Page 31 of Bad Pucking Roommate

Shoot, he noticed that?

“I’m not trying to find the perfect spot.” I duck my head to hide the blood rushing to my cheeks. “I just keep forgetting to take the things I need out of my bag.”

“Which you’ve also never done before, you usually just dress right out of your suitcase. There’s obviously something on your mind; sit down and spit it out before you wear a hole in the floor.” He points to the adjacentbed.

Dropping to the mattress, I rest my elbows on my knees and thread my fingers together, flexing them until they crack as I try to find the words I want. “I just… Should we go back to our old roommates? You know, since we can’t…”

“Can’t what?” His eyes narrow to confused slits.

“Can’t…You know.”My whole face heats as I roll my wrist, prompting him to finish the thought.

“You mean we can’t screw around? Says who?”

“Management. Coach.” I tick off my fingers one by one. “It’s against the rules now.”

“Pfft. Dating’s against the rules. Not this.” He draws an imaginary line between the two of us, and even though I know this has always—will always—be about sex, I feel a little pang of disappointment. Not because I want to date him, but because we have this connection now that I don’t want to cheapen by attributing it tojustsex.

It’s not a relationship. I know that, but it’s more than two guys just getting each other off. Deep down I’m pretty sure Luca feels that way too. What that makes us, I’m not sure, and seeing as how the definition matters now, we should probably get on the same page.

“Do you really think other people will see a distinction between this and dating?”

“I think it doesn’t matter since the only people who know about this are Niko and Noah, and they won’t say anything. But you can absolutely have regular sex with people you don’t date.” His brows collide as he exhales heavily. “I did it for nearly a decade.”

The way his voice falls flat as he goes silent makes my chest ache a little. “Your high school teammate? Charlie?” I ask.

Luca nods. “And his wife, Jessie.” When my jaw refuses to work he continues. “They live in Denver and I’d visit them before every homegame. We’d do our thing, and I’d crash in their guest room, but no matter how many times we fucked, that’s all it was. I mean, they’re my friends and all, but they’re strictly a couple.”

The distant look on Luca’s face helps me find my voice. “You said before every home game, but for the past few weeks I’ve been coming to your house before those.”

The corner of his lip ticks up, although it never turns into a smile. “They want to start a family. Threesomes aren’t really conducive to that.”

“You miss them?”

His lips are pressed into a firm line as he shakes his head. “No. Not in the way you’d expect anyway. Like I said, we weren’t dating. There was a purpose to all of our encounters.”

“Still, ten years is a long time to be involved with people. Even if you didn’t date in the traditional sense. It’d be normal to feel something for them. Something beyond just sex. And vice versa.”

“If that were true, I’d probably still be visiting them before my home games. I’m not, so…” Luca dips his head, avoiding my eyes. “Yeah, I think people can distinguish between dating and sex.”

I notice he says people, not him, and while I don’t want to push, it seems like there’s something he’s not saying. “You never wanted it to be more?”

He meets my eyes then, his own looking a little sad. “Shitty, right? I guess it’s okay considering I was using them as much as they were using me, but even after ten years, I never wanted more. With them or anyone. I couldn’t, since I wouldn’t have been able to be faithful.”

No wonder it’s so easy for him to separate sex from anything deeper. He’s never let himself experience anything but the physical aspect of sleeping with someone. I get it, but it makes me sad for him. He’ll never know what it’s like to have real intimacy. Not that Iknow much about that—my longest relationship was just shy of six months in high school—but I do remember it being nice to have someone you could share your thoughts and emotions with.

I respect the fact Luca wouldn’t put someone he cares about through the chaos of his inability to be monogamous, although I suspect it took a toll on him. Maybe even inadvertently fueled his superstitions if those casual interactions were the only way for him to connect with people, even if it was superficially.

I still have my doubts about whether fooling around is against the rules, but since Luca thinks we’re in the clear, and I know how strongly he believes this affects his game, I won’t say no. And truthfully, I’m sort of happy to follow his lead on this. I like that it’s made our connection stronger, on and off the ice.

Luca is a more complicated man than I first realized, and I like discovering more about him. I think the addition of our physical interaction was the catalyst for him to start revealing personal details about himself, and I want him to keep confiding in me. So, I’m happy to maintain that physical component if it’s what gets him to open up. Plus, as he’s mentioned a few times, it’s actually sort of hot.

I wasn’t expecting that when this all started. I mean, objectively speaking Luca is a good-looking man, and he’s got a spectacular physique, but neither of those things captured my attention in the beginning. It was his eyes, the expression on his face, that drew me in, which I attributed to what the women were doing to him. But we haven’t had a woman with us for weeks, and he still makes those same awed expressions. Looks at me with lust-filled eyes. And knowing that I can cause that sort of reaction with my touch… My body likes it. So do I. Physically.Just physically.

What I like even more is the idea that since I’m in a position to help him both at home and on the road, I might be able to fill the emotionalvoid I’m pretty sure exists from his belief that he couldn’t be faithful to anyone. As a friend of course, since we aren’t allowed to be anything more.Just friends.

“I don’t think it’s shitty to want to protect people, and that’s what you were doing by keeping things strictly sexual over the years,” I tell him.

“Maybe.” His shoulder rises listlessly. “I don’t think that makes me a good guy though.”

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