“That doesn’t sound relaxing at all,” Gabe said, laughing. The sound was rich and deep and honey-like.
“It definitely was not. And I’m pretty sure she wasn’t even licensed. But whatever she did worked, because I left feeling like a brand-new person.”
More chuckles from Gabe. He rubbed his foot against mine. “I’m going to need her info, then.” He rolled his neckand groaned. “I’ve been pretty tense lately. Lots of shit going on.”
I turned to look at him. I had noticed that Gabe was prone to missing practice sometimes, and he wasn’t around for a lot of the hangout sessions and sometimes trained on his own, either late at night or at the butt-crack of dawn. I knew this because I asked Dylan one day when I realized I was, one, subconsciously tracking Gabe’s schedule and, two, curious about what was keeping him busy. “I’ll find you someone who isn’t working out of her garage.”
“It was in her garage? Are you sure she didn’t extract a kidney while you were there?”
“You know… I did feel lighter too. How much do kidneys weigh?”
More easy laughter. I inched closer to him. He put an arm out and around my shoulders. It was nothing, but it was also fucking everything. Another simple gesture that could have so many different interpretations. An arm around a teammate after scoring a goal was celebratory. An arm around a naked man you just hooked up with and were now lying in bed with was intimate, gentle. It was warmth.
“Is everything okay?” I ventured to ask. Maybe it was none of my business, but I knew that I cared for Gabe. Even as just a good friend, as a good teammate.
Gabe was silent for a moment while he traced shapes on my chest with his fingers. “It hasn’t been, no. There’s a lot of things going on with…” He stopped himself. “Just with everything. And my family situation is also, um, complicated.”
I could tell he didn’t want to really divulge much further right now. And that was okay. There would be other opportunities to open up. “Well, if there’s any way I can help take some of the load off, let me know.”
“I think you’ve already done a lot in that department.”
“Touché,” I said. I didn’t know what pushed me into kissing him next, but I did. And he kissed me back, soft and tender. The bite of lust was right there under the surface, but we both restrained ourselves. Exhaustion was starting to slip in. It was already close to midnight, and we had a long day ahead of us tomorrow.
“We should probably try and get some sleep,” I said.
“I can stay up with you all night, but damn, I think you’re right.”
Judging by the way his cock was growing, he wasn’t lying. I was getting hard too, but I was fine with cuddling until we went to sleep. Besides, we had two more nights here together.
That was, of course, if he even wanted to cuddle. Maybe that pillow wall was coming up.
“You don’t snore, do you?”
“I don’t think so,” Gabe said. “Maybe a little.”
“I usually sleep with some white noise playing,” I said, both of us getting out of bed to brush our teeth.
Gabe looked at me in the bathroom mirror with his eyebrows raised. “Shit. For some reason, I can’t sleep with any noise playing in the room. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, that’s fine. I can try wearing headphones. Do you have audio-mepho-something too?”
“What the fuck is that?”
I laughed. “I don’t really know. It’s what Dylan said he had. That he’s hypersensitive to those kinds of sounds.”
“Oh, no,” he said, shaking his head as we went back to bed. We got in under the covers, neither of us moving to erect a pillow barrier between us. “I don’t think so. That sounds… yeah, I think he could have made that up.”
“Really?”
“Possibly. Most likely.”
“Damn it, he did sound a little off saying it.”
Gabe laughed, the sound vibrating through the mattress. It was a queen-sized bed, so there was plenty of room for us both to stretch out, yet like two magnets, we were skin-to-skin, shoulder-to-shoulder. Without any prompting, and without any resistance from either of us, we naturally got into a big spoon/little spoon position, with Gabe’s comforting arm thrown over my side, his hard (and still leaking) dick resting against my ass. My back directly against his chest. I could feel every breath.
I went to sleep that night without a care in the world while feeling like I was floating far, far above it.
Chapter Fifteen
