"Look at me," I say.
He pulls back enough to see my face. His eyes are dark. His hair has come forward where he pushed it back.
"You watched me across that room for two hours," I say. "Watched me charm the sponsors and you couldn't put your hands on me."
"Felt like a lot longer than two hours."
"Your hands are on me now." I tighten around him, roll my hips into his fist. "Watch me now."
His grip tightens and he strokes me, slow and deliberate, his thumb dragging over the head on every upstroke and spreading the wet leaking out of me. I reach for his belt and work it open. He holds still while I shove his zipper down and get my hand inside. His cock is thick and hard and hot against my palm and I wrap my fingers around the shaft and pull once, root to tip, slow enough to feel him throb. His jaw goes tight. His breath punches out through his nose.
We find a rhythm. His hand on my cock, mine on his, both of us pressed against the door, both of us breathing hard and trying to be quiet and failing. His forehead is against mine. I can feel his cock pulse against my palm every time I twist at the head, feel him leaking over my knuckles, feel his hips pushing forward into my grip like he can't help it.
"Remember the crab cakes," I whisper.
He chokes. "Don't make me laugh right now."
"Six-nine. Honest ratio."
"Luca, I swear."
"The napkin swans."
"Stop." He is laughing and stroking my cock and the combination is the best thing I have ever felt, the joy and the heat in the same breath, his body shaking against mine with the laugh while his hand does not lose its rhythm. His thumb catches the head again and my knees buckle for a half second and he pins me harder against the door with his hips. I pull him closer and kiss him and the laugh becomes a groan, low, and his hips push forward into my grip and I feel him tighten, feel his cock swell in my fist.
"Like that," he says. Low and wrecked. "Right there."
I tighten my hand and stroke him faster. He comes first, his cock jerking hard in my grip, come spilling hot over my fingersand across the front of his shirt. His mouth falls open against my jaw, no sound, just heat and breath. His hand grips me harder, his strokes turning rough and fast and sloppy, and I fuck into his fist and come with my back arched off the door, one hand fisted in his hair, my face buried in his neck to muffle the sound that tears out of me. His other hand comes up and covers my mouth and I come against his palm and against his fingers and against the inside of his tux pants and I don't care, I don't care about any of it.
We stand there. His forehead on mine. Both of us breathing.
"I need a napkin," he says.
"There are napkin swans in the ballroom."
"I am not cleaning up with a napkin swan," he chuckles. He finds a stack of cocktail napkins on a shelf and we clean up fast. We fix each other's clothes in the dark. He straightens my lapels, runs his thumbs along the collar. I push his hair back into place and tuck the pocket square that shifted.
"Two minutes," I say. "I go first."
He kisses me once more. Quick and firm, his hand on the back of my neck. I open the door. The hallway is empty. I walk back to the ballroom with my jacket buttoned and my collar straight and my face arranged. I take a fresh champagne from a passing tray.
A few minutes later Wes comes through the ballroom from the far entrance. He crosses to the silent auction table and picks up a pen and writes a bid on a framed ocean photograph without looking at me. I watch his hand hold the pen from across the room. The hand that was on me just moments ago.
I find Paulson at the dessert table. Doyle is there, and a trainer, and one of the younger defensemen. The waiter clears the empty trays. He is young, neat, his movements careful and precise in a way that reads as someone who takes the job seriously. He adjusts a centerpiece on his way past and Doyle watches him go.
"Buddy's giving of a vibe, right?" Doyle says. Half a laugh. Already turning back to his drink.
The table absorbs it. Paulson doesn't react. The trainer is looking at his phone. The young defenseman smiles the way people smile when they don't want to be the one who didn't smile.
I take a bite of the tart. The underbaked center is on my tongue and the laughter from the supply closet is gone. I am the same man who was pressed against a door three minutes ago and the room has told me, in passing, what it thinks of people like me. Not with anger. Not with hatred. With half a laugh and a turn back to the drink.
We stay another hour. I stay with Paulson talking about the team. Wes talks to coaches, to donors. We do not look at each other for the rest of the evening and I feel him in every minute of it.
Neither of us says anything on the drive home, and we end up on the couch. Wes grabs us water while I take off my jacket and tie. The kitchen light is on and nothing else. Two glasses of water on the table and the laptop open beside them.
I drop my jacket over the chair and sit next to him. Not the far end. Next to him, my leg against his. His arm goes around my shoulders and I drop my head against his collarbone and close my eyes.
"The sliders were a six-nine," I say.
