I raised my brows. “Luna Pierson.”
He stared at me, dead quiet for two beats, then dropped his skate with a thud. “No fucking shit.”
“What?” I said, my heart starting to pound.
He let out a low whistle. “I’ve been hooking up with her, too.”
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not.” He looked straight at me now. “I was at the bar, and she came with Nova. It’s only been a week or so, but... wow, that’s wild.”
I leaned back slowly. “Holy shit.”
He started laughing. “No wonder she kept dodging questions about what she was doing the night before.”
“Dude,” I said, “wild is one fucking word for it.”
We sat in silence for a minute, processing, the shock starting to settle into something weirder. Not anger. Not jealousy. Just... realization.
“You mad?” he finally asked.
I shook my head. “Nah. Are you?”
“Nah.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “It’s Luna. Of course she knew.”
“Oh, yeah. She’s been playing chess, and we’ve been playing fucking checkers.”
He grinned. “You get why though, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, she’s different with me. It’s... intense.”
“She talks to me,” he said, quieter. “After.”
I tilted my head. “You’re the aftercare guy.”
He looked at me. “And you’re the guy who fucks her up in the best way.”
That made me laugh. “Sounds about right.”
Dirks shrugged. “She needs both, maybe.”
“We give her different things,” I said. And then after a second I asked, “You cuddle her, don’t you?”
“Every time,” he said, no shame.
I nodded. “I’m the opposite. I fuck her until she cries, and then I leave her alone.”
He blinked. “And she lets you?”
“She likes it,” I said. “She needs the edge. But she needs the softness, too. That’s you.”
“So what the hell does that make us?”
I shrugged. “The lucky ones.”
The silence that followed was easy. There was no tension or weirdness. It was two guys sitting in a locker room, realizing they were part of something bigger than they thought.
Dirks leaned back against the wall. “You think she’d go for it?”
