But Carmine was trying to sleep too. He wouldn’t welcome the intrusion, the disturbance to his own routine.
Saint rolled over and pressed his face into the pillows.
He must have dozed off at some point, because his alarm woke him with a startling jerk. He was halfway upright before awareness came in and he sagged, rubbing his face.
“Game day,” he said out loud, and was careful to step forward with his left foot first when he stood.
He couldn’t find the tie he’d planned on wearing. After ten minutes of increasingly frantic searching, he was interrupted by a quiet knock on the door.
“Saint? We need to leave soon.”
“Just a minute,” Saint called. Standing in the wreckage of his closet, he balled his fists. It’s just a piece of fabric, he thought. Wearing it won’t win you the game. He was standing on a precipice, teetering on the edge. The slightest push would send him into freefall, and then Carmine would see—he would—
Saint took a deep breath, grabbed a random tie, and slung it around his neck as he headed for the door.
Carmine was waiting on the other side, and his eyes creased with a smile when Saint stepped out. “Hey,” he said softly.
Don’t. Don’t be nice to me. Saint turned away, ostensibly to shut the door but mostly to avoid his eyes.
“You okay?” Carmine said. “David was being an ass this morning.”
“Fine,” Saint said tersely. “Let’s go.”
Carmine’s car wouldn’t start. Saint sat in the front seat as Carmine looked under the hood, swearing and cajoling in a steady stream, and struggled to stay calm.
It’s just Murphy’s law. He checked the time—they were going to be late. He called for a car and stepped out.
“I ordered a ride,” he said.
“No, it’s fine, I just have to—” Carmine’s hand slipped and he swore.
“If you hurt yourself before the game, I’ll kill you myself and Coach won’t have to,” Saint snapped. “Go wash your hands, the car will be here in five minutes.”
Carmine straightened, eyes thoughtful as he gazed at Saint, but he said nothing. Instead he jogged back into the house. Saint tipped his head back, breathing through his nose, and touched his thumbs to his knuckles over and over.
They didn’t talk on the way to the rink. On one hand, Saint was grateful for that, too aware of the driver’s eyes on them in the mirror. On the other, it left him alone with his thoughts, a swirling maelstrom of anxiety and fear that was making him nauseous. Everything was going wrong. He couldn’t control anything. He was helpless, useless, neurotic and pathetic. Carmine was going to realize exactly what he was like and walk away immediately. Or, maybe worse, he’d try to pretend it didn’t bother him, but Saint would know. He’d see it in the way Carmine stopped touching him, drew away subtly until Saint was alone again, trapped in his self-destructive ways until he ate himself alive, an ouroboros of guilt and shame.
The car stopped and Carmine stepped out. Saint gathered himself and followed, summoning a smile for the driver. Their walk inside was silent. Saint smiled automatically at the photographers but didn’t stop to talk to anyone.
In the locker room, he stopped dead at his stall. His sticks had been moved.
“Pat?” he said, keeping his voice even with an effort.
“Yeah, Saint,” Pat said, materializing beside him.
“Has someone been messing with my stuff?”
Pat frowned. “No? I know better than to let anyone touch your things.”
Kasha, beside Saint’s stall, hunched his shoulders. “Saint, I—”
“What happened?”
“Jase—we were fight, yes? Play fight. Wrestle. I lose balance. Trip and fall, into—” Kasha gestured at Saint’s stall and his out of order sticks. “I’m sorry, Saint. I’m try to put back right but I’m not know for sure, think I make it worse.” He looked like a puppy waiting to be kicked, and Saint took a deep breath, picking up the stick tape that had been missing that morning, now sitting where it was supposed to be. Pat’s doing, no doubt.
“It’s fine,” he said tightly.
“No, I mess up,” Kasha protested. “I need to make right—”
“I said it’s fine, shut up,” Saint snapped, and Kasha recoiled. Guilt flooded Saint and he gulped air through his mouth. “I just have to—” His fingers cramped around the roll of tape and he spun and hurled it across the room, narrowly missing David, who yelped and swore.
