Tim stared at him, eyes wide, his mouth hanging open. It wasn’t his best look.
Chris’s heart was pounding so hard, he could feel it in his face. His fingers. He watched Tim warily, waiting for some reaction other than shock. He couldn’t decide if he should be relieved or terrified when Tim slowly sat down on the bed beside him. The silence stretched until Chris couldn’t stand it anymore.
“Look, I get that I’m not what you’re looking for. I’m sorry if this makes things weird. Actually, I’ll never forgive myself if this makes things weird. At least Alexei will be proud of me, I guess,” he said nonsensically, with a small, sad smile. “He and Mike are together, by the way. Apparently, they fuck like bunnies. So, yeah, good for them.”
“Okay.” And that might be the meekest word Chris had ever heard Tim speak, but at least he’d finally said something.
“Right. So, I had no idea. But it’s cool they decided to confide in us,” Chris said lamely, not sure how else to fill the silence.
“No,” Tim mumbled.
Chris wasn’t even sure what part Tim was responding to. He finally risked a glance up. “It’s not cool?”
Now Tim looked offended. “Of course it is!”
“But you just—”
“Shut up. I’m thinking.”
“Don’t hurt yourself,” Chris snapped back automatically.
Tim smiled. A huge grin that took over his entire face. Chris’s speeding pulse skipped a beat.
“You really mean it,” Tim said, like he’d just started to believe it instead of Chris maybe having decided to have a big awkward moment of super gayness for shits and giggles.
“Of course I mean it, you fucking mmmph—”
Tim’s lips crashed onto his, stealing his words and his breath and knocking him back against the pillows. Chris’s hands flailed in the air, useless, as he tried to process that fact that Tim was kissing him.
How could this be happening? This wasn’t supposed to happen. Chris was never going to tell Tim how he felt and Tim was never, ever supposed to touch his lips to Chris’s. Or thread a hand into Chris’s hair and anchor him so Tim could nip at his lower lip. Tim shouldn’t hum like this, a pleased murmur pressed into Chris’s lips.
But it was good. It was so so fucking good.
Chris dug his fingers into Tim’s broad, muscled shoulders and pulled him closer, holding on for dear life. The moment Tim’s tongue touched his lips, he opened to it, meeting it with his own and drowning in Tim’s kiss.
Chris had heard of the whole fireworks-going-off thing, and maybe he’d thought angels would sing if he ever kissed Tim, but he’d never once thought the sound that would accompany this moment would be a goal horn.
And yet, it was fitting.
He whimpered when Tim tore his mouth away and immediately reached for his… phone?
“Shit,” Tim whispered viciously.
The fog cleared from Chris’s brain enough for him to recall that Tim’s alarm on his phone was, in fact, a goal horn. Which maybe made a little more sense than the whole choir-of-angels thing.
“How long do you have?” Chris asked, trying to act normal when he kind of felt like hiding under the covers and also maybe tackling Tim to the nearest flat surface.
“Five minutes.” Tim jumped to his feet, grabbed his clothes, and ran for the door.
“You set your alarm to wake you up five minutes before you have to leave for practice?” Chris shouted out the door at Tim’s back.
He couldn’t quite make out Tim’s response, but he got the gist of it.
“Fuck you, too!” he replied.
Tim reappeared in the doorway, already dressed and hopping around on one foot to put on his other shoe. “We’ll talk about that when I get home.”
And then he was gone.
“HEY, ROBINEAU! YOU planning on joining us anytime soon?”
Tim’s head snapped up, his cheeks burning when he realized the entire team had stopped mid-drill to stare at him while he was drifting around in the corner, lost in thought.
“Sorry, Coach!” he called, skating back to the line and trying to keep his mind on what he was supposed to be doing, and not letting it drift back to Chris lying in his nice, warm bed at home. Never in his life had he been less engaged in what was going on around him while on the ice. Not even when Chris had been in the hospital. Then he’d just been numb, his brain focused entirely on hockey.
