With all the feigned cockiness bred into him by years of Vegas showmanship, Nick tilts his head. “Did that feel like I wasn’t into it?”
That startles Matt—he huffs out the faintest laugh, cautiously moving back into Nick’s personal space. Nick settles a hand back on his hip, pinky hooking through the belt loop of Matt’s jeans. “I don’t know. I spent most of it wondering if you were gonna punch me for it.”
Nick can’t imagine the kind of steel nerve it takes to expect to get clocked and still kiss somebody anyway. He’s never been that brave.
He can’t imagine someone being brave enough to take that riskfor him.
He reels Matt back in, parting his lips, sliding his fingers into sweat-damp red and brown hair as he shows him exactly howinto ithe is. Matt groans, a sound that goes straight to Nick’s core.
Somewhere, way down the twisted corridor, a door slams loudly. They both freeze.
“We should, uh… we should head back,” Nick says breathily against Matt’s lips, forcing himself not to kiss him again.Anyonecould walk in on them. This is a terrible place for this.
Apparently coming to the same conclusion, Matt clears his throat and takes a big step back, straightening up. “Yeah,” he agrees. “Yeah. They’ll be wondering what’s taking so long.”
As if everyone in that room hasn’t probably already guessed. The thought makes the hair stand up on the back of Nick’s neck.
Matt starts to lead the way back towards the green room. As he walks, he reaches back for Nick’s hand, just barely linking the tips of their fingers. Nick can feel it all the way up his arm, the gentle touch sending sparks racing across his skin.
“I won’t say anything to anybody,” Matt says for the second time. He glances back, smiling shyly. “But I think that was the best part of my night.”
Nick can’t see how a couple of clumsy kisses against a bathroom door could possibly top the feeling of several thousand people screaming along to songs thatyouwrote, but sure, why not.
Chapter Six
[Video description: Nick Tiernan visible from the shoulders up. He’s in his stall in the locker room, sweaty and stripped to his under-armor, while a microphone hovers by his face.]
“So what do you think went wrong tonight?” A voice from off-camera. Tiernan frowns.
“Everyone has a bad night every now and then, and they took advantage of us on that one. We let them get under our skin, and we suffered the consequences.”
“The comments from intermission reports suggest that the Dragons seemed disjointed tonight. Out of sync. Anything to say to that?”
Tiernan’s jaw tightens. “Like I said, Calgary got under our skin tonight.”
Abruptly, Tiernan is shoved to the side, and Brad Burrows’s face squeezes into frame. He has a bruise onhis cheek, and he’s smirking, his arm too tight around his captain’s shoulders. “No more partying on school nights, huh, Cap?”
Tiernan’s flinch is visible. Burrows is yanked out of frame a moment later. “[BEEP] off, man.” The voice is Gabriel Perez, off-camera. It continues, quieter, muffled. “You wanna get into a contest over who’s been out most the night before a game, go ahead, because you ain’t gonna look good there.”
A grimace passes across Tiernan’s face, and the video ends abruptly.
—HockeyTalk, Calgary @ Nevada, October 15th, 2022
There’s a DM from Matt waiting for Nick when he gets home and finally turns on his phone. It’s from hours ago, long before Nick hit the ice. A phone number, with an apology for forgetting it last night.
Nick stares at the number until it burns his eyes. Then he saves it and pulls up a new text window.
Nick
Hey, it’s Nick
He shouldn’t be doing this. He should be going to sleep, or at the very least going over game tape, looking for ways to improve.
Not that he needs to. He knows exactly how to improve—by getting his fucking head on straight. Bam-Bam’s sneering words echo through his head, and bile rises in his throat just like it had in the locker room under the media’s scrutiny.
He can’t tell them the truth: that he was up till 2 a.m. waiting for his Twitter feed to explode with exclusive pictures of Nick Tiernan’s homosexual behavior; that he went to a concert that rattled his entire world-view, his comfort zone, his perception of himself.
That a couple kisses with a pretty boy cracked the mask he’s been hiding behind since the second he arrived in Vegas.
