by Eden Finley
“So delightful,” Ollie says dryly.
“Where did you grow up?” she asks.
Ah, the ultimate meeting the parents pastime: grilling the boyfriend.
“Upstate New York.”
“What was that like?” Ollie asks. He’s pressed against me, his arm lying across the back of the couch behind me, and I swear he moves closer as he asks. Is he using this as an excuse to touch me when we agreed we weren’t going to do that? Because I want to hate him for taking advantage but can’t, because I like it too much.
My hand lands on his thigh, and I cock my head. “Shouldn’t you know? I talk to you about it all the time.”
His eyes widen, either in surprise at my hand on his leg and that I’m milking this situation for all it’s worth like he is or he’s pissed as hell that I just threw him in the deep end. “Right. But you know I always tune you out.”
I pinch his leg, which only makes him laugh.
“Ollie said you had to work tonight?” his dad asks.
“I did.” And shit, I still do. I’m surprised my phone isn’t blowing up from my editor waiting for the article so he can fix it and go to bed.
Harry’s up most of the night anyway—God knows we hear about his insomnia constantly—but he gets grumpy when we turn our shit in late.
Ollie’s arm drops to my shoulder, and a gentle hand runs down my arm. My breath hitches, and fuck, this charade could be the death of me. It’s barely gotten started, but it doesn’t take much for me to get going when I think of Ollie.
His touch is sensory overload. The scent of his cologne gets stuck in my nose, the warmth of his chest right near my head makes my face heat, and when I swallow, I swear I can still taste him from last week.
Then I realize he’s talking to me. “Huh?”
He tries to hide his amusement, but it doesn’t work. “Did you need to finish off a report or something? For work? You can use the bedroom.”
“Thanks. I shouldn’t take long.”
The excuse is what I need to peel myself away from Ollie, but when I get up, his eyes go to my crotch, and if the small grin he tries to hide has anything to say, he’s proud of his work. Except now I get to try to balance my laptop on my hard-on. That’s gonna be fun.
What’s going to be even more fun is trying to pick the correct bedroom. A boyfriend who’s been here before would know which one Ollie uses. There are two doors, side by side, both equally possible to be Ollie’s bedroom. Do I play eeny, meeny, miny, moe?
A throat clears behind me, and when I turn, Ollie stretches his arms over his head and subtly points to the door on the right. Smooth.
And as soon as I make my way over to it and close the door behind me, Ollie’s mom’s muffled voice says, “He’s a keeper. Cute as a button.”
“Walls are pretty thin, Ma.”
Probably doesn’t help Ollie’s apartment is bare. The room is simple. Bed, bedside drawers, and a dresser in the corner. Noise must bounce around the emptiness.
I finish off my bittersweet article and upload it to the work cloud. Normally, I’d ask Harry what the plan is now. The Dragons’ season is over, and while technically I’ve been following the whole conference, my focus has definitely been on this team to pull off the win. Now they haven’t, I could be sent back to Chicago or assigned to follow a different team. Maybe Kevin will take back the playoffs seeing as it’s getting near the end.
Which would mean leaving New York.
I’m still staring at the empty space in my email when Ollie enters the bedroom.
“’Rents are going to bed.”
“Oh, okay.” I call out, “Goodnight.”
In reply, there is a low “Such a sweet boy.”
Ollie laughs. “She loves you.”
“So I heard, but—”
I can’t finish my train of thought because Ollie starts stripping out of his suit. He eyes me the entire time, never looking down at his buttons as he undoes them expertly. His fingers work his clothes, and I remember what it was like to have those fingers on me. His large hands gripping my ass as I ground on top of his dick.
“You’re so not playing fair.” My voice is whisper-quiet so his parents can’t hear.
Once he’s down to his boxer briefs, he pulls back the covers and climbs into bed next to me. “We’re boyfriends. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before.” Then the bastard winks.
“Don’t think for one second you can use our situation to your advantage.” I’m only half-serious.
