Page 27 of Full Body Hit: Part 2
Chase sprung up, scrambling after Auston. He barely caught Sammy rolling his eyes as he passed him.
“Wait. Um—how areyoudoing? Sorry, I’ve been kind of busy lately.”
Auston quirked his head at him. “Yeah? What have you been up to?”
“Oh, um…stuff.”
Auston’s lips twitched, a smile here and gone. “Stuff. Cool.”
“Don’t make fun of me. I have very interesting hobbies, you know.”
“Oh, right, yeah. I forgot how interestingstuffcan be.”
Chase got vehemently defensive of his very much existent hobbies. By the time he was finished, they were walking out of practice together, heading to grab some food.
Which was fine. What was a little lunch, really?
It was…good. Auston was actually kind of funny when he wasn’t being an asshole, telling a story about his first years in the NHL when everybody still shared a room on the road. How he’d woken up one time to his roommate buck-ass naked on the floor.
“That wasn’t even the part that surprised me…it was the ketchup all over his pubes. I thought someone had cut his fucking dick off.”
Chase covered his mouth, but the laugh still burst out loudly. “Oh, my God.”
“Cocaine is a hell of a drug.”
Chase’s eyes widened. “No! You didn’t…”
Now it was Auston’s turn to laugh. “Kid, things were different back then. Now guys are swearing offcoffee.”
“Well, actually, regular consumption of caffeine is…never mind,” Chase trailed off at Auston’s unimpressed look.
“Chekov used to eat three hot dogs as a pre-game meal and two after. And he scored more than a hundred points in ten of the seasons he was in the game. You can have a damn cup of coffee.”
Chase couldn’t help but grin. “Kids these days, huh, old man?”
Auston tried to glower, but the smile peeked through, the softy.
Chase was in a floaty mood for the rest of the day. Even the following morning was bright and cheery despite having to get up at dawn—they had a game in Denver the following day, and they were flying in early to habituate to the altitude.
Chase usually sat with Sammy on the jet, but he was too stumped to say no when Auston waved at the seat beside him—right by the window like Chase liked.
“You prefer that one, right? Not the by the aisle?”
Chase nodded mutely. Why had Auston noticed that?
It should have been awkward, but Auston didn’t focus on him, concentrating on whatever he was doing on his phone. Chase couldn’t help but relax—maybe a little too much, seeing as he woke up a few hours later drooling on Auston’s shoulder.
“Oh my God,” Chase said as he sat up. “I’m so sorry.”
Auston waved it away, stopping Chase’s stream of apologies by putting his big, warm hand on his head and rustling his hair a little.
It shut Chase right up, body going tense and hot and spinny at the simple contact.
But nothing they did crossed a line. It was friend stuff. He was allowed to have friends—it wasn’t as if Aunix would mind.
And yet he kept that little detail to himself. That night, when Aunix asked how his day had been, he didn’t mention his impromptu nap.
It just wasn’t important, anyway.
