“If I ever get a winning lottery ticket and a day off, I’ll do it,” he says. “Hotel sex after a game? Sounds hot.”
Now I’m measuring the distance to our sofa and counting the layers of clothes I’ll need to remove in the next ninety seconds.
But Jamie takes his hands off my shoulders. “I ate already, but your plate is in the oven. I just put it in there a few minutes ago. Chicken enchiladas. They should take fifteen minutes to warm up.”
“Thanks.” My stomach grumbles and he grins. I guess I’m hungry for more than one thing.
“Want a beer?”
Do I ever. “I’ll get ’em. Sit down. Cue up the next episode. We can watch it while we wait.” I sound overly polite to my own ears, but coming home after a road trip usually feels a little weird. There’s this brief but awkward re-entry that I hadn’t known to expect.
I have little use for the domestic chatter my married teammates share. But if I were the sharing kind, it would be tempting to ask—will it always be this way? Do the guys who’ve been coupled up for ten years feel it, too? Or is it the newness of our relationship that makes things a little odd for an hour or two whenever I come home?
Wish I knew.
My first stop is our open-plan kitchen for two beers, which I open and then deposit on our coffee table. We’ve lived here almost six months, and still there isn’t much furniture. We’veboth been too busy to really furnish the place. But we have the real necessities: a giant leather sofa, a kickass coffee table, a rug and a big TV.
Oh—and there’s a wobbly armchair that I rescued off the curb and kept over Jamie’s objections. He calls it the death chair. Jamie gives it wide berth, insisting that it has bad karma.
You can take the boy out of California, but you can’t take the California out of the boy.
I need to change, so I take a step toward our bedroom. But then I stop to ask him a question. “Hey, what do think of this shirt? I picked it up today, because I ran out of clean stuff.”
Jamie points the remote at the TV. “It’s very green,” he says without turning to look.
“I like it.”
“Me too, then.” He turns and the beard catches me off-guard again. But his smile sends me jogging toward our bedroom.
The bed is made up perfectly, so I toss my trousers, my very green shirt and my tie on the comforter, in a hurry to get back to Jamie. I throw on a pair of sweats and make it back to the living room to find Jamie propped into the corner of the couch on his side, his legs stretched out across the cushions. I don’t bother pretending to play it cool. I lay down right in front of him, my head against his shoulder, my back to his front.
“Shit,” I complain when I realize my error. “I left the beers out of reach.”
He clamps a hand over my abs. “Go,” he says.
I stretch with both hands for our bottles and he prevents me from falling on the floor. While the table is positioned perfectly for our feet when we’re sitting up, this little maneuver is for beer emergencies while we’re cuddling. They happen sometimes.
I pass his bottle over my head and hear him take a swig. The opening credits forBanshee—our current show—are rolling. “You didn’t cheat on me while I was gone, did you?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. The last episode wasn’t a cliffhanger, though. So you could say I haven’t really been tested.”
I snort into my beer and lean back into the solid warmth of his chest. Usually I’m really invested in this show, with its freaky plot and crazy fight scenes. But tonight it’s just an excuse to be skin to skin on the couch with my man while my dinner reheats. His beard tickles my ear, and that’s unexpected. I tilt my head back so his beard brushes my face, too. I can’t see the TV at all, and I just don’t care.
He dips his chin and rubs the beard against my cheek, then brushes his lips across my neck, leaving shivers in his wake. “What do you think?” he asks quietly.
I turn toward him carefully so as not to spill my beer. “You look fucktastic. Like J-Tim after he left NSYNC and got hot. But I want to feel it on my balls before I weigh in.”
He tips his head back and laughs suddenly, and that’s when the road-trip ice dam breaks. It’s just us again and his easy laugh and the comfort I feel when he’s around.
Yesss... I drop my head and lick his throat right below the border of the beard. Then I suck on his skin gently. Jamie stops laughing and relaxes his body against mine. We’re skin to skin from the waist up, and the feel of his heartbeat against mine makes me want to weep with gratitude. I nuzzle my nose through his fledgling beard, taking a circuitous route toward his mouth. The hair is softer than I expected.
“Fuck. Kiss me already,” he whispers.
So I do. The beard caresses my face as I fit my mouth overhis, diving in like I’ve been gone from him eight months, not eight days. He makes a happy sound deep in his chest. I kiss him thoroughly, reacquainting myself with his taste and the warmth of his breath on my face.
He sighs, and I slow things down, brushing my lips over his lazily.
We won’t get crazy right now, but it’s not out of awkwardness. Rather, we’re both holding a beer bottle, my dinner is in the oven and we have all night.