Today his brain was definitely not numb. More like on fire. As were a few other body parts, though his protective gear was doing a pretty good job of keeping that under control.
“Hey, you okay, man?” Mike asked when he skated up to get in line.
“Yeah, sure,” Tim said. “Just distracted.”
Distracted seemed like a tame word compared to whatever the hell he was. His mind was blown. I kissed Chris. A dude. His best friend. He couldn’t even remember deciding to do it. It had just struck him as a good idea and he’d gone for it. An experiment gone wildly right.
So yes, he was distracted.
He looked back at Mike to see him making eye contact with Alexei. They seemed to be having an entire conversation with their eyebrows alone.
“Hey,” he said quietly, waiting until Mike’s attention was back on him. “I’m happy for you.”
“What?” Mike appeared mildly alarmed.
“Chris told me. Alexei told him, apparently.”
“He did?” Mike looked at Alexei as a slow smile grew on his face. “That’s…cool. Thanks.”
“Look, can I ask you something?” Tim asked, wondering how he hadn’t guessed about Mike and Alexei when it was readily apparent they couldn’t keep their eyes off each other, and that wasn’t anything new. Alexei was coming toward them, a big, happy smile on his face.
“Sure,” Mike said, though his eyes were still glued to Alexei.
Tim waited until Alexei joined them before dropping his voice and asking, “Did you know Chris had a thing for me?”
Tim cringed when Mike and Alexei turned to him with the exact same expression on their faces. He knew this look too well. It was the same one he always got when people thought he was being exceptionally dumb.
Coach saved him from having to say anything when he shouted, “Okay, ladies. Three-on-three drills next! Save the gossip for the locker room—preferably when I’m not anywhere nearby.”
Mike smiled at Tim. “Do you really need us to answer your question?”
“Guess not,” Tim mumbled. “I’ve been an idiot, haven’t I?”
“Just a little clueless,” Mike offered gently.
“What matters now,” Alexei said, “is what you’re going to do about it.”
Which was funny, since that should have been the big issue, but it wasn’t. Sometime between leaving the apartment and arriving at the arena, Tim had realized a few things. One, he was an idiot. Two, kissing Chris had been super hot. And three, he wanted to do it again. A lot.
It was scary as hell, but Tim would be damned if he was going to let that stop him. Nobody was, or had ever been, as important to him as Chris. That meant something.
And Tim was determined to figure out what.
That was what he was going to do about it.
Chapter Four
TWO HOURS LATER, Tim threw the door to their apartment open with a flourish. “Honey, I’m home!”
It was an old joke, but as he toed off his shoes in the front hall, it occurred to him that it suddenly had a different meaning. Maybe. Did it?
This shit was confusing.
Also, why the fuck hadn’t Chris answered?
Tim double-timed it to Chris’s room, his heart stopping when he found the bed empty. “Chris?”
“In here.”
Tim clapped a hand on his chest and turned toward the bathroom. Chris hadn’t left. Of fucking course he hadn’t left. He could barely move. And he wouldn’t do that. Even if he was freaking out about what had happened this morning.
Tim pressed his other hand to the b
athroom door. “You okay in there?”
“Kind of?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“Just get the fuck in here. You know you want to come save my sorry ass again.”
So, Chris was definitely in a snit about something. Tim opened the door slowly, both because he didn’t want to knock Chris over and because he was worried about projectiles aimed at his head.
He found Chris sitting on the toilet lid, a towel spread out beneath him, another over his lap. Other than that, he was completely naked. The shower was on and billowing steam into the sweltering room.
“Uh? What the fuck are you doing?” Tim asked curiously.
Chris let out a huge sigh and tossed a washcloth back into the sink. “I was trying to get clean. I feel disgusting.”
“Okay,” Tim said with a smile, closing the door behind him to keep the heat in. “And were you planning on getting in the shower and melting your cast off?”
“Shut up. I was cold.”
