Page 65

"You can stay angry," I say. "At me. At Marrack. At yourself. That's fine. You're allowed." I lean forward. "Just not by yourself. Not sitting on the ice in the dark all night by yourself, Dane. I can't—" I stop. "You don't get to do it alone anymore."

He makes a sound.

I've never heard him make it before. No words. It comes out of him like something breaking.

He reaches out and takes the front of my hoodie in his fist. He doesn't pull. He just holds on.

"Come home," he says.

The house is dead asleep. Everybody was out after the win. There are cans on the porch and somebody's shoes in the front hall, and Gunnar's snoring so loud we can hear it from the stairs.

Dane's room is freezing. The window's open. He doesn't close it.

He stands in the middle of the room in his wrinkled suit. He's stopped shaking, mostly. His tie is still hanging loose around his neck. He looks at me like he doesn't know what happens next.

So I decide.

I get down on my knees.

On his floor, on the rough carpet, right in front of him. I don't plan it. I just go down, the way he goes down into his butterfly when a shot comes, all at once, knees out.

He goes still.

"Theo." His voice is shaking. "You don't have to⁠—"

"I know."

"I didn't tell you to⁠—"

"I know you didn't." I look up at him. "That's why."

He looks down at me. I watch his face change. Something cracks in it, right down the middle, and I see what's underneath. He's not ice. He's never been ice.

He puts his hand on my head. Gently. His fingers slide into my hair.

"Rule one," I say. "It's still the rule."

"What?"

"In here. It's not about April. It's not about him. In here it's us." I swallow. "Okay?"

He closes his eyes for a second. When he opens them, they're wet.

"Okay," he says.

I reach up and undo his belt.

My hands are shaking. I don't hide it. I unbutton his dress pants and pull down the zipper and push them down his thighs with his boxers, and his cock comes free, already half hard, and gets harder while I watch. I've touched him before. I've never been this close. I've never looked at him in the light.

He's beautiful. Thick and heavy and flushed, a vein running down the length of it. I lean in and put my mouth on him.

He makes that sound again.

I take him slow. I don't know how to do it the way he did it to me, the way that takes me apart, but I don't care, I just want him. I want him in my mouth. I lick him, the head, the slit, the salt there. I take him deeper, as deep as I can, and when I can't take any more, I wrap my hand around the rest of him and work him, and his fingers tighten in my hair.

"Theo—"

He doesn't push. He doesn't pull. His hand just shakes on my head, and his thighs shake under my other palm, and when I look up at him, he's looking down at me like I'm the only thing in the world.