I've been at my desk since she left, a scouting report open on my laptop, the blue-white light washing the walls until my eyes ache. The words slide past without sticking, and my phone sits dark beside the keyboard—Marco hasn't texted again.
The recorder sits on my desk. I've picked it up twice, both times letting the plastic warm in my hand for a few seconds before I set it back exactly where it was, like moving it would be some kind of admission.
I shove the chair back and stand, my muscles tight from sitting too long. The hallway between our rooms is hardwood I've walked hundreds of times, but tonight the boards sound louder under my bare feet, each step carrying down the narrow space until I stop outside Cole's door.
The silence on the other side has weight to it—Cole sounds different when he sleeps, and this quiet means he's awake,waiting, and the knowledge of it tightens the muscles across my shoulders.
I knock once, wait a beat, then ease the door open.
His room is dim except for the faint glow from his phone on the nightstand, screen angled down but still lighting the edge of the table. Cole lies on his back on top of the covers with one arm folded behind his head, eyes open and tracking me the moment I cross the threshold. He's been waiting. The door clicks shut behind me, and the look in his eyes hits me like a physical touch.
"Took you long enough," he says, his voice low and rough.
"I was reading."
"You were staring at her recorder."
I sit on the edge of his bed, the mattress sinking under my weight, and the heat from his body reaches me even through the covers.
"You were cruel to her today," he says. "The borrowed name thing."
"She was right about the turnovers."
"So you went for the throat."
My jaw shifts, and I keep my eyes on the window, on the dark glass.
"You went for the throat, Dante. There's a difference. You know it." He holds my gaze, his eyes blue in the dim light, and the press of it sits in the muscle behind my ribs like a fist. "She's going to remember that," he says. "The tourism line. The borrowed name. She'll file it. She files everything."
"I know."
"Do you? Because the woman you called a tourist with a borrowed name is the best hockey journalist on this campus. She's going to write about you for the next three months and you gave her a reason to sharpen every fucking word."
"She had reasons before tonight."
"You gave her a new one."
The room smells faintly of laundry soap and winter air from the cracked window, the chill seeping in and raising goosebumps along my arms despite the heat crawling under my skin. My body is already keyed up, the cold pulling everything tight, every nerve stripped raw.
"Come here," I say, my voice lower than I intended, rough with want.
"I'm right here." Cole's exhale mists in the cold air between us, and the inch of distance still there pulls hard behind my sternum.
"Closer."
He rises onto one elbow and leans in. The movement brings the heat of his body into my space before he touches me, a radiating warmth that tightens my nipples against my shirt and catches in my lungs. My hand settles on the back of his neck, fingers closing around the same place they've closed for years: the solid muscle, the fine hairs at his hairline damp with sweat from practice. The press of my thumb into the tendon along the side pulls a short, controlled exhale from him, and the sound rises in my own chest at the same time, making my cock stir.
His mouth meets mine, and the familiar pressure of it cuts straight through the noise in my head, a clean, brutal anchor that pulls my spine taut and locks my throat around a sound. He tastes like toothpaste and the protein bar he eats before bed, a taste so known it feels like my own. My tongue slides against his, and the wet heat of his mouth hardens my cock against my thigh until the pressure is a dull, persistent ache. My hand stays at his neck, his hands stay at his sides, his fingers curling tight into the sheets where the strain gathers in his knuckles.
The rule is six years old, set in a parking lot in New Hampshire after a game. The engine ticked as it cooled, his hand on my thigh and my mouth on his before either of us said a word aboutwhat it meant. I kissed him first. I set the terms: his hands stay down until I say otherwise.
I pull back enough to break the kiss. The air between us is cold, biting at my wet lips.
"What?" I say.
"Nothing."
"Your hands are down."
