by RJ Scott
“Hell…oh hell.” He held me tightly, one hand on my ass, keeping me from moving away until he was done. Each pull of his lips over my cock got him another shudder. Finally he let me break free and fall by him on the bed. An aluminum pan flipped up and coated my back with some cold, wet noodle nasty.
“Ah, man,” I coughed, curling into a small ball as the last little tremors rolled through me.
“My spaghetti,” Max moaned. He rolled me onto my stomach and ate his dinner from my lower back as I snickered and giggled.
“You’re the tastiest plate ever invented,” he purred as he covered me with his bulk, his chest pressing me into the saucy bedding.
I lifted a hand in defeat and was flipped onto my back, pan collapsing as my ass flattened it.
His laughing gaze found mine.
“You’re very special to me,” I whispered, then flicked a tiny chunk of meatball from his beard.
“You’re very special to me too,” he replied, dipping his head to take a long taste of my mouth that ended up leading us into my bathroom, which led us into another round of lovemaking in the skinny shower.
After that, we were ready for bed. One that wasn’t coated with the dinner specials from Lou’s Ristorante over on Locust Street. We crashed in the guest bedroom, kicking the soda cans from DK’s bed to the floor and falling asleep as soon as we were cuddled close with our heads on the pillows.
Overall, for a first real date, I was damn happy with the outcome, even if I did slip up a bit on the no sex thing.
The old gals and DK had opted to stay in D.C. for a few days. Thankfully, the protest had been a peaceful one. I’d joked with my father that if they ended up in the slammer it was on him to bail them out. He’d laughed, but it hadn’t been a heartfelt laugh. He knew how those two were.
So that left me alone at the next Railers game. I was late arriving due to some new intakes and a sick cat issue combined with some sort of call from the Department of Agriculture I’d missed due to the sick cat issue. I’d have to call back tomorrow during office hours, which was fine. Any time the DA called, I got worry lines. They were the state agency that oversaw and inspected shelters. I’d never had any issue passing those surprise inspections. The fact they were calling me was what had me nervously chewing the inside of my lower lip. They said they’d emailed me, and actually when I went looking, it was just a survey. Still, my heart was still racing in my chest.
“Hey, man, are you okay? Get some bad nachos or something?”
The sound of eighteen thousand fans reappeared around me. I shook off the cloud of worry and turned to Mr. Mountain—who I now knew had a real name, Kenny—and smiled up at the huge season-ticket holder. Seemed Max had sprung for these seats throughout the rest of the playoffs. Color me surprised. That man was full of lovely little secrets.
“Nope, no bad nachos. Just thinking about work.”
“Dude, don’t you know the rule?” Kenny gave his husband, Jeff, a look. Jeff glanced around his bare-chested spouse. “Baby, he don’t know the rule.”
“Sorry? What rule is that?” I asked.
Someone on the ice hit someone else on the ice, and the fans shouted obscenities. Dammit. I needed to pay attention to the game. That could have been Max getting knocked into the boards instead of Adler. Not that I wanted Adler to get his bell rung, but you know…
“The rule that states work stays in the parking lot at a hockey game.”
“Oh, right, that rule. I forgot.”
Kenny patted my head, then went back to roaring at Tampa Bay for some infraction or another. This second game had been downright brutal so far. We were almost at the end of the second period with things all tied up. There had been no scoring because the teams had been too busy hitting each other. Between the legal and illegal checks, the sin bin had needed a revolving door. I suspected the Railers were in for a good chewing-out when they returned to the dressing room.
My attention seemed to be on Max most of the time, but I did get to enjoy a sudden flurry of activity around the Florida net just as the horn blew signaling the end of the period. That was the most offense the Railers had been able to muster throughout forty minutes of play. Hopefully they’d be able to keep that jazzy goodness going when they came back out.
“I’m going to the bathroom and grabbing a beer. Kenny, Jeff, you want something?”
