Page 27 of Goaltender Interference

Aiden could barely pay attention to the movie, but finally, it was late enough that both of them were yawning and exhausted.

Matt said, “I have to get up to go to the gym early tomorrow, so I’m gonna crash. You can stay up and watch something if you want to, don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.”

Matt reached out and his hand rested against the side of Aiden’s face, thumb pressing lightly right below his jaw. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For taking the offer seriously.”

Aiden couldn’t quite look him in the eye, but there was nowhere else to look. It had always been hard to turn away from Matt when he got like this: so intense and so sincere it was overwhelming. “Yeah, well. A change of scenery, right?”

“Yeah,” Matt said, then patted him sharply on the cheek. “Okay. Uh. Good night.”

Matt’s spare bed was objectively comfortable, like everything else in his condo, but Aiden tossed and turned for an hour or so, staring at the ceiling. Tried one side of the bed and then the other. As nice as the bed was, it wasn’t right. He couldn’t get his body to calm down. Like any other night at home, it was loud as hell in his head, all of the thoughts he’d been able to meditate away during the seasons he played back in full force and at top volume. The same problem that had driven so much of his New York misery.

But he wasn’t in New York anymore.

Aiden sat up and got out of the bed. He walked to the other side of the condo and into Matt’s bedroom. Matt was asleep, sprawled out and taking up most of the bed like he always did, tangled in blankets he had mostly kicked off already.

Aiden took a deep breath and slipped into the bed next to him. Matt’s eyes half-opened, blearily. “...Aidy?”

“Sorry,” he mumbled, “couldn’t sleep.”

Without answering, Matt closed his eyes, threw an arm over Aiden’s side and shoved one of his knees between Aiden’s legs. He was broader and harder than he used to be, but he still smelled the same; his face still had the same soft look in sleep.

Aiden fell asleep like that, under the weight of Matt’s arm, listening to the sound of Matt breathing.

He didn’t dream.

Matt slowly opened his eyes, groggy and out of it, and for a second, he wondered at the fucked up dream he’d had yesterday. Aiden in Montreal. Aiden in his condo. Aiden climbing into bed with him.

And then he realized that it was real, and he was still in bed, curled up against Aiden’s warm back. His eyes flew open, and he sat up, slowly, so he wouldn’t disturb him. For a second, he couldn’t breathe.

In sleep, Aiden looked almost like Matt remembered him: serene in a way he never was awake. The long, proud line of his nose. The curve of his lip. The thick, black eyelashes against his cheek, the dark circles under his eyes. His hair hung into his face and his face rested on his arm. His mouth hung open a little and he was breathing the slow, even rhythm of sleep.

Matt stared down at him. It was fucking surreal. He’d woken up like this countless times over the years. Back then he would’ve woken Aiden up, too, with a blowie or a hand on his cock, enjoyed the sleepy way he always leaned into the touch. Matt wanted more than anything to touch him. Just to run his hand down Aiden’s arms, his back, the line of his face. Like if Matt could trace his entire body, somehow it would make it more solid, make it more real.

It was stupid.Hewas stupid. He had to be normal about this, because if he couldn’t, Aiden would flee again. That would be it. Matt would lose him for the second time, and there wouldn’t be any way in the universe that he could possibly fixthatagain. No: he just had to be patient. Let Aiden rest and recover and do whatever he needed to do to feel more like himself, and then—well, he’d worry about what came after that, when it happened.

He couldn’t help it. He leaned down and pressed his mouth against Aiden’s shoulder, the barest hint of a kiss. Aiden smiled in his sleep, shifted a little to turn over, tucked himself around Matt’s body.

Jesus.

It was a tempting thought. To stay in bed, to wake Aiden up with a deeper kiss, to see if he would be this needy when he wasn’t sleeping.

But also, Matt had his training: the gym, meetings with the coaching staff and specifically the skills coach and the head trainer to discuss his knee and how they were going to manage it over an eighty-two-game season. He didn’t have the time to stay in bed with his ex-boyfriend, however soft his hair was against Matt’s skin, however snuggly he was with his eyes closed.

Matt took a deep breath.

This whole idea had been insane. The fact that it hadworkedwasn’t the point. It could explode in his face, spectacularly, at any second. He was really treading the tightrope here, no net underneath. But he couldn’t regret what he’d done, even if things were—weird. Even if he was caught in this limbo of Aiden’s sad eyes and hesitance, and Aiden’s warm body in his bed at night.

He gently disentangled himself from the half-embrace and slid out of the bed. After a second, he pulled the blankets back up over Aiden, still asleep in the rumpled sheets. He squared his shoulders. He went to get dressed. He grabbed a receipt from the top of his bureau to scribble a note on the back.

He went to the gym.

Aiden woke up later than normal, unusually well-rested but alone in Matt’s bed. Blinking, he sat up to find that Matt had left him a handwritten note on the side table, next to a small brass key. It was the same sharp, slanted handwriting he’d always had. Aiden could picture it, the scrawled MS4 that made up his signature.

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