The locker room was very quiet.
"Shower," he said.
"Shower," I agreed.
We were not calm about it. That's the thing I want to be clear about. We were both trying to be calm about it and neither of us were calm about it.
The water came on.
The team shower's ridiculous multi-head setup hit us from three directions at once, which—I started laughing, I couldn't help it, because it was a lot of water, it was genuinely a comical amount of water. Nathan looked at the shower heads like he was doing an assessment and finding the results unsatisfactory.
"The pressure," he started.
"Don't," I said. "Don't file the report right now."
"I wasn't going to—"
"Nathan."
He looked at me. Water dripping from his hair. Pale skin, the shower steam, those blue eyes. Every thought I'd had about him in the last two years arriving at once.
"Hi," I said. Slightly stupidly.
Something happened on his face that I had never seen before. Full and unguarded, there and then gone.
"Hello," he said.
The water beat down hot and steady, the team shower’s ridiculous multi-head setup spraying us from three directions at once like it couldn’t decide which part of us needed attention most.
Steam fogged the tiles, turning the empty locker room into something private and slightly absurd after hours. Nathan stood under the main spray, black hair plastered dark against his forehead, blue eyes locked on mine with that quiet, deliberate focus that always managed to knock the breath out of me.
I didn’t wait. I never did.
My hand found his dick first—already half-hard from the heat and the way we’d been looking at each other while we stripped—and I wrapped my fingers around him, stroking once, firm and fast.
He made that low sound in his throat, the one that still surprised me every time, and his own hand closed around mine, guiding me for a second before sliding down to grip me in return. We were pressed close enough that our cocks rubbed together between our bodies, slick from water and the first leaks of precum, and the friction felt electric.
“Fuck, Nathan,” I breathed, hips already rocking into his fist.
Everything about this was urgent and present—the slap of wet skin, the ridiculous hiss of too many shower heads, the way we both laughed under our breath when my elbow knocked the temperature dial and the spray went from hot to scalding for half a second.
We weren’t being careful. This was the facility shower, after hours, a little chaotic and a lot happy, and it fit us right now.
Nathan’s grip tightened, thumb sweeping over the head of my cock in a slow, deliberate circle that made my knees want to buckle. He was thorough, even here, even when the setting screamed hurry.
His free hand braced on the wet tile beside my head, caging me in without actually pinning me, and he watched—blue eyes steady, water dripping from his lashes—as he worked me with long, measured strokes.
Not rushed like mine. Not frantic. Just… complete. Like he’d decided this was worth his full attention, and once Nathan Cross decided something, he did it right.
I tried to keep up, stroking him faster, twisting my wrist, but the way he was looking at me made it hard to stay in my own skin. No ice, no professional mask, no corridor distance. Just him, paying attention to every twitch of my hips, every shaky exhale, like I was the only thing in the room that mattered.
My rhythm faltered. I pressed my forehead to his collarbone, water streaming between us, and the words slipped out before I could shove them back down.
“Nathan…”
He went still.
Everything stopped except the water—the steady hiss of the showers, the drip from the tiles. His hand froze around my cock.
