Drake that I cannot do what I promised?”

  Max went quiet with momentary surprise at having Misha ask for his opinion. He expected Misha to be mad at him for basically agreeing with Belsey, and he was hesitant to say what he really thought about the situation because he didn’t want them to get in a fight. But maybe he wasn’t giving either of them enough credit. They did start dating after an incident that ended both their careers, didn’t they?

  It made Max think about his parents again and how he was starting to figure out that relationships, when they mattered, weren’t supposed to be easy.

  “I don’t think you should promise these things in the first place,” Max said bluntly. “I know you had good intentions, but that’s something you can’t control. You could always ask Drake to tell you what exactly is up with this guy, but I wouldn’t. Whatever the reason is, Drake doesn’t want you to know. So honor that and just tell him you tried. Help him figure out a way not to think about it when he’s out on the ice. Find some concentration drills or something for goalies. That kind of thing. Be his hockey coach, Misha. That’s really all you can do.”

  Misha was studying him as he spoke and listening intently. “You are a good coach, Max. I wished you had been there when I talked to him. I am not very good at this part.”

  “You’re better than you think you are. Definitely with Drake,” Max said with a smile. “But thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” Misha suddenly moved up in Max’s space and gave him a gentle push with his hands. “We should go to bed. Yes?”

  “Yeah,” Max said, his voice husky. “We definitely should do that.”

  In the spirit of speaking his mind, Max waited until they were naked and Misha was fucking him with two fingers to say, “Why don’t you let me do this to you?”

  Misha, who was tall enough to finger Max and suck on his neck at the same time, lifted his head. His dark eyes were all pupil, his pale face flushed, and his breath a spill of warmth on Max’s skin. He said something in Russian, shook his head briefly, and repeated it in English. “Why are you asking this now?”

  His fingers were still fucking Max, only a little more intensely than before. Max had to arch his back and moan before he could get back to the question. Russians were sneaky. No wonder they won the Cold War.

  Wait... did they?

  “Because I—fuck. I want to do this. To you. And you said you... liked it, but—Misha, goddamn—you won’t let me. And I want to.”

  Misha’s fingers slowed, which was great for Max’s conversational abilities, but not so much for his cock. “Maybe you would not like doing it.”

  Max sat up on his elbows. “You have got to stop doing that. No, no. Not that, please. Never stop doing that. I meant you’ve got to stop trying to make everything safe. For me. For Drake. Maybe I won’t like it, and I’ll tell you. But if it feels this good, and if you moan and start muttering in Russian and grab my hair while I do it? I’m gonna like it. Okay? Da? You copy, comrade?”

  Misha narrowed his eyes at him, and fucked him harder with his fingers. “Comrade?”

  “Sorry,” Max wheezed, his hips thrusting forward, shamelessly riding Misha’s hand. “I’m not—this is... so good. God, you’re so good at this.”

  Misha gave him a sinister smile and leaned in to murmur in his ear, “Podrochi sebe, Max.” Before Max could ask what that meant, Misha bit gently at his ear and said, “Make yourself come.”

  I thought you’d never ask. With two hard strokes of his cock, Max came. His stomach felt warm and wet, and Misha watched him the whole time with his dark eyes.

  It took Max a couple of minutes to recover, breathing hard and reassembling his thoughts into something that had more words and fewer moans. “So, hey,” he panted, shaking slightly from the intensity of his release. “If that’s how it feels to get fucked, then I definitely want you to do that.” He waited for that to sink in and watched in smug pleasure at how Misha’s eyes widened. He liked Misha’s sudden intake of breath too. “But first I want to do this to you.”

  Misha appeared speechless for a second, and then he nodded once and lay on his back. “I do like it,” he said very quietly. “And I do want to fuck you.”

  Hearing that in Misha’s soft, accented voice made Max shiver. If he hadn’t just come, he might have bossily demanded Misha fuck him right then. Instead he took a few more calming breaths, turned on his side, and traced the tattoos on Misha’s chest.

  Max had no idea what he was doing, but he felt like he had enough relevant experience to understand where to start. “Just tell me if it’s not right,” Max said and settled between Misha’s legs.

  It didn’t go so well at first. Misha was clearly tense, and he stared at the ceiling like he was getting an extremely uncomfortable physical exam. Max bit him on the thigh and thumped his stomach, because those were not things that happened at physicals outside of Internet porn. “Hey. You said you liked this. Were you lying?”

  “No,” Misha said and looked down at him. He sighed. “It’s been a long time. That is all.” He gently slid his fingers through Max’s hair and breathed out slowly, clearly trying to relax.

  Max concentrated on making it feel the same for Misha as it did for him, but at first it just seemed like he was seventeen again and trying to get his high school girlfriend off without a clue what he was supposed to be doing. But eventually Max got the hang of it, Misha made a hot noise and bucked against Max’s hand, and everything was great.

  When Misha did that to him, Max always found him
self wanting to watch but it was too hard to keep his eyes open. Now he was fascinated by the sight of his fingers sliding slick into Misha’s body, and he was so warm inside, so tight, that Max was definitely going to want to fuck him at some point.

  Misha sprawled long-limbed and panting on the bed. His breath stuttered and he thrust his hips restlessly. His cock was hard and flush against his stomach. Yeah. That was good. “You do like this,” Max said. He grinned, pleased with himself and the world in general as he tried to angle his wrist perfectly and make Misha lose his mind.

  A stream of Russian was his only answer. Max laughed and tried moving his hand forward a little harder. Misha liked it kind of rough in bed, liked Max to bite him and grab his hair, and liked choking on Max’s cock so much it was probably giving Max a complex. It made him feel like a porn star, so hopefully Misha would appreciate some turnabout. His instincts were right, and Misha’s back arched slightly as he moaned when Max began fucking him harder with his hand.

  “Since you like this, you’d probably like it if I fucked you too, huh,” Max said cheerfully. He watched as Misha grabbed his dick and came all over his stomach, saying something that Max hoped was yes.

  They had both showered and returned to bed. Max was idly flipping through his spy thriller—there was a Russian bad guy, and he was trying to stop himself being alternately attracted to the villain and annoyed by Russian stereotypes—when he remembered what his parents had told him earlier. He placed the book on his chest and turned his head.

  “Did you come visit me in the hospital?”

  Misha was reading something that appeared to be a coaching book. He wore a pair of reading glasses, and Max wished he’d wear them all the time, because they were sexy as hell. Misha looked at him. “Ah. Yes.”