His smile drops a little but not completely. “Not at all. No touching.” Ollie lies back, pulling the blanket over his waist but not up to cover this chest. His beautiful, hard, tattooed chest.
“Didn’t you say you’d sleep on the floor?”
He runs a hand down his delectable pecs to his abs. “Are you really gonna make me sleep on the cold ground? I totally will if you ask me to.”
I sigh. “No.”
I close my laptop and put it back in my laptop bag. Then I even the score a little. I don’t have as much finesse or tact as Ollie and drop my clothes to the floor without the scorching eye-fucking he gave me while he stripped. Still, payback seems to be working with how much his eyes roam over me. I want to taunt him about seeing something he likes, but we’re already playing with matches. I don’t want to start an inferno.
I climb back into bed next to him, and turn on my side to face him, pretending like I’m not hardening in my briefs with every second I stare at his bare chest.
I need a distraction. “What’re your plans now?” I ask. Nothing like reminding him he just lost the Cup to bring the mood down.
Ollie’s eyes turn from heated to sad. “Dunno. There’s not really anything in New York for me. I’ll probably go back to Boston and do the family thing. You? You still gonna follow the playoffs?”
“If my boss wants me on it, yeah, but I might be heading back to Chicago. My assignment when Harry sent me here was kind of vague. It was to cover the entire conference, but he wanted me to follow you guys specifically. Probably because of all the articles I wrote about you.”
Ollie’s lips tug downward.
“I’m hoping to go back to football again when it comes around, but I don’t know what my editor has planned for me. He was convinced you guys were going to take it out this year, so I could really be sent anywhere now you’re out.”
“Just another disappointed person.” Ollie sighs. “Chicago, huh?” His tone is hard to dissect. “So, really, this could be one of the last times we see each other?”
“Until next season, probably. I don’t know what upcoming projects Harry wants me on, but he’s been impressed with my coverage of hockey even if some people think I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
Ollie turns his head to face me. “I was wrong.”
I gasp. “Sorry, what was that? Can I, like, dictate that to my phone somehow?”
“Shut up. I. Was. Wrong. You’re a great reporter, Lennon.”
I point to my chest. “Clark. Shit, you’re so bad with names, dude.”
Ollie shoves me so I roll onto my back. “Go to sleep already.”
Go to sleep next to Ollie while sporting a major boner? Not going to happen. Still, we lie there in the darkness, both of us not sleeping. I can tell because Ollie’s breaths are uneven, and even that somehow turns me on.
God, I want to reach down and take my aching dick into my hand. Or maybe push Ollie’s head down there. That’d work too.
“So, this is what it’s like to die from blue balls,” Ollie grumbles. “I’m gonna start calling you Blue, because it’s always your fault.”
I burst into laughter so loud I’m sure his parents can hear me. Ollie’s hand clamps over my mouth.
“I really don’t want the folks to think I’m getting laid in here.”
“If someone laughs that hard during sex, you’re doing it wrong,” I say against his hand before he removes it. “This was such a bad idea.”
“Horrible idea,” h
e agrees. “But I have a proposition for you.”
I cock an eyebrow in the dark and then realize he probably can’t make that out. “Another one?”
“We agreed we can’t hook up, right?”
“Right.”
“But jerking off is totally a solo act, right?”
“Right.”
“So, if we jerk off together without touching one another ...”
Terrible. Horrible. Stupid, stupid, stupid idea, but that’s not gonna stop me. No way. “I love technicalities.”
In one swift move, I reach under the blanket and pull my underwear off. Ollie does the same, and then he reaches over to turn the bedside light on and throws lube and tissues on the bed.
“I’d say something about you preparing for this, but you didn’t know I was coming over.”
“I haven’t had sex in over a year. Where else do you think I’d keep supplies for getting myself off?”
“I’d feel sorry for you if it wasn’t about the same amount of time for me.”
