Page 31 of Time to Shine

“Damn. Check out Chef Stacks over here.”

Landon narrowed his eyes at him.

“You got a YouTube channel I can subscribe to?” Casey teased.

“Maybe I’ll go to bed early.”

“No.” Without thinking, Casey reached out and put a hand on Landon’s bare forearm. “I want to hang out.”

Landon stared at Casey’s hand, then slowly pulled his arm away. “Fine.” He went to the living room with his mug, and Casey lingered in the kitchen for a moment, replaying the last few seconds. He shouldn’t have touched Landon.

He was going to apologize, but it got caught in his throat when he glanced at the living room. Landon was standing at the window, backlit by Christmas lights, and rubbing the spot where Casey had touched him.

It’s not like Casey hadn’t had any sexual thoughts about Landon. Casey had sexual thoughts about a lot of people, but they were usually along the lines of “I’ll bet it would be fun to have sex with them” or “I’ll bet sex would be intense with them” or “I should see if this person wants to have sex again sometime.” Looking at Landon now, he was hit by a weird combination of “I want to make him smile” and “I’ll bet sex with him would be fun and intense at the same time” and “Oh no I really like him.”

He really liked him.

And now Landon was staring back at him with a nervous little half smile. “What?”

Casey managed to smile back. “Nothing. The lights look nice.”

It wasn’t that he was a coward—he had a long history of shooting his shot with just about anyone he wanted—it was that he knew any sort of advance or flirtation would make Landon uncomfortable. Just like how touching him had clearly made him uncomfortable. Casey needed to adjust his typical behavior around him.

“We should watch a Christmas thing,” Casey said.

“Sure.” Landon sat in the corner of the sectional sofa, his long legs stretched out on the cushions in front of him.

“Wait! I have an idea,” Casey said. He turned on the electric fireplace he always forgot about, even though it was directly under the TV and almost as big. “There we go. Christmas movie, hot chocolate, fireplace.”

“We’re party animals,” Landon said.

“Out of control,” Casey agreed. He sat on one end of the sofa, far from Landon, and began the process of fighting with his television.

In the end, they watched Elf, and Landon fell asleep halfway through it. If it wasn’t for the creepy fucking living room window, Casey probably would have fallen asleep too. Instead, he watched the movie, but kept stealing glances at Landon. Asleep, his face softened. His jawline was still razor sharp, but his plush lips weren’t pulled into a tight line or a confused frown. His dark eyelashes were fanned out on his pale skin. Every now and again he’d let out a quiet sigh that would make Casey’s heart flip.

When the movie was over, Landon woke up. “Oh shit. Did I fall asleep?”

“Yeah. But don’t worry, Buddy saved Christmas.”

Landon sat up and stretched, exposing a strip of stomach where his T-shirt rode up. Casey looked away.

A few minutes later, as Casey climbed the stairs to his bedroom, he resolved to shut these weird feelings down. They weren’t going to do anyone any good. Not him, and especially not poor Landon.

Chapter Eleven

Three nights later, Landon was sitting cross-legged on the floor of his dark bedroom, wearing pajamas and a goalie mask.

Earlier that day, at practice, Landon had learned he would, in fact, be starting against San Jose tomorrow. It hadn’t been a surprise—Antton had played tonight against Minnesota, and San Jose was a low-ranked team—but Landon still could barely believe this was happening. He was going to be starting an NHL game tomorrow night in front of the home crowd.

And now he couldn’t sleep.

It was, last he’d checked, past three in the morning and he was wide awake. After several hours of staring into the total darkness of his basement bedroom from his bed, he’d moved to the floor, and put on his mask. It was a strange but effective method he’d been using for years to settle his brain.

Tonight, it wasn’t working. He felt the passing minutes like weights being added to a belt.

If he didn’t sleep, he’d play like shit tomorrow.

He was going to be exhausted and slow and terrible.

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