Page 80 of Melting the Ice

“Hey, it’s alright,” Brody said and leaned over, shaking their opponents’ hands. Dean seemed to know them, and he’d said Rand and Ty played on the football team with him. “Great game, guys. Go out and destroy Ramsey for me, okay?”

Rand grinned. “You got it, boss. And Dean, good to see you.”

“Yeah,” Ty added. “Not just on the field, for once.”

Dean flushed and brushed it off, giving them both a handshake that of course, evolved into one of those complicated hugs.

“See you at practice Tuesday,” he said. “We’re taking off.”

Brody didn’t know how he felt about being part of awe.

No. That wasn’t true at all. He knew exactly how it felt. Intoxicating, more so even than the beer they’d drunk as part of the tournament.

“You good?” Dean asked as they walked out of the house.

He didn’t need to be specific about his question for Brody to understand what he was asking.You sober? You sober enough to hook up, still?

“Yeah,” Brody said. “But the walk home will do me good.”

And not just because of the beer. His stomach was still fluttering over theweDean had used—even though Brody knew there hadn’t exactly been another pronoun hecouldhave used.

“Same,” Dean agreed.

They walked for another minute before Dean broke the silence. “That was a pretty decent shot there, at the end.”

Brody grinned. “You asking me if I missed on purpose?”

“You wouldn’t ever throw a game on purpose. That would be poor sportsmanship,” Dean said firmly.

“You suggested it,” Brody reminded him. “Maybe I wouldn’t have considered doing it if you hadn’t.”

“Maybe I wanted to properly motivate you.”

“To win or to lose?” Brody teased in a low voice. He stopped just outside a pool of light from one of the streetlights. There were still a few pockets of students wandering around, but it was getting late and they were far between. He felt comfortable enough reaching over and tucking a hand into the belt loop of Dean’s jeans, tugging him a little closer.

“I’m still tryin’ to figure that out,” Dean said wryly. “That’s why I asked.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure. I told you I was crap, and I am. I wanted to make it—and I didn’t want to make it. We’ll never know what the truth really is. IthinkI tried but maybe not all that hard.”

Dean grinned. “I like it.”

“Do you?”

Say it. I like you.

“Yeah.”

Of course Dean didn’t, because that wasn’t what this was, even though this whole evening felt like that phrase, repeated over and over, echoing in his head so insistently that Brody couldn’t have dismissed it even if he’d wanted to.

He didn’t.

Even if it was a mess, even if it was hard. Impossible, really.

We’re friends. And more, too. That’s what we said. You’re not thinking anything different than he is.

But itfeltdifferent than Brody had heard people talk about when they described friends with benefits.

“Well come on, we don’t want to waste this chance my missed shot gave us,” Brody said, tugging on Dean’s belt loop and they started walking again.

---