by Jeff Adams
“Winger”—now it was Coach—“I’ll call you to help extract you from this conversation. Stand by.”
Could nothing go right? Just a few minutes with my guy would be great to improve this crap day. But I’d asked for this since I was playing secret-agent man. My phone vibrated.
“It’s Coach.” I showed my phone to Eddie. “One second.” We both stepped to the side of the hallway so we weren’t blocking traffic. “Hey, Coach.”
“Your mom’s going to kill you, you know?”
I sighed. “Yeah. Not my smartest move.”
“So tell Eddie that you need to meet me to go over some game-play stuff and that I’ve got some physical therapy lined up to help with the previous game’s injury. That’ll give you a few hours.”
As I talked, Eddie touched my hand that held the phone and then took the other one in his. Concern crossed his face, and I shrugged trying to make it seem like nothing.
“Sounds good, Coach. I could use the PT for sure. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
I clicked the call off, and Eddie took the phone and turned my hand over, studying the redness.
“What happened?” he asked as I tried to grab the phone because I don’t like it being in anyone else’s possession. “These look awful.”
He kissed the palm of my right hand, which was redder than the left.
“Scalded myself this morning. The water went superhot all of a sudden.”
“Damn, Theo, you gotta be more careful.” He handed the phone back, and I immediately pocketed it. “How did you manage to play like this?”
“Just did. Didn’t have a choice, you know? Look, I hate to do this, but I’ve got to get back to the hotel to meet with Coach Daly to talk about today’s games, especially the mess that last one was.” I didn’t have to fake disappointment. I really wanted to spend time with Eddie after all that had gone down since we arrived in Denver. “He’s also got me an appointment to get worked on because of the hits I’ve taken.”
“It’d be more fun if I worked on that.” He laid a red-hot kiss on me, which yielded a whistle from someone that passed us in the hall.
“There’s a dinner and mixer thing I’ve got to go to tonight. After that we should be able to chill.”
The slightest frown played across his lips. “Can I come with you? Hang out? Meet your teammates?”
“I don’t know if I can bring a guest. I’ll find out, though.” Since holding his hand would be uncomfortable, I hooked my elbow around his and started walking. “I’d love to just go do stuff with you, but between the games and some of the other tournament stuff, it’s kinda busy.”
“Don’t worry about it.” His usual smile returned. “I didn’t even know what your game schedule was until I got here, so I’ll take whatever I can get.”
“I love that you’re here.” I truly meant it. “It’s a perfect surprise. We’ll get some time for sure.”
As we walked the dozen or so blocks back to the hotel, the hum of pain increased. The adrenaline from the game was wearing off, leaving me sore. I wondered if Coach could really set me up with some PT.
“Are you really okay? I swear you seem like you’re in more pain than after the whole kidnapping thing.”
“The therapy will help—both the professional and yours.”
“Anything you want.” Eddie took my hand.
“I love you.”
He kissed my hand and smiled.
It was awesome to see Eddie. But we were going to have to figure out how to manage him. At least he and I could grab nights together, I’d just have to be stealthy to avoid Mom.
Chapter Nineteen
THE HOURS postgame were exhausting but beneficial. Lorenzo made some great advances on our tech before we went to see Dr. Abbey, director of the Computer Science and Engineering Department at CU Denver. I managed to play everything off as an experiment about fiber-optic data flow, and she left us to our work. Apparently my prof gave me such a rave recommendation she was good leaving Lorenzo and me on our own.
We had good results making it look like we weren’t on the network at all. It wasn’t foolproof, but hopefully they wouldn’t be able to detect our masking. Since Lorenzo created it, I spent some time trying to break it and could do it easily only because I knew it was there in the first place. We didn’t know what kind of tech the bad guys had available, so we still needed to be careful.