“No, we’re good. Thanks, though.” Kenny beamed at me, his arm dangling around his husband’s neck. Jeff smiled softly. Talk about an odd couple, but they seemed to be happy.
I joined the mass exodus of fans heading to the concourse for food, drink, and a potty run.
Progress was slow, one step at a time, which gave me plenty of time to look around.
People of all sizes and shapes and colors were there. Lots of kids and women too. I was glad to see that. I’ll cop to being the only hockey fan among my group of friends back home. Most were into basketball or football. I liked those sports too, but there had always been something about hockey that I loved. The speed and the physicality and the grace of the big men on those thin blades. Maybe someday I could con Max into giving me a few skating lessons.
A tall man in front of me left the queue. I stepped up and glanced to the side and saw Rolf leaning on the thick railing. My foot missed the next step, and I stumbled into a woman.
“Excuse me,” I mumbled to her dirty glare. My sight flew back to the next section, and he was still there, his gaze never moving from me. Heart in my chest, I pawed in my back pocket to find my phone. Hands shaking, I dialed 9-1-1, feeling less terrified with every ring. When the dispatcher answered, I threw a look at the exact place Rolf had been glowering at me and found only a railing. No. Shit. Where did he go?
“Hello? What is your emergency?” the dispatcher asked.
“I… He was here. My brother-in-law. Ex. He was— Shit, where did he go?!”
“Sir, I need you to calm down and tell me the nature of your emergency.”
“Rolf. He was here. I mean…” I rubbed at my sweaty brow. “He was right there.” I pointed at the railing overlooking the bowl of seats down below, as if the woman on the other end of the call could see where I was pointing. “I mean…it looked just like him.”
“Sir, can you please tell me the nature of your emergency?”
“I ah… Sorry, I think I overreacted. Sorry for calling. Sorry.” I ended the call, heart hammering inside my rib cage. It had been him. Right? Same blond hair, same icy blue eyes, same hateful expression. It had to have been him. Did I imagine it?
“Sweet Lord,” I groaned. I turned and went back to my seat.
“Thought you were grabbing a piss and a beer,” Kenny said when I dropped down beside him.
“Too many people,” I replied, my gaze now touching on every golden head in the stands. Had Rolf followed me here? Had he been lurking around the shelter? My house? Or was I losing my mind?
Badly rattled, I stayed right beside Kenny the Mountain until the Railers managed to lose by one sneaky wraparound goal. I exited with Kenny and Jeff, then lured them into staying with me by offering them the chance to meet Max outside. They were all kinds of up for that, so I hid behind my new friends and waited outside in the dark for Max to come out and give me the hug I so badly needed. Maybe he could kick my ass as well, for being such a damn silly fool.
Chapter Twelve
Max
Something changed. I don’t know what it was specifically, but when I saw Ben next, he wouldn’t look me in the eye.
I’d seen this before in guys I’d had fuck-buddy status with. We were guys, and we weren’t going to sit down and have some fucking heart-to-heart about our feelings. So you start to avoid the guy, act as though he doesn’t exist, and then finally he gets the message and moves on with no hard feelings.
Just as Ben was doing.
He was distracted, wouldn’t look me in the eyes, as I said, and when we were together the night before he’d gone to bed citing a headache, leaving me in his front ro
om staring at the TV showing reruns of Friends.
Maybe I should get the hint already. Ben was clearly doing that guy thing, and I should move on to concentrating on what was important—hockey.
Only, it wasn’t what I wanted to do, and people didn’t call me a stubborn asshole for nothing. After ten minutes of angsting about the message I was being given, I decided I was ready to give a message of my own. He was nothing but a lump under the covers, no sign of any part of him, and I stood for a while at the bedroom door and stared at the shape of him. I just wanted to be sure to say exactly the right thing. Something like “don’t go”, or “don’t leave me”. He moved under the covers, and I stiffened. I wasn’t ready to talk to him yet because I didn’t have the right words.
