The cake. Think about the cake.
"You okay up there?" he asks, his breath warm against my cheek from this impossible proximity, and I register that we are approximately four inches apart and I can see the small scar at the edge of his jaw that I don't remember from before and his eyelashes are unfairly long and dark blond for someone who scowls this much. God always gives the best lashes to children and men, I swear.
"Yeah," I manage. "Fine."Don’t think about the way he talked you through it ten months ago.
"Good." He exhales. "Stay still. I'd like to get my cake before midnight."
There it is. The grumpiness delivered so flatly it takes me a second to process it's a joke. Or half a joke. The half that's also a genuine complaint.
I laugh anyway, which makes me jiggle in his grip, and he makes a sound low in his throat that might be exasperation or might be something else, and his hands tighten fractionally to compensate against my chest, and I stop laughing completely. This right here is exactly the kind of moment I live for. The random, ridiculous, beautiful collision of things that have no business happening together. A stupid bet in a hotel gym. A shared weakness for angel food cake. The absurdity of being bench-pressed by the man you spent a Halloween night with who is now looking at you like you’re an obstacle he must remove so he can get his dessert.
It's kismet.
It's also, if I'm being honest with myself, a little romantic.
"Okay," I say. “Let’s do this.”
He doesn't say anything back. Just goes for it. Ten clean reps that are controlled and unhurried, like this is simply a thing that is happening, and he has decided to do it with the same grim competence he applies to everything else. No commentary. A few heavy breaths against my cheek. Mostly just those big goaltender hands steady against me the entire time while I stare at the ceiling and try not to think about the last time his hands were all over my body and he was whispering things likethis pussy is fucking unreal.
I fail, for the record. At the not thinking about it part.
When he finally lowers me and I'm back on solid ground, my legs feel slightly unreliable. He's not even breathing hard. Meanwhile I'm gripping the bench with the angel food cake on it with both hands like it's the only fixed point in the room.
We're both quiet for a second. Then I start laughing. It echoes off the ceiling and after a moment's resistance, something in his expression cracks and a low, reluctant chuckle escapes him too.
It looks good on him. Better than the scowl, though I suspect he'd disagree. And that's when I notice it for the first time. Something that I’d missed in the dark of that hotel room ten months ago or maybe couldn't see past the Sloth mask and the chaos of that night. A missing tooth, subtle, tucked toward the back right side of his mouth. I remember reading about it somewhere after that Halloween night when I'd gone home and done the deeply uncool thing of searching his name at two in the morning. A puck, a shattered helmet, a hit that made highlight reels for the wrong reasons. It should have ended his season. He played through it.
He never got the tooth replaced.
Something about knowing that detail and the casual disregard for the gap, the absence of vanity in a man whose face and body are his professional currency, fills me with warmth. It makes him more real. More human. More like the guy who wore a Sloth costume to a mandatory team event because his daughter used to nap toThe Goonies.It adds to his attractiveness.
I drag my eyes away before he catches me staring and I can spiral any deeper into my apparently catastrophic taste in unavailable men.
"You really wanted that cake," I say, finally unwinding from the bench.
"Mm." He sits up, rolling his shoulders, expression already sliding back toward neutral. "You have no idea how much I like cake."
"I'm starting to get the picture." I tilt my chin toward the floor and shake out my legs. "Alright, big boy. My turn."
He looks at me. Then at the space by the bench. Then back at me with an expression that could be described as skeptical and unconvinced.
I drop onto the floor in front of the bench, planting my feet shoulder-width apart and leaning back against it. I tuck my shoulder blades under the edge of the rubber, wiggle into the perfect position for a flawless hip thrust, then pat my thighs.
"You know," he says slowly, like he's buying himself time, "I never caught your name."
I blink. My stomach flips because I know what comes next and I'm not ready for it even though I've had the entire bench press to prepare. Plus, I doubt he even remembers me. I’m sure he’s slept with plenty of other women since Halloween night.
"Bri," I say.
He repeats it slowly, like he's weighing it, and I watch his face for any flicker of recognition and find nothing. Just those assessing hazel eyes moving over me with that same mild scrutiny he's been applying to this whole situation tonight.
"I'm Seth," he says.
Already knew that. Learned it when he was fisting my hair and telling me I had a pretty asshole. I don’t say that, of course. It’d be a lie if I said I wasn’t a little disappointed that our one-night stand wasn’t memorable for him.
"Nice to meet you, Seth."
The corner of his mouth twists a little into a smile. "You know, I really don't want to hurt you. I'm a big guy and you're wearing a dress."
