Page 138 of Melting the Ice

“I’m so proud of you,” Brody murmured as they watched on the TV as the NFL commissioner walked onto the stage for the first time. “Whatever happens.”

“Even if I fall out of the first round?” Dean almost didn’t want to say it. What if it came true? But he had to voice it, because he’d spent too much time in the last few months dreading the possibility. Doing everything he could to avoid it, but it was there, all the same.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Brody said. “It could happen, sure, but we know how much like at least a dozen teams want you. The Riptidetraded upin the draft. They’re now sitting at number three. You don’t think that was for shits and giggles, do you?”

Dean nearly giggled now. The pressure inside him was mounting, to an almost unbearable level. The only thing that kept it bearable was sitting next to him. Hand in his. Never flinching.

Ian leaned over, murmuring. “I told you, they want you to replace Spencer Evans. He retired two seasons ago, and the backup they had last year, he didn’t work out so well.”

Spencer Evans was one of the most famous defensive ends in football. Out and proud. An inspiration on and off the field.

It was mind-boggling, even after all his hard work, that anyone could look at him, Dean Scott, and think he could be even a fraction of what Spencer Evans was. But the Riptide had looked at him and then kept looking.

“Besides,” Brody continued, smirking at him, “I think I’d like LA, don’t you?”

Dean looked over him. He was gorgeous, so fucking gorgeous, in slacks and a clingy green knit polo shirt that Dean was already fantasizing about removing with his teeth. He’d love LA and LA would love him right back.

Maybe Brody wouldn’t be playing hockey professionally, but he’d hardly let himself go. In fact, one of their favorite things todo was go to the gym, egging each other on, until they lost the thread and usually ended up fucking in the gym bathroom.

Dean wasn’t proud of it, but he couldn’t deny he loved every second of it.

“I think you’d fit in anywhere,” Dean said.

Brody had that easy manner to him, the way he’d fit in so effortlessly with Dean, when Dean himself had never felt comfortable anywhere. Not until he’d walked out the door and seen Brody for the first time.

“I just want you to know”—Ramsey leaned over the couch, head between theirs, because of course it was—“that anything that happens in the next few hours is ninety percent because of Dean being a monster on the football field and ten percent because I hooked you two up. Not just once, buttwice.”

“I’ll concede the roommate thing. But if you’re talking about how you sort of flirted with him,no,” Dean said firmly.

“I knew you were still bent out of shape because of that,” Ramsey crowed, like Dean wanting to punch him in the face was something to be proud of.

“I wasn’t then and I’m not now. I didn’t think for a second that Brody would even look at you,” Dean said.

Brody wiggled closer to him. The producer looked like he was about to say something but it was Ramsey who shot him a look, and he smartly shut his mouth. “Itwaskinda hot,” Brody said. “My big man, getting all possessive.”

“Anytime you need a repeat, you just ask. I’ve always heard the sex life palls a bit after two years. After you’re . . .uh . . .settled. And I know Brody is real interested in that picket fence.”

“Brody,” Brody said firmly, “still thinks picket fences are very stupid, thank you very much. Now get out of our shot, Ramsey. You got your say, and we think you’re still full of it.”

Ramsey grinned. “Ten percent! I get ten percent!”

Dean rolled his eyes. On the TV the commissioner was about to read out the first card. His phone had not rung. Ian’s eyes met his own, and he gave an imperceptible shake of his head.

Well, they’d not expected him to go number one, anyway. Defensive players rarely did.

Besides, the two teams holding the first two spots in the draft were both sorely in need of a quarterback. Dean might be a lot of things, but he was no quarterback.

The five minutes to the next pick was interminable. Dean’s phone stayed silent. So did Ian’s.

Next to him, Brody made soothing noises, and Dean felt like he’d been reduced to grunts by the immense force of the pressure bearing down on him.

Then Brody apparently decided it was a good idea to make him hard, right before they might both be on national television.

“Hey,” he said casually, “do you remember the first time we sat on this couch together?”

It was not the same couch.

Though itwasa couch in the same place, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t had sex on this couch before. Brody had insisted on having it steam cleaned before tonight, because there’d been one rather insistent stain neither of them could get out, from a memorable night about six months ago . . .

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