By the time the evening dinner and mixer rolled around, I wanted a nap. I was almost late, having lost track of time with Lorenzo. It was only because Coach called me that I managed to get to the hotel and change in time. Tonight was a more formal banquet, so I actually threw on a real shirt as well as the tie I’d ignored last night.
Eddie met me in the hallway that led to the ballroom. He was so handsome decked out in a dark purple shirt, black coat, and black jeans. He was almost monochromatic, but the shirt had just enough pop to make a nice contrast. Neither of us liked to dress up. In fact I absolutely shunned it as much as I could. He looked amazing.
“Oh my God, I forgot to check to see if you could be here.” I felt bad that he was all dressed up and might not be able to get in.
“Not to worry.” He pulled out a lanyard and badge from his pocket. He put it around his neck, so he matched me. “I took care of it. You can bring guests, just had to pay fifty bucks. Totally worth it to hang out with you looking all sharp.”
I gave him a quick kiss. Truth was, I needed this. An evening with my boyfriend was a great end to a less-than-stellar day. I’m glad he took the initiative to find out if he could come along.
“Next to you, I’m far from sharp. You look stunning.”
“Dad made me bring something dressy since he’s taking me to some speech tomorrow. I thought it’d be perfect for tonight too.”
“Go Mr. Cochrane.”
Instead of a tournament banquet, I felt like I was going to prom.
Prom? He’d already mentioned that once. Would he ask me? Or should I ask him since he’d asked me to the fall dance? How does that even work when you’re both guys?
“Where’d you go just now? I recognize the look of you solving a problem.”
My face heated. He’d caught me plotting the future.
“Oh man, it’s something good too,” he added. “I haven’t seen you blush in a long time.”
I looked away and willed the blush to fade as I checked out the crowd assembling in the ballroom. It looked like there was an array of guests, from parents to girlfriends.
“Come on.” He reached under my jacket so he could tickle me. With only the dress shirt between my skin and his fingers, I giggled and squirmed. “Tell me.”
“All right.” I relented since I didn’t want him to go too far with the tickles. “My mind flashed forward to prom and thinking about how great we’ll look.”
A soft, wonderful smile replaced his mischievous look. “Is that your way of asking me to prom?”
“I guess it sorta is, yeah.”
“Cool.”
“Very cool.” And just like that, I had a prom date. “Let’s get some dinner, I’m starving.”
We walked into the ballroom and I looked around, trying to decide where we should sit.
“Theo! Over here.”
It was Jamie sitting a couple of tables away. He waved us over. Other teammates sat at the table, but there were three chairs still open. Most tables had some spaces left, but this was a good choice since Jamie was cool. The other two guys were both defensemen, one was Chuck, but I couldn’t remember the other’s name.
“Hey, Jamie. These free?”
“Yeah, man. Hoping to get a table full of teammates.” He looked at Eddie, and it was obvious he was trying to resolve if Eddie was on our team or not. Given that I didn’t know everyone on sight yet either, I understood his confusion.
“This is my boyfriend, Eddie. He came to town to catch some of the games. Eddie, this is our goalie, Jamie.”
“S’up?” Eddie said with a quick nod of th
e head. “You were great in that shootout.”
“Thanks, man.”
“And this is Chuck and….” I pushed my brain one more time to see if I could get the name of the other guy, but it wasn’t happening.
“Billy,” he said.
I nodded and we sat down. I attacked the salad in front of me. I’d had a couple of protein bars after the game, but they weren’t enough.
“That’s cool you could come see the games,” Jamie said to Eddie. “The only person that came with me is my coach.”
Donny joined us. If Eddie was uncomfortable being at a table full of players who were strangers, he didn’t show it. It was different from any gathering we’d had with the team back home, which was usually a party at someone’s house where we could drift around. Here, we couldn’t leave the table.
Dinner was good, but it went on way too long. Eddie was a champ listening to all of the strategy we talked. Donny’s coach had looked at some of the other teams’ play, so we had some intel that we dissected to be ready for tomorrow.