Tim could see the goosebumps across Chris’s shoulders, just from having the door open for a minute. He traced his fingers over them and Chris shuddered. Tim was pretty sure that wasn’t from being cold, and the thought sent a surge of heat through him.
“How about I help you again?” Tim asked, tugging off his own shirt, which was already plastered to his skin.
“Uh, what?” Chris asked, staring at his chest.
Tim didn’t flex. He didn’t. But it was close.
Instead, he pushed his sweats to the floor and kicked them away, leaving only his boxer briefs, his dick pushing forward as Chris ran his eyes down Tim’s body.
“Like what you see?” he asked, curious.
“Yes,” Chris croaked.
“But you see it every day. Isn’t it sort of…I don’t know, the usual?”
Chris stared pointedly at the growing bulge in Tim’s briefs. “This is different.”
That was true. Tim smiled and knelt between Chris’s knees, careful not to bump the cast as he put his hands high on Chris’s thighs and rubbed. “How about I help you with your bath?”
“Uh, what?”
“Let’s get you clean,” Tim said, as innocently as he could manage as he reached for the washcloth and turned on the sink. “I promise to do a more thorough job this time.”
“But. You can’t—I already—” Chris’s voice choked off when Tim ran the cloth down Chris’s chest, and around his ribs. “Okay.”
“Good,” Tim murmured, watching his hand run over Chris’s skin, the washcloth leaving a shiny trail as he rubbed it over Chris’s pecs and lower. Chris’s stomach jerked against Tim’s hand, and he glanced up to see Chris watching him with a wide, uncertain gaze.
With his hand hovering just an inch over the towel in Chris’s lap, Tim changed direction and curled his arm around Chris’s waist, focusing on trailing long swipes down Chris’s back for a while. He had to lean in to reach, his nose brushing the shell of Chris’s ear as he made sure he hit every spot. He ended by following the trench of Chris’s spine all the way from the nape of his neck to the swell of his ass.
Chris’s breath stuttered in Tim’s ear when Tim tucked the washcloth and his fingers into the very top of the crease of his ass and wriggled.
“Jesus Christ,” Chris muttered weakly.
Tim sat back. “Feel cleaner now?”
“Um, what? Yes?”
“Great. We’re almost done.” Tim tried not to grin at the befuddled look on Chris’s face.
“Almost?”
“Don’t want to miss any spots,” Tim promised before hooking his fingers in the edge of the towel still modestly draped over Chris’s lap and tugging.
Chris’s hands jerked, like he might make a grab for it, but he clenched them into fists at the last moment and pressed them to the sides of his thighs as Tim dragged the towel off and dropped it onto the floor.
Chris’s bravery was almost as sexy as the sight of him completely naked. Tim stared at Chris’s cock, fully erect and pressed to his belly now that the towel wasn’t holding it down.
This was definitely different. And not just because Chris was unusually modest for a guy who spent so much time in locker rooms. Tim had seen literally hundreds of naked men in his life, and not one of them before now had made his pulse speed up, his skin prickle with awareness and the need to touch.
Tim took his time rewetting the washcloth, trying to take it all in and settle himself down, then slid back until he was between Chris’s feet. Chris giggled when Tim began to clean the toes poking out from his cast.
“What are you doing?”
“Dude, I’m the one who’s constantly picking up your smelly-ass socks. I know how bad your feet get.”
“Oh,” Chris murmured as Tim ran the tip of his finger along the tender undersides of each toe. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s cool. I get that I like things neater than you.”
“I like them neat, too. I just…”
Either Chris didn’t have an explanation or he’d lost his train of thought when Tim rubbed the bottom of his good foot with the warm washcloth. Did Chris have a thing about his feet?
Curious, Tim lifted the freshly washed foot and sucked the big toe into his mouth.
“Oh, fuck.” Chris groaned, his cock jerking against his belly.
Yep. Definitely had a thing about his feet.
