Page 85 of Line Change

Before I can get any of that out, he catches the front of my shirt and kisses me.

His mouth hits mine hard enough to knock the back of my shoulder against the door. He kisses me once, angry and hot, his fingers clenched against my chest. I get one hand around his waist. Then he’s already pulling away.

I follow.

My mouth catches his again before he can put space between us. Nolan makes a rough sound against my lips, and for a few seconds he gives it back. His body presses into mine. I feel the heat of him through our clothes and slide my hand under the back of his sweatshirt, desperate for skin.

Then he pushes against my chest.

I stop chasing his mouth. His lower lip is red from the pressure of mine, and I want to bite it and pull him back until his hands are on me again.

My hand is still under his sweatshirt. Nolan looks down between us, and I drag it free.

Nolan looks at me while he wipes his thumb over his lip. “Yeah. I thought so.”

I don’t know what he thinks the kiss proved. I know I’m hard, which isn’t helping me understand anything.

“Come over,” I say. If we get out of this room and away from the facility, I can make him stop looking at me like that. “We can figure this out.”

“Not tonight.”

I thought he would say yes. Nolan almost always says yes when I ask him to come home with me, and the flat refusal leaves me standing there without another useful thing to offer.

He reaches past me for the handle. I move because making him fight me for the door would be worse. Nolan pulls it open, and the hall light fills the equipment room.

He doesn’t look back before he leaves.

I wait until I hear the outside door shut. The metal from the locker room is still loud enough that Nolan was right: nobody could have heard us.

I drive home alone.

I don’t turn on the radio. Every time I stop at a light, I can still feel Nolan’s mouth hitting mine and his hand knotted in my shirt. He kissed me and still left. I don’t know what to do with that.

All I offered was my condo and the chance to keep doing what we’d already been doing. When I said we could figure it out, I meant I could get him alone somewhere familiar and hope the argument ended.

Grayson’s empty coffee cup is beside the sink when I walk into the condo. He rinsed it, but he didn’t put it in the dishwasher. I put it away and check the guest room even though I already know he didn’t leave anything behind.

The bed is made. His towels are in the hamper. The space looks the same as it did before he arrived.

I stop beside the couch. Nolan has slept there. We sat there through an entire game with his feet under my thigh, kissing whenever the play stopped. Three days isn’t long enough for the condo to feel wrong without him in it.

I turn on the late game and sit where he usually does. The home team takes a bad penalty before I have the volume set. Nolan would have something to say about the lazy stick that caused it. I reach for my phone before I remember he doesn’t want to come over tonight.

I could have told him Grayson was visiting. Nolan knows I have a brother. He knows Grayson is gay and lives with Korolev. There was nothing in the message that would have required me to explain what Nolan and I do when we’re alone.

I didn’t tell him because I didn’t want Grayson looking at us together and knowing. Then I treated Nolan like he was the problem instead of the person covering for me.

That was fucked up.

The game comes back from commercial. I watch a full shift without knowing who has the puck.

Nolan said he thought we were friends. We are. I would be pissed if he disappeared for two days and gave me nothing but busy. I nearly lost my mind watching him dance with a woman before we’d even agreed on anything. He had a right to expect one honest sentence from me.

I don’t want Nolan staying angry with me. I don’t want another night of four-word messages, or seeing him at practice tomorrow and wondering whether he’ll come near me when it ends.

The apology doesn’t need anything else around it.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Grayson. I fucked up.