Page 75 of Line Change

He’s sitting at his stall in his compression shorts with one elbow pad on, staring at my right hip. The bite Pope left there sits just above the waistband of my compression pants, dark enough that the shape of his teeth is still obvious.

Tape or fabric hides the marks on my shoulder and thigh. At my hip, he found the strip my gear misses.

I saw it in the mirror this morning. It looked lower when I was wearing boxer briefs, mostly covered by the waistband. My compression pants ride closer to my hips, which is useful information I could’ve learned before walking in here.

“Jesus, Fraser,” Bobby says. “Did you fuck a vampire?”

I follow his stare to my hip. “Maybe.”

A shout goes up behind me. Sindre yells, “Hell yeah,” and someone pounds both fists against his stall like I scored. I lift the hand holding my shirt and give them a wave. Bobby gets to his feet and claps over his head while a second whistle comes from the goalies’ side. Even Caleb looks up from taping his stick, shaking his head without hiding his grin.

“Do I need to see it?” Nara calls from the treatment room.

“No.”

“Then everybody leave him alone and get dressed.”

Bobby waits until she turns back to Anton before coming over.

I hold my shirt in front of the mark and say, “I don’t kiss and tell.”

“The hell you don’t!” Bobby holds out a fist.

I bump it with my knuckles, and he immediately tries to look around the shirt. We make a slow circle between our stalls before I catch his forearm when he reaches toward my waist.

“I’m not touching you,” he says.

“The bite’s higher.”

Bobby looks down and jerks his hand back when he realizes how close he got to my dick. The room gets loud again. He points at me while he laughs, but whatever defense he tries disappears under everyone else.

Sindre starts laughing. Bobby gives up on getting behind me and goes back to his stall, still grinning.

Anton leans farther through the treatment-room door. “That looks like it hurt.”

It did, and I liked it.

Nobody asks whether it was a woman or a man. Sindre only wants to know if that’s the only mark. I tell him he’s getting as bad as Bobby, and he raises both hands before I can throw my balled-up shirt at him.

Bobby is already trying to claim a point in whatever competition he was arguing about because he spotted the bite first. Sindre tells him that isn’t a hockey play. Bobby says it shows awareness, and Caleb tells both of them they’re idiots.

If Bobby walked in with teeth marks, we’d be worse. Pope has played pro hockey long enough to know that.

I pull the compression top over my head before anyone gets a better look at me. The fabric catches on my taped shoulder, leaving my face covered while I work my arm carefully into the sleeve.

Another bite sits beneath the tape where my shoulder meets my neck. I can still feel Pope’s mouth there and his hand at my hip, holding me where he wanted me. My face gets even hotter under the shirt.

“Maybe I had fun,” I say through the fabric.

“Yeah, you fucking did,” Bobby says from somewhere in front of me.

Pope drops his skate.

The blade hits the rubber floor with a hard clack that carries across the room. I finish pulling the shirt down over my chest without looking his way.

I nearly turn toward him, but if I see Pope right now, I’ll probably laugh. Bobby might finally look at the right person.

God forbid the slightest suspicion fall on Straight Saint Pope. He couldn’t possibly know anything about the teeth in my hip.