Page 32 of Josh’s Play

“But it’s just hooking up, Josh. Right? I guess I just pictured that, for you, it would just be a bit of fun.”

He smiled more brightly then, making his earlier smile look forced.

“Oh, trust me, it will be fun.” The room started dancing again as if we were the only two people in a darkened room, illuminated by a pulsing disco ball.

He leaned in, hands on my thighs, and I kissed him like he was asking me to with everything but words. Soft, seeking, questioning. I don’t know which one of us instigated it, but without separating, we stood up, and I could hear the chair rolling away from Josh until it hit the other bed.

He stretched up to bring us closer, leaning into me and answering with his own soft, careful kisses. That was all we did, his arms clinging to my neck, me loving the feel of resting a hand on the small of his back, the other a little lower, fitting perfectly as it cupped his ass, our mouths sliding together, his tongue seeking my mouth confidently, mine hesitantly returning the favor, learning from his, then finding its own instinctive path. Something I did made him moan, and he moved closer, his head moving higher. He must be up on his toes, I thought. I realized then that we could be even closer, and there was no hesitancy and no caution as I grasped his glutes and lifted him, his lips never leaving mine.

He groaned as he wrapped his legs around me, his dick hard and trapped between us, and I stumbled, turning to lean on the desk. I thought about spinning around and sitting him down on it, but before I could hoist us back up, his phone made an obnoxiously loud noise. He pulled back and rested his forehead on my clavicle.

“Fuuuccckkk. The pizza. I really don’t want to say this, but you’ve got to let me down, babe, so I can go grab it from the front desk.” I would have let him go as he asked, but he clung to me and didn’t move.

He took in a big breath and then finally did look up. We were face-to-face for a moment, his skin flush and his eyes shimmering. He let out a frustrated sound and leaned in to speak directly in my ear.

“I’m gonna need you to take that sweatshirt off.”

“Uh-huh.” He could have asked me anything, and I would have happily agreed. He signaled to be put down then, and I did as he asked, pulling my sweatshirt off and tossing it toward his bed. Josh intercepted it, turned it right side out, and slipped it over his head. It swam on him.

“That should cover it,” he said, yanking it down in the front even though it already practically hit his knees. He reached under to adjust himself, looking at my similar state and shaking his head as he did so. “I’ll be right back, Finn.”

I sat on his messy bed. I could feel that the look in my eyes conveyed heat. I’d never felt that before, the openness of a man knowing that I wanted him. It thrilled me. I hoped that heat and passion were all he saw on my face.

“I’ll be here,” I said, like I was some kind of sex god and not a too-tall, gawky virgin. Josh grabbed himself again, over my sweatshirt this time, sighed, and shook his head at me before leaving the room. His door slammed loudly as he exited, and I could hear him running down the hallway once again.

I dropped my head between my legs, my dick sticking straight out in front of me and straining my sweatpants to the limit. One thought about how Josh currently had on the matching sweatshirt, and I felt an odd possessiveness, like I hoped people would see him wandering the dorm in my clothes.

I hid my face in my hands and muttered, “My God.” I focused on my dick, chasing the pulsing feeling, trying to chase my nervousness away. I controlled my breathing while Josh was out of the room, replaying our kisses over and over in a way I hadn’t let myself do before.

I can’t have this, I’d convinced myself. I had to focus on hockey and nothing else. I couldn’t have a relationship, not a real one, not one that I would want. How could some nobody college hockey player be out? Professional athletes spent their entire careers in the closet. Only in the most-recent years had a few people in a few professional sports stuck a toe out of the closet. I didn’t think I was strong enough to be one of those few. I knew for damn sure it would be a distraction.

Playing hockey was so important to me. I had a love for the game that had driven me to be the best, but more than that, there was what it could do to help my family, to help my parents in their dream, to support my brothers as they entered college. It had been all that mattered to me for the longest time.

And so what if that meant I didn’t get to have a relationship, didn’t get to come out, didn’t get to fool around? Those things weren’t important. Those things could wait. The NHL could not.

But Josh wasn’t offering a relationship or asking me to come out of the closet, and he certainly wasn’t asking me to pull my focus from hockey. As a matter of fact, so far he’d done all the heavy lifting on our stupid project, which was turning out to be much more fun than it was stupid.

Maybe, maybe I can have this, I thought instead. Have him to fool around with for a little while. It could be no pressure because Josh was the king of no pressure. Maybe I could have him, his body, his experience. Maybe it would sustain me until I could come out and find someone to share my life with. Someone to raise a family with, maybe even take over the farm someday.

I was a junior in college; I didn’t need to think about those things, I just needed to think about my career.

I was there on the messy bed, head in hands, when he returned. The heavy door opened, and at first all I saw was the pizza box nesting on his palm. Like he’d done it hundreds of times before, he held the door open with his hip until the box was through.

“Be prepared. The door will slam,” he warned.

“I should …” I started to say as I rose, but he was through the door before I could either finish the sentence or meet him to help.

Josh set the box down on the neat side of the long, shared desk.

“Dinner is served.”

“I’m starved.”

“I bet you are. That’s fucking hard work you do out there. Buried under all that equipment, flying around the ice more naturally than I can walk down the street. It’s magic to watch. You’re magic to watch.”

I could pretend that odd swooping feeling I’d never experienced before was simple hunger as I opened the lid on the pizza, and Josh found a roll of paper towels in the mess under his bed. We used them as plates to inhale slices of pizza, him in one of the desk chairs, and me on the bed. And if my stomach still felt like an army of butterflies who were failing miserably at cadence, maybe that was just the pizza disagreeing with me.

I’d wolfed down three slices before Josh rolled his chair toward me and held out his hand for my greasy makeshift plate. “More?”