“Kash, I need to talk to you a minute,” Carmine said, and caught his elbow, gently pulling him away.
Saint reordered his sticks, making sure they were all neat and straight and none were cracked, and then sat down on his locker. Across the room, Carmine was talking to Kasha, who kept glancing over his shoulder at Saint until Carmine physically turned him so he couldn’t.
Good, Saint thought viciously. Don’t look at the neurotic basketcase who can’t keep it together when things go wrong.
Felix sat beside him, wearing his shorts and leg pads but just his UnderArmour shirt on top. He said nothing, letting his presence silently brace Saint for a few minutes, and then he bumped him with his shoulder and got up to finish dressing.
More guilt and nausea swamped Saint. He didn’t deserve friends like Felix, or rookies like Kasha, who’d never meant to mess up his routine. Kasha looked up to him and Saint repaid that with snapping at him, scaring him.
He got dressed carefully, trying to ignore the way his hands were shaking. He couldn’t get his elbow pads into place and he bit down sharply on the shriek of frustration building in his chest as he shook his arm hard, trying to knock the pad into position.
Gentle hands caught his elbow. “Be still,” Carmine said, and adjusted the pad until it was cupping Saint’s joint. “How’s that?”
Saint rotated his arm experimentally and nodded, not trusting his voice.
Carmine held out his hand for Saint’s other arm and Saint gave it to him wordlessly. When that one was settled too, Carmine smiled at him and turned to pick up his jersey. He shrugged into it, brushing his hair back carelessly and dropping his helmet on. Saint turned away too, blinking hard.
Across the room, David was watching him when Saint looked up, expression thoughtful. Saint looked away again and reached for his own jersey.
The game started smoothly enough. Somehow Saint won the faceoff, but Kasha missed the pass and they had to scramble to get possession again. Still, after that their training kicked in and their passes began connecting again.
Kasha was shaken, though. Saint could tell, both in the hesitant way he handled the puck, measured in microseconds, and the way he sat on the bench with his head down and shoulders hunched between shifts.
His fault, Saint knew. He’d fucked up. How did he fix it? He couldn’t. He couldn’t captain this team, couldn’t lead his way out of a wet paper bag. He gripped his stick and stared at the players on the ice unseeingly.
Carmine leaned around him to talk to Kasha, and Saint leaned back to give them as much privacy as possible. Carmine steadied himself with a hand on Saint’s thigh and Saint swallowed hard, forcing himself not to listen in.
He had to tell Carmine they couldn’t have sex again, that they had to go back to the way they were before. It was for the best—for the team, and for Saint’s heart, already so bruised and fragile. Carmine would get tired of the neuroses, the hangups, the constant rituals designed to keep his life on an even keel. Saint was doing him a favor by cutting him loose from all that.
He would tell him that evening, after the game. Carmine would understand. He had to.
They lost by a humiliating margin, and Saint stood at the half-door to the locker room entrance, watching numbly as each player stepped past him and went down the hall. Somehow, somehow, he got through the media scrum after, forcing down all the feelings threatening to scour him clean from the inside out and focusing on the questions, giving his usual bland non-answers until he was finally free to escape.
Most of the room was gone when he got back from his shower, including Carmine and Kasha. Saint absorbed the pain of that without moving. It was what he deserved, after all.
“Caz took Kasha home,” Felix offered. His black hair was wild from his shower, curling damply behind his ears and at his temples, and there was sympathy in his dark eyes.
Because of me. Saint nodded, swallowing more misery. He got dressed as quickly as he could, avoiding eye contact with the room in general, and fled into the night.
23
His first instinct was to go straight to his room and hide, but Carmine deserved better than that. He deserved Saint telling him to his face that he needed to move on, that they couldn’t be together.
So he went to the living room and sat on the couch, curled up in the corner where he could see the door, and waited.