Chris’s hand jerked toward his dick, but Tim caught his wrist in his free hand. He watched, mesmerized, as a pearl of precome formed on the tip of Chris’s cock and then ran down one side.
He pulled Chris’s toe from his lips with a pop. “Do you have a foot fetish?”
“As of fifteen seconds ago, apparently,” Chris admitted ruefully.
Tim smiled and focused on washing Chris’s good leg, paying extra attention to the skin behind his knee and the smooth, remarkably hairless expanse of his inner thigh. Tim had about a hundred times more hair on his body than Chris, which he already knew from years in the locker room together. Hell, Chris still couldn’t grow a playoff beard that wasn’t worth hours of mocking, which was great. But Tim was still surprised that this skin was so smooth. So soft.
Chris let out a strangled groan when Tim ran the backs of his fingers along it.
Tim was building a list of things he wanted to do. Wanted to try and explore and investigate. Which was interesting, he thought as he rinsed the washcloth one more time, since, until this morning, he’d never really given the idea of being with another guy a lot of thought. He’d never found the thought particularly distressing or anything. He’d just…been with women.
He was starting to appreciate why he got so many of those “you are such an idiot” looks.
Once he’d wrung out most of the water, he draped the cloth over the edge of the sink and put his hands back where they’d started—high on the tops of Chris’s thighs. He dug his thumbs into the silky skin and pushed.
“Spread ’em,” he said, waggling his eyebrows.
Chris groaned. “That is not sexy,” he complained, even as he did as he was told and opened his legs farther.
Tim ran his hands higher, gently brushing his thumbs against Chris’s sac. “How’s this, then?” Tim asked, his voice dropping to a deeper register like it always did when he was really turned on.
Women seemed to like that. And Chris didn’t seem unaffected either, though he was trying hard not to show it. “How’s what? You haven’t—”
Tim cupped Chris’s balls in one hand, stroking his fingers along the thin skin. His other hand pulled Chris’s cock from his stomach to curl his fingers around it. It was longer than his own. A little thinner and paler. And hot. Hotter than Tim had expected—and since he had a dick, he hadn’t really thought there’d be any surprises.
“Better?” he asked, sliding his hand up the length of the shaft and listening to Chris suck in a deep breath.
“Fuck. Yes. Yes. But you don’t have to. I know you haven’t—”
“Shut up.”
“Okay,” Chris said, his entire torso jerking with his vehement nod. He looked wrecked. His hair stood on end from his own fingers, eyes bright and cheeks pink. It was a good look on him. A really good look.
Tim rose onto his knees and released Chris’s balls to thread a hand into his hair instead. “Come here.”
Chris tipped forward and met his lips, groaning as Tim’s tongue slid into his mouth and twisted with his. Tim kept stroking the length of Chris’s shaft, trying different things. Trying what he liked, then trying other stuff to see what Chris liked better, cataloging it all. Their lips parted only so Chris could let out desperate little gasps with each drag of Tim’s hand.
The angle was weird, for both the kiss and the way he was holding Chris’s cock, but only because it was the opposite from how he’d hold his own. So it was new, but also kind of great, since this way Tim could run the pad of his thumb up the vein on the underside of Chris’s shaft until he reached the frenulum, where he could then pause to swipe back and forth.
Chris squirmed against him, his good leg curling around and over Tim’s hip, his calf digging into one of Tim’s butt cheeks as he tried to drag Tim closer. Chris clutched at Tim’s shoulder and the edge of the sink for dear life.
Their lips separated on another gasp from Chris. “Fuck, how are you so good at this?”
Tim hummed and kissed him again, pleased by the compliment. This was fresh territory and he was happy for the feedback. More than that, though, he loved making Chris feel good. Nothing got Tim hotter than getting someone else hot. And Chris…this was better than it had ever been before.
This man, who he’d loved as a friend for years, was panting for him. Was curling around him, and digging his fingers into Tim’s shoulders, and groaning, because Tim was doing these things to him.
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