“Why the fuck have you not had sex for a year?”
“Really want to get into that right now?” I ask, holding up the lube.
“We’re so coming back to this later.”
I’ll have to come up with another way to distract him from asking that again, because no way in hell am I admitting that since meeting him no one else has even interested me. And before that, I was already in a slump.
As I squirt lube into my hand, I feel his stare on me, and I become a little self-conscious. “If we’re supposed to pretend like the other one of us isn’t here, you’re gonna have to stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, innocently.
“Like you want to tear me apart.”
“I’d much prefer you tear me apart.”
I snort. Ollie’s a bottom. Still can’t get over it. It’s not like I haven’t topped before, but when I have, I’ve been too self-conscious about making it good for them, and I can never last long. Bottoming, I can let myself go.
Ollie kicks off the blankets, and miles of mouthwatering muscles lay two feet from me, and I can’t tear my eyes away. If I thought he felt big while we rubbed against each other last week, it’s nothing to seeing how awesomely huge and pretty his dick is. I don’t even know if it’s possible to have a pretty dick, but Ollie does. Thick, veiny, and uncut.
“If we’re supposed to pretend like the other one of us isn’t here, you’re gonna have to stop looking at my cock,” he mimics but in a much higher voice. I want to dispute that’s not at all how I sound, but that doesn’t come out of my mouth.
“I can’t help it,” I blurt instead.
“Shame we can’t hook up then.”
We can’t. We really can’t.
“I mean, really, if we’re looking at each other, it’s the equivalent of watching porn,” I say, trying to rationalize my blatant worshiping of his cock.
“Yay, more technicalities,” Ollie says, as I watch him lazily stroke his long, hard, gorgeous length.
“So long as I don’t have to break out the clown makeup for you, it’ll be fine.”
He laughs, but it doesn’t last long as he watches me grip the base of my shaft and squeeze a little too hard. It’s not going to take long to send me over the edge, and this is supposed to be about getting off, but I want to make it last.
Ollie breathes heavy beside me, his teeth gritted, and if I had to guess, he’s trying to hold back from moaning too loudly. His strokes slowly increase in pace, and a pearly drop of precum drips down the side.
I want to lick it. God, I want to lick him. All over.
I shudder and start a punishing pace on my cock. Tightening my ass muscles, I thrust up into my hand over and over again, never once taking my eyes off Ollie.
“I wanna touch you so bad,” Ollie whispers. “I won’t, but fuck, I want to.” Ollie lifts his legs and moves his lube-slicked hand down to his balls and farther down while the other one takes over pumping his cock.
“Wait, are you—” I make the mistake of giving him eye contact.
His eyelids are hooded, his mouth parted slightly. The look of lust is almost enough to have me coming.
“Am I what?” he taunts. “Playing with my ass? Is that what you wanted to ask?”
I nod.
“Flip around and see for yourself.”
I hesitate.
“Just like watching porn, remember?” he reminds me.
As soon as I maneuver myself on the bed and get full sight of Ollie two fingers deep inside his own ass, I can’t hold back anymore.
The grunt that escapes me as I shoot all over myself has me biting my knuckles on my free hand to prevent it from turning into a shout.
Ollie’s large fingers disappear all the way inside him and stay lodged in there, no doubt pressing against his prostate. He strokes his cock faster until ropes of cum land on his impressive abs. Some reaches his tats, and I had no idea how hot cum-covered tattoos could be. We both sink against the mattress.
“Best live porn ever,” Ollie says.
“Fuck yes.”
Chapter Thirteen
OLLIE
Lennon might be going back to Chicago. Yet another sucky thing about losing last night, although, that’s not the worst of it. The worst is that I thought I was getting somewhere. This year wasn’t my first playoffs, but it’s the first year I imagined winning it and holding that cup over my head and believed it was a possibility. Recently the fantasy also included me coming out and telling the world that being gay doesn’t affect playing hockey. Idealistic, maybe, and complete bullshit that I need to win the Stanley Cup before feeling worthy, but that’s how it is.
