“Okay folks, are you ready for this?” the announcer asked. “I’ve got a cute story for you. See the Murderland boys? Well, their jammer just got married to their fourth blocker. Isn’t that sweet? Real derby husbands!”
Judging by theawwsound travelling through the audience, they did think it was sweet. Jace hadn’t thought about how they might react, but he was glad it was positive.
Noah glanced at him, but said nothing. Jace knew Noah was uncomfortable with forcing him to appear to be gay—or bi, really—in public, but Jace had gotten over the weirdness. Other than when he was deliberately play acting with Noah for the sake of believability, it didn’t make any difference to his life.
“I think it’s sweet,” Jace said softly, catching Noah’s eye again to wink at him. Jace saw him relax, his shoulders slumping and the lines that had formed on his forehead smoothing out. He wanted Noah to understand that he was completely cool with their arrangement.
It had meant at least twice as many home-cooked meals and a hug when he needed one, so far. He wasn’t about to complain. Noah was making his life easier and happier, not taking anything away from him.
The shrill note of a whistle signaled the start of the game, and all thoughts about his home life left Jace’s head. Instead, he focused on the other team’s jammer. A blocker’s job was simple—get in the other guy’s way, as much as you can, and get the other guys out of your jammer’s way where possible.
He’d been playing long enough now that it was second nature to him. Once the game started, everything came automatically. Jace could see where he was supposed to be going, how he could get around someone, what he could do to help.
He assumed it was like that for Noah, too. Noah got lost in the game, as far as Jace had seen. He was fearless on the track. Jace loved watching him from the bench, looking at the way he moved without hesitation, with perfect control. Despite the accident earlier in the week, Noah was still the best player Jace had ever seen.
Jace saw an opening to get Noah past the other team’s pack, and skated in to take it. They’d practiced this move a hundred times, but it had never come up in a real game before. Jace could feel his heart hammering in his chest as he reached out to Noah, picking him up by the waist, clear off the track, and swinging him over the out-of-bounds area. He stepped around an opposing-team blocker, and then set Noah down on the other side to let him take advantage of the gap the other team had left.
The rush of blood pounding in Jace’s ears was replaced by a cheer from the crowd. He grinned to himself, glancing to the side to see Noah clear of the pack and coming back around to lap them again. If he was quick, he’d manage to lap the whole pack—and score another five points—before they recovered from the flashy maneuver.
That was one he’d stolen from the women’s team. Compared to men’s derby, women’s wasbrutal. The guys got knocked around a little, but the girls wore their bruises, cuts, and even fractures like badges of honor.
It was actually kind of hot, even if Jace’s nurse side winced at seeing them hurt. He hadn’t been to a women’s bout in a while. Maybe Noah would come with him sometime.
Jace was still celebrating the way they’d pulled off the assist when he heard a sickening thud and the sound of the crowd reacting to an injury, a low ‘ooh’ followed by a wince he could almost feel in the air. He turned, not seeing anything of note ahead of him, and saw that Noah had fallen on the track.
At first, he was disappointed, but not worried. They’d make the points up, and if you didn’t fall at least a few times per game you weren’t doing it right. Noah would recover quickly and get right back in the game, and they probably wouldn’t even suffer over this.
Then Jace realized that Noah wasn’t getting up.
Chapter Eleven
Noah groaned, desperately wanting to turn onto his back so he could breathe again. He’d fallen okay, but the hit that had taken him down still hurt. As he’d been coming back around the pack, Rafe’s elbow—or rather, his elbow pad, which was made of very solid plastic—had connected squarely with Noah’s chest, knocking the wind out of him.
It wasn’t Rafe’s fault. Noah had come up too close behind him and assumed that he’d have the same eyes in the back of his head that Jace did. He’d dropped his guard because he was still thrilled about the move they’d pulled off ten seconds earlier.
He heard someone kneel beside him. Probably a referee to tell him he hadn’t fallen as well as he should have and had earned himself a foul, as well. He prided himself on playing mostly clean, though fouls were intentionally not especially punishing in roller derby. Enough of them could screw up your chances at winning the game, especially if a fourth minor foul put you out of action for a full minute at a critical moment, but otherwise they weren’t the end of the world. People were rarely sent off permanently.
“Hey.”
Noah swallowed. Not a ref, then. Jace. He fought to focus on him, fighting back a wave of nausea. He couldn’t remember being hit so hard in his life. He’d been in actual fights where people had intended to hurt him and come out of it better off than he felt now.
“I got you,” Jace assured him. Before Noah could decide what that meant in context, Jace scooped him up, holding him bridal-style to move him off the track.
First ten minutes of the game, and he was already being carried off. Noah would have been humiliated if it was anyone other than Jace doing it.
As it was, he leaned a little closer and let Jace’s presence soothe him. It was okay if it was Jace taking care of him.
A tiny voice in the back of his head told him he was falling in love with him, but he was too sore to panic about it just yet. As long as Jace was the guy who could stand upright and save him from stopping play until he could walk himself, Noah couldn’t bring himself to care about anything else.
That wasn’t true. He cared about how gentle Jace was being, how glad he was that Jace had been there, and how much he would have enjoyed this if his head wasn’t still spinning from the impact of Rafe’s elbow. But he couldn’t afford to think about it right now.
Jace set him on the bench carefully and sat down next to him. The referee whistled, and everyone on the track got up from the kneeling position they’d taken when Noah had been hurt.
“Don’t talk,” Jace said, shoving a water bottle into Noah’s hand as their replacements left the bench and headed onto the track. “Get your breathing under control.”
Noah had barely realized that he was wheezing until Jace had pointed it out. He closed his eyes and dropped his head, spreading his knees apart to open his posture a little and let his lungs fill up properly. He probably should have tilted his head back, but it was spinning hard enough as it was.
He felt so stupid for being taken out so badly by a misplaced elbow.
