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“I’m not asleep.”

“You’ve got a bag of vegetables strapped to you and it’s leaking on the couch.” I get the bandage off, take the bag through to the sink. “How long has that been on?”

“Since the second period of that game.”

I open my mouth, then close it again.

“That’s three hours.”

“It’s fine, it’s only⁠—”

“You’ve got an ice burn coming on the front of that hip.” I come back and get a hand under his arm. “Up.”

He comes up in stages. He puts his weight on my shoulder. I take it. We walk the eight feet to the hall slowly. Neither of us makes a comment about it.

“Bed,” he says.

“Shower first. That joint’s been cold for three hours. You’ll seize solid overnight and you’ll be forty minutes getting out of bed. Ten minutes of hot water.”

“Marek.”

“Ten minutes,” I say. “Then bed, and I’ll stay.”

He goes into the bathroom.

Then he stops, holding the frame, and looks back at me.

“Come in with me.”

The bathroom is small. It goes white with steam in three minutes. The exhaust fan doesn’t work.

I get my clothes off and leave them on the floor. Then I get in behind him and pull the curtain across.

He puts both hands flat on the tile and lets the water go on the hip.

I wash him.

That’s all it is for a while. There’s a bar of soap and a bottle of the arena shampoo. I do his back and his shoulders, the back of his neck, down his arms. He stands there and lets the water hit the front of him. His head goes forward until it’s against the tile.

His shoulders are hard under my hands. There’s a bruise coming out on his left forearm the size of a fist that he hasn’t mentioned. Two of the knuckles on his right hand are split from a stick that came up through his glove hand in the second period on Thursday.

I do the split knuckles last, with soap, and he hisses.

“You should have had that seen to.”

“It’s fine.” He doesn’t look up from the water.

“Everything is fine.”

“Everything is fine,” he agrees into the tile, and his voice comes out with nothing holding it up.

I get the soap in my hands and put one arm around his chest. The other hand goes down the crease of his ass from behind, slow, until my fingertips find his hole.

He goes very still. Then he widens his stance without being asked. Over his shoulder, I watch his cock lift in the spray.

I work him open under the hot water, slow, my fingers still slick with soap. One, then two, pressing in to the knuckle and curling. My chest stays against his back, my mouth on the top of his shoulder. There’s no hurry in any of it. Nothing else is happening tonight. The blinds are open on a black harbor. Green lights are on the far cranes. This is going to take as long as it takes.

He braces both hands on the tile and pushes back onto my fingers.