Page 32 of Fresh Ice
Levy’s fingers drifted over his lips. “Uhm. Why’d you do that, though?”
Alonso chewed on his nails, shame a greasy, choking oil covering his lungs. For a moment, he couldn’t talk, the gravity of the stupidity of what he’d done hitting him all at once.
“I just…” Alonso shook his head. He could feel his pulse in his throat. “I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do.” Alonso went to get up, but a hand darted out and grabbed his arm, startling a noise out of him.
“Wait.” The stunned expression on Levy’s face slowly morphed into one of stony determination. “Wait.”
Alonso waited. He sat there, each second more unbearable than the last, until the need to escape almost took over.
“I’m not making fun of you…but is this a prank, or are you serious?” Levy asked quietly.
Alonso swallowed the lump in his throat. “It’s not a prank.”
The flush on Levy’s cheeks darkened. “Okay. I just…where did that come from? Are you even attracted to me?”
Embarrassment shot through Alonso. “I mean…kinda. Sorry.”
Levy took long seconds to process that. “I’m like…you’re blowing my mind right now, dude. You sure kept that under wraps.”
“I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
“I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, just, I hadnoidea.” Levy didn’t sound angry, at least, and Alonso chanced a peek at his face.
Levy looked surprised, but there was no malice or disgust there. And—of course there wasn’t. This was Levy. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body.
“So…you wanna kiss me.”
“I—no. I mean, I guess, but I wasn’t thinking when I did that. Obviously you don’t want that, which is totally fine.”
“Whoa, whoa. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
Alonso frowned, not sure what that meant.
“I mean, come on. You know what you look like. And we’re friends and stuff, it’s not like me wanting to kiss you is out of the question here.”
Alonso could hear his heart pounding in his ears. “Oh.”
“But this is kinda out of character for you, not gonna lie.”
Alonso swallowed, trying his hardest to be brave for once. “I guess I’ve been thinking about that conversation we had. The one about me finding an Alpha I can trust to…sleep with. And, I mean. I trust you.”
“Oh. Right.”
Alonso tensed at Levy’s quiet, disappointed voice, but when Alonso glanced up, his face gave nothing away. “I don’t mean like I wannauseyou—”
“No, I get’chu. I know it’s not a small thing, what you’re asking for. I mean, if youareasking me for it?”
Alonso took a deep breath and nodded jerkily. “I just wanna try it out once without it being…I don’t know. Without it sucking.” Alonso fiddled with the edge of his shirt. He used to chew on his clothes when he was younger, but his dad had forced him out of that pretty quickly. The habit had transferred to his nails, but his dad had given up on stopping that a long time ago.
Levy stared at his hands for a while, a deep frown on his face. When he finally looked up, though, his eyes were determined. “Okay.”
Something deep within Alonso shivered even as the rest of his body struggled to catch up. “Okay?”
“Yeah. I mean, it can’t affect our friendship. Or our play on the ice,” Levy said.
“Right. Yeah, no, totally.” They both expressed it in different ways, but the weight of the franchise was shared between them. They knew what a big responsibility keeping their chemistry on the ice intact was.
It was only then that Alonso fully processed how close they were sitting on the couch, their eyes meeting suddenly. The air seemed to thicken between them, sweet and syrupy and hard to breathe.