“You better be on your game tomorrow, Reese,” Donny said. “We can’t have the mistakes you were making this afternoon. You got that one assist, but the rest of the game was like peewees on ice.”
“Everyone has bad games.” I appreciated Jamie came to my defense. “Why are you being a douche?”
“Because we don’t get to have bad games here. These are too important—for all of us.”
“I can tell you from firsthand experience that this afternoon was a fluke,” Eddie chimed in.
Stealthy, I placed a hand on Eddie’s knee, hoping he wouldn’t add fuel to the fire.
“He’s right.” There was no bravado in my voice like I had last night when we were going over stats. “I played like shit.”
“Glad to see we’re agreed.”
Donny and I stared at each other for a bit before I looked away. I was too tired to play his games, especially since he was right.
Finally people started to exit, and that was the signal we’d stayed as long as we needed to. We’d already had a couple of desserts, and while Eddie was doing okay, I could tell he was as ready to go as I was.
“Guys, I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, standing.
“Good to meet you all.” Eddie raised a hand to say goodbye. “I’ll be cheering tomorrow.”
Coach was still talking with some of his colleagues, and I gave him a nod as I left. Mom hadn’t come down for this, and I wasn’t sure what she was doing.
“Would you be up for that?” I pointed to a sign at the elevator bank that indicated a fitness center with a sauna.
“I’ve never been in one, but sure why not. Plus you’ll be—”
I put a finger against his lips so he’d be quiet. I didn’t want him to say anything else while Mom was potentially still in my ear.
I simply nodded.
While we were in the elevator, I pulled out my phone and went to the app that controlled the earpiece. I muted myself so I’d still hear if someone needed me, but I had privacy.
On the third floor, we got out and walked quietly to the fitness center, where we found one woman working out on an elliptical. I looked around to see where to go, and when I found it, I jerked my head toward a hallway leading farther into the facility.
The sauna was inside the men’s locker room. I hadn’t thought this through very well, because we needed to do something with our clothes. Luckily we found free lockers. There was a stack of towels too. I could get into real trouble for this on a couple of levels. I wasn’t sure it was cool to mute my side of the earpiece without telling anyone. Plus Mom probably wouldn’t be too happy that I planned to make out with Eddie here.
A grounded agent. Could that happen?
I opened a locker and stripped while Eddie stared at me.
“What? You’ve seen me naked before.”
“Yeah, but never somewhere that wasn’t my room or a car. This is sorta public.”
True. That made my heart flutter, adding to the overall excitement of the moment.
He continued to watch even once I was just down to boxers.
“Are you planning on steaming yourself in that?” I pulled on the lapel of his coat and got a grin out of him.
“Um, no.”
Eddie hustled to catch up to me, getting out of his clothes, and stuffing them into the same locker as mine. Once I’d gotten rid of my underwear and locked the locker, I went to the stack of towels and covered myself. It was a challenge to be modest given I was tenting the towel. Wasn’t much I could do about that. It was a side effect of getting naked with Eddie.
I tossed him a towel and saw he was going to have the same issue. I swear his face reddened a bit as he tried to cover himself. He got embarrassed even less often than I did, but it was always so cute watching the red push through to the surface of his dark skin.
The sight of the scar on his left side made me pause. I hadn’t seen it with the stitches out. It was still an angry red line against his smooth skin.
“It’s okay. It doesn’t hurt anymore.”
I didn’t know what to say. I brought two fingers to my lips, kissed them, and touched the scar. Hopefully in a few weeks you’d never know it happened. At least his face was mostly healed, and you could barely see any remnant of the accident there.
“What about you?” He touched my chest. “You’ve got new injuries all over. How’d you get all these little cuts?”
“I had a klutzy moment yesterday.” I lead us into the empty sauna and it was heavenly. The dry heat seeped into my tired, sore muscles.
“Jesus, this must be what the desert feels like.” The high temperature distracted Eddie. Hopefully he’d stay that way since I had no explanation for how I looked.
