Page 41 of Provoking the Punter

“Seriously?” He got none of the fun and some of the blame. That sounded like a shit deal, no matter how much he was paid.

“Yeah. I train with them. That means I had a role in the prep.”

Chester nodded. That made sense. “So you spent all day going over mistakes.”

“Pretty much, but I got more practice time today, so it wasn’t all bad.”

They hadn’t moved from the door. Chester wanted to ask about the meeting with Caitlin, but he didn’t want to kill the moment.

“And now you’re here,” Garrett continued.

“And I am the highlight of your day,” he said brightly.

“You are… today, anyway. If they told me I was playing on Sunday, you’d be coming a close second.”

Chester feigned hurt and pushed him away. “Oh, I see how it is. Football first, everything else second.”

Garrett’s smile dimmed to something far less mesmerizing. “During the season, yeah.”

“I get it. I was joking. You, at least, have a season. I work six days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.” And he didn’t have a job that he could pack up and follow with. He was already imagining the time when Garrett went to a different team.

Then what?

Michael leaving for a better job had hurt, but the relationship had been ending anyway—he saw that now with the benefit of hindsight and a mended heart.

He didn’t think he could go through that again.

Garrett cupped Chester’s jaw and smoothed his thumb over his cheek. “You don’t seem happy about that.”

He loved his job, his business. He’d created it out of nothing and found himself in the process. Had created himself. “It can make things difficult.”

“Are you…” Garrett’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t break up with me because we’re not going out.”

Chester laughed. “We’re not in high school. We might be seeing other people.”

“I’m not seeing other people.” Garrett studied him. His blue eyes seemed to stare into his soul. “Are you?”

He could lie. That would cool things, but that wasn’t what he wanted. “No. I hadn’t planned on going steady with anyone, and then you turned up.”

“And you can’t resist a footballer who wants to suck your dick.”

Another laugh and the tension broke. “Apparently not. Can you?”

“I don’t know.”

Chester ran his fingers up the half-hard length of Garrett’s cock. “You must’ve had guys want to blow you.”

Garrett frowned. “I guess if I let myself go looking, but I wanted to fuck. I didn’t wanna be asked to reciprocate.”

“Why, when it’s something you like?”

“Because it’s not something I can do with a stranger.”

“I was a stranger.” Oops, his fingers had slid inside Garrett’s shorts, and once again, Garrett wasn’t wearing any underwear. Chester wrapped his fingers around the shaft, already knowing it was the kind of dick he liked riding.

“We’d been talking, and there was a bit of chemistry.”

Chester lifted one eyebrow. “Only a bit?”

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