Carmine came in on quiet feet, shutting the door with a soft click and startling Saint from the light doze he’d slipped into. He padded to the kitchen and Saint unfolded himself and followed. Carmine was digging in the refrigerator, the light over the stove the only illumination in the room.
“How is he?” Saint asked.
Carmine jolted, dropping the sliced turkey, and spun. “Jesus fuck, you scared me. Why aren’t you in bed?”
“How is he?” Saint repeated.
Carmine stooped to pick up the turkey. “He’s… alright.”
“Is he really?” Saint asked, studying his face in the dim room. “Or are you just saying that to make me feel better?”
Carmine set the turkey on the counter and sighed. “His girlfriend broke up with him, Saint. Okay? And then the game, and—” He gestured wordlessly. “He’s not great.”
“Nadia broke up with him? Fuck, I have to talk to him.” Saint turned but Carmine put out a hand.
“Don’t.”
“I’m the captain,” Saint snarled. “I did this, I have to make it right.”
“How are you going to make it right?” Carmine tilted his head. “You didn’t make Nadia dump him. You can’t make them get back together.”
“I can a-apologize,” Saint said, hating the thickness in his throat. “I can—this is my fault.”
“No it’s not.” Carmine rounded the counter and closed the distance between them.
Saint backed up fast until his shoulders hit the doorframe, and Carmine stopped dead. Hurt flickered across his face, gone so fast Saint wondered if he’d imagined it, but when he spoke, his voice was steady.
“This isn’t something you can fix.”
Saint hunched his shoulders. “I have to. I have to try.”
Carmine’s expression softened. “It was a bad day. A bad game. And it wasn’t your fault.”
Saint shook his head. “Everything went wrong. Everything. Why can’t you see?”
“See what? I know things went wrong. Murphy’s Law—it happens, okay? Next game will be better. Kasha won’t touch your sticks. Everything will be where it should be, work how it’s supposed to.”
“No.” Saint swallowed around the rock in his throat. “You saw me, Carmine. You saw how I acted. We can’t be together. We can’t.”
Carmine went so still he didn’t seem to be breathing. “Why not?” he asked, lips barely moving.
“Because.” Saint clutched his hands to stop their trembling. “Because I’m—” He swallowed again. “I’m too fucked up. I don’t know how to… how to have a relationship and be a normal person and keep the team together and function, I can’t do it. When my routine gets fucked with….” He shook his head. “You saw what happened. Sometimes it’s worse than that. Sometimes I break sticks. Scream at people. There’s no manual for this, Carmine, I don’t know how to fix it when I lose my temper and shout at you. You deserve someone stable. Someone who knows how to be a good boyfriend.”
Carmine’s mouth worked. “Saint, this—the bad day, you melting down—it didn’t happen because we had sex. You know that, right?”
Saint blinked at him. “What?”
“Because we had sex and then you had a bad day,” Carmine continued. “Did you—do you think this shit day was because we did… what we did?”
“That was yesterday,” Saint said, speaking slowly and enunciating every word. “Why would it have anything to do with today?”
Carmine huffed a breath that sounded almost like a laugh. “God, I can’t figure you out.”
“Which is why you need to promise me that we won’t do that again.”
“No.”
Saint stared. Carmine seemed bigger somehow, looming over him in the dark room, his jaw clenched. “What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no, you idiot.” Carmine glared at him. “No, I won’t stop touching you, or kissing you, or figuring out how to be with you. Not if you’re just trying to break up with me because of some misguided self-sacrificing idiocy.”
Saint floundered, the rug pulled out from under him. “But—you saw—” You saw me having a tantrum. You saw how neurotic and awful I am.
“I saw,” Carmine agreed, voice softening. “I saw a captain with a lot on his mind, careful not to hurt anyone even when he was on the edge of losing it.”