Lennon’s relaxed face sleeping next to me gives me the kind of optimism I want to hold onto—something I never really had with Ash.
I don’t know if I can endure another season just hoping to make it to the Cup game, and the thought of making it all that way and losing again … that’d make it two years. Two years where I’d have to continue to live like this. Three if we don’t make it the next year. Four after that.
It’s as if I can hear Lennon’s voice in my head: Hey, look at that, the hockey player can do math.
My point is, it’s a lot to put the fate of your life in the hands of a hockey game outcome.
Not that I can really complain about my life. I’m on a multimillion-dollar contract that has two years left. I have future security with the money I’ve already made. Yet, for the first time ever, I want what Ma and Dad have been spouting for years.
Hockey has always been enough for me until now.
I want to take to the ice as an openly gay player. Win some games, go home exhausted, tired, sometimes bruised, and with any hope, I’d be met by a gorgeous guy—who, at the moment admittedly looks a hell of a lot like Lennon in my head—welcoming me home with a kiss … and okay, maybe a blowjob, but I don’t think I should put that on my official list of goals or anything.
I’ve put my life on hold for six years playing hockey, lost someone I truly loved and cared about, but it’s the guy next to me who gives me the courage to want to do this. And not by promising me a future or telling me I have to, but by simply understanding where I’m coming from and accepting that I need to do this in my own time. With my parents, with Ash, it has always felt like they can’t give me support until I’m out. Like I’m living my life the wrong way. Lennon … he may want to protect himself from me hurting him, but he gives me his support anyway. He’s technically in sports too, so he understands in a way the others don’t.
I never knew empathy could turn me on, but there you go.
The smell of bacon comes from my kitchen, and I know Ma’s been up since mom o’clock cooking me a consolation breakfast for losing our chance at the Cup last night.
She used to do the same thing when I was in the juniors and I’d lose the championship.
If my nose is accurate, there’s only a few minutes until the food will be ready, and I’ll
have to pull myself away from Lennon. We’re not even touching, but his presence is warmer than the blanket we share, and being next to him feels like waking up on a lazy winter day, cozied under heat with no reason to get out of bed all day.
I don’t want that feeling to go away, but I know it will as soon as we get up.
There’s a knock on the door and a high-pitched singing voice. “Can’t sleep the day away.”
I groan. “I’m twelve years old again.”
Lennon chuckles but doesn’t open his eyes.
“We’re depressed in here,” I call out to Ma. “We lost.”
“You lost,” Lennon mumbles. “My team’s still in it.”
I gasp. “Who’s your team?”
“Chicago. Duh.”
“Where’s the loyalty? You were born in New York.”
Lennon smiles through a yawn as he rolls onto his side to face me. “I predict it now. Chicago versus Boston for the Cup.”
“No way. Chicago has to beat Vegas, and they’ve dominated all season.”
“How much do you want to wager?”
“Totally wanna say blowjob, but I’m guessing that’s not allowed.”
Lennon climbs out of bed, finding his clothes on the floor. “I was thinking like a hundred bucks.”
“Whoa, don’t break the bank there.”
He dresses and looks for the rest of his things, not giving me eye contact as he says, “Like you said that night of the benefit, I’m a starving artist and can’t afford to feed myself. A hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.”
“What’s a hundred bucks?” Ma’s voice comes from the now open doorway.
“Invasion of privacy, Ma. You can’t come barging in here—”
She throws up her hands. “I gave you plenty of warning, and besides, I heard you talking in here. What’s a hundred bucks? And did I hear something about starving? Food’s on the table.”
“My boyfriend thinks it’s gonna be Chicago and Boston in the finals.”
“No way,” Ma says. “Vegas and New Jersey.”
“Vegas and Boston,” I say.
“San Jose and Detroit!” Ollie’s dad calls out.