I climbed to the upper bench to sit down. I pressed my back into the warm boards and a moan escaped. “Isn’t it awesome?”
There was one of these in our home rink, and I sometimes used it to relax knotted muscles.
Eddie stood in the middle of the ten-by-ten box, and we looked at each other. He’d already lost the battle with hiding his arousal as his erection stood straight out behind the towel. I wasn’t surprised it wouldn’t behave. Mine was difficult enough to contain, and his was longer. Watching beads of sweat break out across his forehead and chest was ridiculously sexy.
“Come up here,” I said. “Sit down and just let the heat soak in.”
“Are you sure we’re not going to melt?” He sat next to me, his leg touching the edge of my hand, which was on the bench next to me.
“Oh, I’m sure,” I said, sounding like something between a moan and a sigh.
He put his hand on top of mine as we sat quietly. I closed my eyes as I let the heat work magic on my soreness.
“You look so relaxed, like you might disappear into the boards,” Eddie said after we’d been quiet for a while.
“Are you staring?” I didn’t open my eyes to find out.
“Yes. The beads of sweat rolling down your chest look very lickable. Plus it’s hard for me to ignore this.” He grabbed my boner through the towel.
“Hmm.” That got my attention, and I opened my eyes to find him smiling as sweat poured off him. “Two can play that game.”
I gently grabbed his head and brought us together for a kiss. My back came away from the boards, and I instantly missed the direct contact with the heat. However, I enjoyed the deep kiss and the light stroking though the towel.
The room, with a glass panel in the door, wasn’t the most private place for doing too much. The last thing we needed was for someone to find us making out in here.
“Let’s go to my room,” I said when I could finally allow myself to break the kiss.
The locker room was still empty, which was perfect. We toweled off, dressed enough not to look too out of place, and headed to the elevator. In the mirrors around the elevator, we looked disheveled, clothes slightly wrinkled and untucked, as we held our jackets in front of us so nobody could see the tents in
our pants. Eddie’s hair, usually a fairly poufy afro, was slightly deflated from the heat and sweat. Meanwhile, my hair was plastered to my head.
“Shower with me?” I asked when we got to the room. “Cool ourselves down.”
“I’ll do anything that gets us out of these clothes.”
He stripped off his shirt, and there were new beads of sweat rising from his skin. I quickly followed his lead and let clothes drop all over the floor. A small part of me wanted to tidy up the clothes, but I was mostly fixated on Eddie.
We got a cool shower going and made out under the spray. It was the beginning of several hours together alone. I was willing to catch hell for it tomorrow because it was exactly what I needed.
Chapter Twenty
AS ROUGH as yesterday’s second game was, today’s morning game was a million times worse. Hours in bed with Eddie was great, except I probably didn’t sleep as much as I should’ve to help my body recover. He’d left around six to get back to his hotel before his dad woke up. That gave me a couple of hours of sleep on my own, but it wasn’t enough.
Thankfully Eddie had to go to the speech his dad wanted him to see, so he missed the worst game ever. I’d be long done with the mission by the time he’d be back, so we’d be able to relax together. Tonight’s team stuff was optional, which was good, because I doubted they’d want to see me.
Nothing I did on the ice was right. I couldn’t tell if it was from being too tired, or all the physical and emotional stuff that had gone down, but it was like I’d forgotten how to play. The rate at which I made errors was appalling, and it was a relief, midway through the first period, when the coach dropped me back to the third line. I hated letting the team down. Luckily we still won and would advance to the championship game tomorrow.
As soon as I could get away from the team after the game, I met up with Coach in the same service corridor as yesterday. My backpack was extra heavy because I had more stuff this time out. Lorenzo had picked up some insulators to help keep me grounded to avoid any shocks. I also carried an extra tablet because I wanted to set up a two-pronged attack this time, with Lorenzo coming in through the second tablet.