“Kasha—”
“You told Kasha to shut up,” Carmine interrupted. “His coach in Russia used to beat his thighs with a stick when he fucked up, did you know that? Said it was good for his muscles and his character. Trust me, Kash was way more worried about you than over what you said.”
“I was angry.”
“Newsflash, Saint Hockey—people get angry. People say things they don’t mean. The ones who matter—your team, your people—we get it.”
Tears stung Saint’s eyes and he clenched his fists. “I don’t deserve you,” he whispered. “I don’t deserve someone as good as you.”
“Oh, bullshit,” Carmine snapped. “Don’t start with the martyr complex, it’s been a long, shitty day and I am not in the mood.” He took a step forward and Saint held his ground this time. Carmine brought his hand up, tracing the line of Saint’s jaw with one gentle finger. “I know what I’m getting into,” he said, voice low and soft. “You think I don’t? You think I can’t handle every part of you, good and bad?”
Words had deserted Saint. He leaned into Carmine’s touch, the first tear sliding down his cheek, and Carmine thumbed it away.
“You know what I’m hearing?”
Saint shook his head.
“I’m hearing a lot of the reasons why you think it won’t work, but I haven’t once heard you say it’s because you don’t want me.”
Saint squeezed his eyes shut.
“Do you want me?” Carmine asked. “Tell me, Saint.”
Saint opened his mouth, but his voice was still paralyzed.
“The truth,” Carmine said roughly. “I need to hear it.”
“I—” Saint swallowed. Why was it so hard? Carmine ran his hands down Saint’s arms, waiting. “I w-want you,” he managed, and the joy in Carmine’s eyes hurt like a knife in Saint’s stomach. “I don’t know how, Carmine—”
Carmine put a finger over his mouth. “We’ll figure it out, baby.” He replaced the hand with his lips and Saint gasped into the kiss, searing and desperate and perfect.
When they reeled apart, both of them panting for air, Saint reached for him, but stopped him with a hand on his chest when Carmine bent for another kiss.
“Bed.”
“Excellent idea,” Carmine said, but when he tried to pull him down the hall toward his suite, Saint dug in his heels.
“My room,” he said.
Carmine wheeled to look at him, clearly startled. “Are—are you sure?”
Saint lifted his chin and tugged on his hand.
Carmine’s grip was solid, hand warm in Saint’s as he opened the door, but he didn’t step over the threshold until Saint stepped aside, and when he did move, it was slowly, eyes on Saint and not on his surroundings.
Affection swelled inside Saint’s chest. “I think I’m falling for you,” he blurted before he cou
ld think better of it.
Carmine laughed out loud. “Oh, sweetheart.”
“What?” Saint demanded, faintly nettled.
Carmine stepped in close and cupped his face in both hands. “I fell for you somewhere around the time you were laying out the house rules.”
“You did not.”
“I didn’t realize it at the time,” Carmine admitted, a mischievous smile tugging at his mouth. “But you were so nervous and rambling on and on and something inside me just went ‘… oh’. And everything since has just made that feeling even stronger.” He brushed their lips together. “Where’s your bed?”
Saint pointed dumbly. “I didn’t make it after my nap,” he said guiltily, and Carmine laughed again.
“Good. I won’t feel bad about messing it up more.” He pushed Saint onto the mattress and followed him down, straddling his hips. He bent forward, elbows on either side of Saint’s head. “Hey,” he whispered.
Saint reached up, twining his arms around Carmine’s neck and pulling him into a kiss. Carmine kissed so sweetly, soft and tender but with a hint of urgency that echoed in Saint’s blood and thrummed through his chest.
“What do you want?” Carmine asked after a few minutes.
“Anything,” Saint said recklessly. “You. Please, Caz.”
“You’ve got me,” Carmine murmured. “What do you want from me?”
Saint swallowed. “I want—will you fuck me?”
Carmine’s pupils dilated and he groaned, ducking his face to Saint’s throat. “God. Are you sure?”
Saint ground up against him, letting him feel his erection. “What do you think?”
Roughing Page 19