Page 25 of Melting the Ice

“Yes,” Dean said gratefully.

Chapter Four

The cool night airhelped to clear most of the fuzziness from his brain. Dean didn’t drink often, and when he did, he rarely touched hard liquor.

But the tequila had gone down so smooth, and it made his usual social awkwardness feel less present.

He’d actually managed to relax, at least when Brody was next to him.

Dean didn’t know if Brody was feeling the booze, but as they walked up the stairs to their apartment, Dean could sense he was just as relaxed.

When they walked in, though, Brody didn’t head to his bedroom. Instead he detoured to the kitchen and came back with two more beers. “Come on,” he said. “I’m too keyed up to sleep. Let’s watch something.”

Dean, who’d thought he was tired, decided that the evening had been fun enough and chill enough that he didn’t want it to end either. It turned out he actuallylikedhanging out with Brody.

He settled down on the couch with the beer as Brody scrolled endlessly through the options on Netflix.

“Just pick something, man,” Dean teased.

Brody shot him a hot look. It hit him hard, searing around the edges. Dean didn’t understand it, was afraid that he knew what it meant.

What the sparks that had lit him up meant, when Brody had come back from talking to his teammate and had wrapped his arms around him, tilting that pretty boy face up to meet his gaze.

“What do you want?” Brody asked, but instead of waiting for his answer, he tossed the remote onto the couch.

It was easy enough—but harder than he’d expected—to be honest. “I . . .I guess I don’t know,” Dean said.

Brody flopped back. His hair was mussed, his brown sugar eyes soft.

“Me either,” he said absently, but he didn’t seem particularly worried about it. For a moment, neither of them said anything, and anxiety rose inside him. What should he do? What should he say? He wasn’t used to just sitting in companionable silence with someone. He wasn’t used to sitting in silenceperiod. He was always moving, always doing, usually forced to by his circumstances.

But it was a bye week. There was no game tomorrow. He didn’t have to get up early for work. He could sleep in. In fact, he couldsithere now, and there was nothing pressing he needed to do but listen to Brody’s steady breathing.

“You ever thought about it?”

Brody’s question broke the silence.

“About what’s on Netflix?” Dean was confused.

“No. No.” Brody waved his hands around him. “Like, we were talking to Wes and Marcus and they’re so freaking happy. And I thought, well, maybe it’s not that I can’t find someone I like, that I really like, that maybe I’m . . .” He hesitated. Like he didn’twant to say it out loud, not until hehadto. “Maybe I’m looking for the wrong kind of thing.”

Dean’s mouth went dry. “Like the wrong sex?”

He wished, almost the moment the word escaped him, that he’d saidanythingbut the word itself.

Sex.

Brody swallowed hard. Dean could see it, watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed with the forceful motion. “Yeah,” he said.

Because now the word, theidea, was hanging in the room, thickening up his lungs andGod, Brody’s eyes were really so pretty. All of him was.

Maybe he wouldn’t have been even thinking it if he hadn’t drunk any tequila, but now he was, and he couldn’t shove that thought back in the box no matter how much he kinda wanted to.

“So, yeah,” Brody said wryly, a flush creeping up his cheekbones. “You ever thought about it?”

Dean realized he’d been silent for probably way too long. Maybe to Brody, he looked panicked, like he couldn’t wait to escape back into his room and away from this awkward conversation.

“Forget it,” Brody said, suddenly, pushing himself upright. In a second, he’d be off the couch and gone, and nothing would be right between them after this.

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