A sound escaped me. It wasn't quite a laugh. My ribs would veto that.
I adjusted the ice pack. The cold had gone from sharp to numb, doing its job.
"I don't want to hide anymore." It was true, and I was too tired to hold it back.
Kieran stopped looking at the ceiling. He looked at me.
"Me either."
We didn't have a plan. The series was still going. We still had morality clauses neither of us could renegotiate from a Nashville hotel room at eleven o'clock at night.
What changed was our framework for the future. We weren't guarding a secret anymore.
Kieran moved to the bed and sat beside me.
Our shoulders touched. Through two layers of cotton and the chemical cold of the ice pack, I felt the heat of him.
"You need to be careful with these." He touched the edge of the trainer's wrap where it met my skin. Checking the adhesion the way you'd check tape on a stick.
He kept his fingers there, touching the strip of skin between the wrap and the waistband of my boxers.
I turned my head. He was right there.
"Your ribs—"
"Are fine."
"They're not fine. You got folded around a goalpost four hours ago."
"Then be careful."
He looked at me. "I don't know how to be careful with you. I've been trying all year. I'm bad at it."
"Yeah. You are." I blinked back wetness at the corners of my eyes.
He kissed me.
It wasn't careful. His hand slid from the wrap to the back of my neck, fingers raking into my hair, and his tongue pushed into my mouth, tangling with mine.
I leaned in. My ribs protested, and I didn't care.
He tasted like hotel toothpaste and underneath it something familiar, Kieran.
His thumb traced the edge of the bruise through the wrap. I flinched. He pulled back.
"Sorry—"
"Don't stop."
He paused. Read my face. Whatever he found there made his breath catch, a small involuntary sound that I filed next to the knee bounce and the white knuckles.
He kissed me again. Slower. His hand was careful around the wrap, while his lips and tongue were not careful at all. I stopped thinking and let instinct take over.
"Game 5," he said. "Two days. Home ice."
"I know."
"We should sleep."