I was still stuck in that loop of how much of myself I had to give. The doctor wanted to see me, said I was not handling things as he expected me to. Well, fuck him, I was handling everything okay. You ask any man with a ticking time bomb in his head how he’s handling shit, and we’ll all say the same thing.
A day at a time. Every day is a win.
I backed away from the door and went back into Ben’s small kitchen, taking a stool and staring at my phone. The last three non-Ben calls had been to Doctor Warner. He was probably used to me calling by now with my stupid worries. The last call had ended with a very uncharacteristic “you need to calm down” from Doc, but then I had phoned him at four a.m. his time, and let’s face it, he isn’t a twenty-four-hour on-call guy. He’s a renowned neurosurgeon.
If we made it to become one of the two teams in the finals of the Stanley Cup, then at the most, seven games were all that remained between us and the cup. That would take me into next month, which was only another three weeks.
What were the chances of my head thing getting the better of me in that time?
I shouldn’t worry.
Yeah, right, who am I kidding? Worry happens without me controlling it.
Right here, in this kitchen, in the soft glow of a small lamp, I was the very definition of someone scared for tomorrow.
What if the worst-case scenario played out? What if I collapsed and no one knew why? What if I got into a fight and a fist made contact with my head at just the right angle to cause a bleed? Hell, what if I went to bed and didn’t wake up?
I felt utterly lonely and vulnerable, and it was all because of one man and his inability to look me in the eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Ben said behind me. He sounded sleepy.
I shrugged. I wasn’t going to turn and face him, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to face seeing his expression and knowing he wanted me to leave. He hugged me from behind, and I stared down at his hands against my shirt. Unbidden, my own covered his. If this meant everything was over, then I wanted one last touch.
Sap.
“Sorry I’ve been distracted,” he murmured against my skin, and I couldn’t help the skip of my heart at his words. “Just a lot on my mind.”
I turned on the seat and faced him, and he cupped my face with his hands, pressing a soft kiss to my lips.
“Sometimes…” he began softly and stopped.
“Sometimes what?” I prompted, because he looked so serious.
He sighed, and I took that to mean he didn’t want to say anything else, but I was wrong.
“I think my mind is playing tricks with me. I thought I saw Rolf at the last game, and then yesterday I could have sworn I saw him outside the house, but when I went outside it wasn’t him.” He huffed a soft laugh. “I think I need my head tested.”
At that point, I could have said something. That was the perfect segue into me and my issues. I could have just said, hey, Ben, I’ve had this thing in my head that has a name too long and complicated to pronounce, but hey, it’s okay, the doc says it’s unlikely to happen again, but you never know, because there is a ten percent chance that it might. I could die next time. Are you okay with that?
I didn’t say a damn thing.
Coward.
Instead I turned the whole thing back onto him with my addiction to worrying about him.
“What if it was him?”
He shook his head and kissed me again, trying to distract me, no doubt. “Yeah, he just happened to get a ticket to a Railers game that was sold out when he doesn’t even like hockey. Believe me, I know I’m losing my shit. The cops warned him—what else can we do? It’s DK I worry about, poor kid.”
I stood up and hugged him close. “I worry about you,” I admitted.
Now. Tell him about your own fears now, in the semi-darkness, where it’s safe.
I opened my mouth to talk, and he kissed the words away.
“Come to bed,” he murmured.
I switched the lamp off and followed him to the bedroom. When I got there, he was already under the covers, holding them up to his chin and smiling up at me. I didn’t feel the need to jump his bones—I wanted to stare at his gorgeous face, hold him close, and just love him as hard as I could.
Yeah.
I think I could love Ben.
When we woke, it was to the brightest and warmest of early summer days. DK was opening the shelter that morning, taking on more responsibility, which Ben was encouraging. That meant a lazy morning for my man, if lazy meant not getting out of bed until eight and eating breakfast together. He was still going to work at nine, but we managed to fit in a whole lot of kisses and smiles before we left the house.
