Page 44 of Delay of Game

“Okay,” Nate said, and for the briefest of seconds, the corners of his mouth tipped up again. “If youpromise.”

Nate would do that to him sometimes and had been doing it since their first season together. Zach would make a half-joking, half-ridiculous threat or vow and Nate would respond in a way that would almost be flirty if Nate had been a flirty kind of person, which he was absolutely not. It had fucked with Zach’s head then and he hated to admit it was no different now that things had gotten physical.

It was mostly because Nate didn’t seem to realize what he was doing and the effect it had, whereas if Zach had said something like that, it would have been accompanied by the kind of smile that used to get him into almost anyone’s pants. It just wasn’t fair that someone who didn’t seem to even be aware of his own power could have that kind of effect on anyone.

He half dozed on the rest of the flight, too nervous thinking about the rest of the night to actually let himself sleep. It didn’t help that Netty snored like a rumbling avalanche and the plane was full of the rest of the team sounds, rustling as guys adjusted in their seats, low conversations between the night owls. And behind all of that the hum of the engines.

Nate, next to him, frowned while watching silent replays of the game on his tablet, leaning sideways far enough that his shoulder was pressed against Zach’s.

Zach took his bags up to his hotel room and set them down. There was an optional skate tomorrow at eleven a.m., but the optional skates weren’t optional for anyone and least of all him. Even if there hadn’t been a practice, Zach knew he shouldn’t stay up much later than this, but he pushed the comforter aside and sat down on the bed anyway, and he knew he was going to be waiting.

It wasn’t long, though, before there was a knock at the door.

He almost got tangled in the sheets trying to get to his feet but caught himself before he tripped and fell. By the time he got to the door to open it, he’d collected himself enough to pull off a pretty smooth “Hey” when he smiled up at Nate.

“Hey,” Nate said, but he wasn’t smiling. He looked like he was—not about to cry, but like he was really upset. That was bad. Nate shouldn’t be upset. Ever.

Zach pulled him into the room by the waistband of his pants, and Nate let him do it. Nate let Zach reach up and take his chin in his hand, forcing him to look Zach in the eye. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just—I don’t know, Zach. It just—it really sucks losing.”

“I told you,” Zach said, his thumb tracing the line of Nate’s cheekbone, a stupid gesture that had already happened before he could stop himself. “Even if we lost this one, this season’s going to be different than last season. You know New Zach always keeps his promises, right?”

Nate made a noise that was almost a laugh but sounded more like a pained wheeze. “You kept one of them, at least.”

“Gimme a chance, baby, I’ll keep more of them,” Zach said, but before he could say anything else, Nate had leaned down to kiss him.

His mouth was warm and soft, but the stubble of his beard scraped against Zach’s lip. He was always kind of intense about it, but there was something different about the way he was kissing Zach now, almost desperate. His hands were everywhere at once, like he was trying to distract Zach from something, like he didn’t want him to—what? Say anything else? Zach liked talking during sex, like he liked talking any other time, running his mouth, letting any stupid thing that came to mind fly out of it. It was mostly nonsense, but usually Nate seemed pretty into it too, so. This was weird.

“Hey,” Zach said, pulling back. “Hey, chill out. What’s up?”

“I was thinking there’s...” Nate sat down on the bed, and Zach followed him, straddling his thighs and pinning him down so he couldn’t fidget and couldn’t escape. Nate looked up, and his teeth were digging into his lower lip again, the way they did when he was on the verge of saying something he thought was a bad idea, and Zach fought the urge to bite it for him. “So we’ve been fooling around and I know we have a game tomorrow, but I just, I feel like shit and I was doing some research...”

Zach’s eyebrows shot up.“Research?”

Nate might have been fully clothed, but the way the flush had started at the tips of his ears, Zach knew it wouldn’t be long before it spread down his neck and chest. He couldn’t quite meet Zach’s eyes, even though Zach was in his lap, and their faces were so close together that Zach could see the little tear in his lip where he’d bitten it. “Yeah, uh, research. I was thinking, there’s other things we could do, if you, if you wanted to.”

“Yeah?” Zach felt he had an idea of where this was going, but he couldn’t tell if he didn’t want to jinx it or if it was just a really bad idea. “What kinds of things?”

“I’m fucking embarrassed enough already, do you have to make me say it?”

“Are yousweating?” He couldn’t quite hide the delight in his voice, because it was certainly a goddamn ego boost when a guy wanted to fuck you so badly that his face was red and little beads of moisture had broken out on his temples, but then he also kind of felt bad, because, well. Nate was suffering.

But Nate was suffering because ofhim. And that felt amazing.

Nate didn’t answer, just exhaled sharply and muttered, “Look, it’s stupid, I know, but I wanted... I thought I wanted to try it. And if we lost and we didn’t keep going...”

There were all kinds of things that he could imagine doing with Nate, all kinds of things they hadn’t gotten a chance to do yet, and for a second, thinking about ending things now that they’d just gotten started felt like a slap in the face. But he didn’t have to worry about that, because Nate was here, and Nate was asking him for at least some of it.

There were things happening inside Zach that had nothing to do boners, and it was weird. It was like having butterflies in his stomach and being on a roller coaster all at once, that intense combination of surprise and giddy anticipation he’d had on his draft day, nervous and so fucking excited all at the same time. He wanted to tell Nate,you make me feel like a teenager again, but there wasn’t a good way to say that without it sounding stupid. It was weird thinking about how jaded he’d become over the last decade or so, without even realizing it, and how different this was. It wasn’t unwelcome, it was just weird.

Things were weird.

That was the new normal, things being weird, and he didn’t evencare.

He was probably grinning like an idiot, but they were both idiots, so that didn’t matter. Zach shifted his hips so that his dick ground against Nate’s, rewarded by the sharp exhale of breath in response.

“Buddy, if you wanted to fuck me, you could’ve just asked.” He’d meant it to be joking and jaunty, but it came out stupid soft and quiet.

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