“Yes.”
“Good.”
I keep going. The crowd is a wall of sound around us. Somebody on our bench cheers a save. Somebody else bangs a stick against the boards. I don't rush. I'm talking about his video under my breath. Where my hand was, what his face did at the end, what I said back at him in my head the first time I watched it. His breath gets tighter and tighter and I can feel him harden against the inside of the cup.
“Do you think you're going to come in your gear?” I say.
“No.”
I grind my thumb up under the cup one notch harder.
“Yeah you are.”
“Mad, please.”
“Please what?”
His eyes go to the cameras above the away bench.
“Th-there's cameras?—”
“Pointed at the ice.”
“My dad?—”
I tilt my head toward the far boards without moving my hand.
“Is watching his center on the far boards. Not his bench.”
His mouth opens. He closes it. He's breathing through his nose like a man about to cross a finish line.
“You want to know what I'm going to do after this game?” I say.
“Yes.”
“I'm going to take you somewhere.”
His breath comes in tight.
“Where?”
“A bar.”
“Okay.”
I work the heel of my hand in a slow circle.
“Then I'm going to use that mouth of yours.”
He makes a sound that isn't a word and he shudders under my hand and I feel it through the pants, through the cup, through everything, the exact rhythm of him coming. His thighs lock. His whole body goes rigid for maybe four seconds. His hand on his helmet goes white at the knuckles.
I don't move my hand.
I keep it there while he comes down. I keep it there another full ten seconds past that. I want him to know I could do it again if I decided to.
When I pull back, it's slow. I re-glove.
Theo doesn't look at me.