My Uber was waiting for me, and Ben shook his head.
“So tacky,” he teased. “Get your own car, Mr. Millionaire.”
“I don’t drive,” I said, probably way more defensive than I needed to be at that point. He shot me a look of confusion at the tone, but I kissed away his frown.
We parted after that kiss and a hug and went in our opposite directions. I was early for skate, but I needed to work on conditioning and talk to the PT about the nagging pain in my knee. Damn thing had this way of spasming at all the wrong times.
By the time I was dressed and out on the ice for practice skate, I’d been pummeled and iced and was in my happy place. The skate itself was more about loosening muscles than strategy; we’d got this far, one game away from winning the conference and advancing to the Cup fight, and we were exhausted and energized at the same time.
The mood was good. We had the number of the team we were facing, and tomorrow night, right here on home ice, we could take this.
Jared gestured me over, and along with the rest of the D, we circled him as he talked strategy. We were a sight to behold, me towering over the rest, some of us were two-way D-men, able to take the fight to the net, others, like me, able to change the direction of a game on a single fight. Together we were a brick wall, and when Stan ambled up to stand with us, I couldn’t help myself. I tugged him into a head-hold and kissed his helmet.
He muttered something in Russian I had no hope in hell of understanding, but it didn’t sound like a curse, more a soft noise of affection.
This was my team.
And we were going to win tomorrow, and we were going to the finals. I could feel it in my bones.
Winning wasn’t easy, though. Tied after three periods, we were battling to the wire, but when we pulled that final goal, Ten and his magic on a breakaway, assisting a beautiful goal from Dieter, I’d never felt anything like it before.
Ecstasy, exhaustion, love, passion, fear…hell, this was a complete and utter meltdown of my emotions. I looked for Ben in the stands, saw him standing and clapping and cheering, and I blew him a kiss. He made a show of catching it and holding it to his heart. Toly caught me in a hug, pulling me around and into the huddle of men burying Stan on the ice. Ten whooped in my ear, and I was grinning like the Cheshire Cat. I knew it.
“We’re going to the Stanley Cup Final!” someone yelled. Or at least I caught the words “Stanley Cup” and “going”; other than that, the cacophony of noises was too much to bear.
Connor skated over as captain, Troy Larsen and Toly as the alternates by
his side, none of them touching the cup we’d won as top dogs in the Eastern Conference. Skaters and their superstitions meant no team touched that cup. Unless it was a team who’d found luck after touching it; I’d seen that as well. Hell, I can’t explain what represents luck to someone. All I knew was that my luck was in the crowd shouting for our team, and for me.
The mood in the locker room was euphoric, and all the talk was about the West Coast team we would be meeting to fight for the Stanley Cup. The Raptors would win their games on the West Coast; they were the higher rated in the first three rounds and had more regular-season points than us. That meant our first Cup final games would be on their ice, but none of us cared at that moment about the home-ice advantage they would have.
The Railers were team-killers.
We could beat anyone.
My energy left me after a few minutes of hugs and back-patting, and I sagged onto my small part of the bench, still grinning but unable to contain the exhaustion from the game.
Toly slumped next to me, and we knocked shoulders.
“Fucking worth it,” I said.
Toly snorted a laugh. “So worth it.”
The high lasted through post-game interviews, showers, getting dressed, and all the way until I saw Ben waiting for me, DK at his side. I hugged Ben so close I doubted he could breathe until, laughing, he pushed me away.
“Get a room.” DK smirked, and I pulled him in for a hug, giving him a noogie and holding him still even as he fought me.
I felt strong enough to take on the whole damn world.
We made it back to Ben’s without discussing where we’d be going. I loved his place; small but warm, it was the direct opposite of my temporary place in the apartment block. His house was home and family, all wrapped up in cozy furniture and his big-screen TV. We dropped DK off on the way, and then it was just us at his place, drinking each other in and loving so hard.