“Absolutely,” Bash said, finally pushing himself fully upright.
Adonis, with great reluctance, rolled out of bed and went about the process of collecting his clothes, which Bash had brought from the bathroom.
“Good,” he said. “Very good.”
When they said goodbye at Bash’s door, Bash pulled him in for a long kiss. They rarely kissedaftertheir hookups, but Adonis always wanted to. Now, he was glad they did. He let the kiss linger and stole a second one before he finally worked up the willpower to go to the door.
“Good night, Bash,” he said softly when he stepped into the cold night air. It was snowing.
“Goedenacht, Adonis,” Bash said, leaning against the doorframe. He wore sweatpants and no shirt. Adonis felt Bash’s gaze on him as he walked off into the night, but he refused to let himself turn around.
Chapter 19
Bash
Blijf bij mij, he’d said to Adonis. Stay with me. He hadn’t dared to say it in English. He wished he did. He wished he had said it loudly in English, proclaiming to Adonis and the world that he wanted Adonis to stay with him, that he wanted Adonis to stay, not leave. He wished he dared to figure out, even for himself, what he wanted. Then he would be able to find the words to tell Adonis how he felt, how he wanted more than what they were.
How he was sure Adonis wanted more, too.
They’d said they wouldn’t be more than a hookup. They’d said that they wouldn’t let themselves come to mean more to each other than their bodies. But Adonisdidmean more to him.
The more he talked to Adonis, the more time he spent in his presence, the more he wanted. He was greedy with his time. He wanted it all. Not just Adonis’s body, but his mind, his heart, his humor, his laughter, and his bad days. He wanted to hold all of those things in gentle, open hands, to show Adonis how much he could cherish those things, how much he could cherishhim.
Bash had never thought he would be a good boyfriend. With Adonis, though, it seemed easy. It felt like it would be the most natural thing. Just as he felt he was born to play hockey, he felt he wasbornto be with Adonis.
Like he was born toloveAdonis.
Love wasn’t a word Bash said easily. He wasn’t afraid of love. He just understood that it was serious. The love he had seen modeled in his family wasn’t bad, but it was practical. The love his parents showed each other, and their children, was a pragmatic sort of love. Love meant providing for each other; it meant establishing something stable.
Bash knew he could provide, knew that he could be stable, but that wasn’t the primary thing he wanted to offer Adonis. He also knew that wasn’t what Adonis was looking for. They’d barely talked about money. Sure, Adonis knew that Bash had family money, but he didn’t seem to care. He had no interest in having everything paid for, and didn’t seem to want someone to “protect” him. Bash didn’t feel the need to prove Adonis wrong. In fact, he loved how Adonis was more than ready to stand up for himself and his boundaries.
He just wanted to share life with Adonis.
He wanted their texts and their emails to be in-person conversations.
When he wasn’t with Adonis, he found himself thinking of him. When he saw something in Amsterdam that made him laugh, he wondered what Adonis would think of it. When Lotte texted him something absurd about her developing romance with the Prince of the Netherlands, he instantly wanted Adonis’s take on it. When a hockey game went poorly, he wanted to go to Adonis for words of encouragement.
That, he knew, was not how he usually felt about a hookup.
This, he also knew, could no longer be called just a hookup. It was something else. Whatever was between them wanted to grow into something even more solid, even more real, and Bash didn’t know if they’d given it the soil to have that growth.
Hewantedit to grow like that, but he feared they wouldn’t be able to nurture it to its full potential. In a few short months, they would graduate, and then he would move away. They might have a few weeks at the start of the summer they could share, but then he’d be the stressed rookie of an NHL team, provided the Killer Whales still wanted him.
With his record this year after an injury, he wasn’t sure they would.
But if they did, he’d be in Seattle, and Adonis would be wherever law school took him. Probably still Boston, because most of the schools he told Bash he’d applied to had been in New England. He’d said he thought it would soften the blow if he at least told Anamária he’d be staying close to home for law school.
That would soften one blow, yes, but it would be all that much harder for Bash if Adonis ended up here, and he was on the other side of the country.
——
These thoughts were still knocking around his helmet during practice the next day, when he and Robbie led drills for the rest of the team. The Bellford hockey team had been doing well this year, and it was looking likely that they’d find themselves in the Frozen Four again.
“So, man, I need some advice,” Robbie said between hollering directions at the other players.
“Yeah? What’s up.”
“It’s about Clarisse.”
