“Yes, we did.” He pulls slightly away from me, but only far enough that he can remove one hand from behind my back and slide it across and around my shoulder, then bring it to my face. He holds me steady to look directly at him. His brown eyes are back to being sad, lonely, and most of all hurt. They hide nothing. “We have ten more days like this,” he says and brushes my lip with his thumb. “I intend to make the most of them. I hope you do too.”
I pull away from him. “But you said I was worth losing your career over.”
“You are,” he says and catches my arm, tugging me towards him again. “But I’m not.”
I crumple to the floor beside our makeshift bed.
He sinks down with me and slings an arm over my shoulder, pulling me into his side. We rest our backs against the shitty wooden bedframe.
“That’s not true,” I say to him.
“It is true, Connor. You have a lot more to lose than I do.”
“But I can’t lose you.” I’m suddenly glad we’re no longer looking at each other as my eyes are beginning to burn.I shut them tight, trying to keep my tears at bay.
“Babe,” he laughs with more affection than I can handle in his voice right now. “We’re going to lose each other anyway.”
“We don’t have to,” I argue. Because we don’t. “We can make it work. We can do long distance, then spend the summer together.”
“And then go back to long distance in the fall again.” He pauses and takes a breath. “Connor, believe me when I tell you it’s tempting. But it isn’t enough. And it would be impossible for us to do. How would we handle playing against each other?”
“How will we handle it, anyway?” I ask as I lose the battle with the tears that have been collecting. I hastily wipe the underside of my eyes with the backs of my hands. “Do you think it matters if we’re broken up or not?”
He lets out a sad, watery laugh, then sniffs. “Probably not.”
“Then we owe it to ourselves to try.” I turn myself and climb over his legs to sit on his lap. I grab both sides of his face and take advantage of the fact that in this position, I can look down at him. “Promise you won’t just walk away from us. Tell me you’ll try. We can make it work.”
He smiles at me, and I can feel my cheeks begin to burn. He touches my skin. His thumb runs across my cheekbone, then he uses the knuckle of his finger to swipe under myeyes for me. “We can try,” he says and wraps his arms around my waist. He pulls me to him and kisses me.
I’m smiling when we break apart, but I still don’t feel settled. He’s not wrong. Things are going to get a lot harder on us back in the real world. There’s distance, and road trips, and team drama, and the playoffs. There’s still my father, and the fallout of Gavin being outed, alone and by himself.
It’s as if he’s read my mind. “Promise me something,” he says.
“Anything.”
“Don’t come out. At least not right away. Let’s keep this between us until the end of the season. Give us a chance to make it work before the press gets a hold of it.”
I nod my head in understanding. I don’t like it, but he’s right. If I came out as the mystery man in question, we’d be putting the nail in our own coffin. The press would feast on it and the stress of it, along with playing under an extra microscope, would doom us before we could get a proper start. No matter how well we played, no matter even if we bring home the gold, this would be the only story anyone would care about. There would be no easy adjustment period for us to find our way. And that’s not even including the shitstorm we’d have to deal with when it comes to my father.
My eyes sting again with my frustration. He runs his knuckle a second time across the soft skin underneath my eyes. “It doesn’t have to be forever,” he says. “We can make a plan for you to come out as my boyfriend when you’re ready.”
Hearing him call me his boyfriend brings a shy smile immediately to my face.
He brushes my cheek with his finger. “Adorable,” he says, smiling as shyly as I am. “You know I can’t resist it when you blush.”
I roll my eyes at him. “You don’t play fair.”
“How do I not play fair?”
“You knew what was going to happen the minute you called me your boyfriend.”
Gavin
“Maybe.” I shrug and give him a guilty smirk. “And I’ll do it again.”
I pull him towards me for another kiss. This time, I take it slow and long, savoring the taste of the forbidden fruit that is him. This is a terrible idea. I should have said no. But I couldn’t. Not with the way he was looking at me with so much hope and fire in his eyes. I melted. Just like he’s melting into this kiss. He feels boneless in my arms and suddenly all I want is to fill him up and make him whole again.
With one hand wrapped around his back, I use my other for leverage and pull us up off the floor. I place him down on the bed, bringing his head to rest on the pillows, and lay myself down on top of him. I find the one part of him that is hard. His dick. I rut mine against his and try not to get frustrated by the layers of clothes between us, keeping my skin from his.
