Page 162 of No Line Change

Henri’s left hand was on Dylan’s hip, holding him steady while he worked, and Dylan’s head rested on the back of the sofa, right next to Henri’s ear. His legs trembled, and he was breathing heavily, such beautiful sounds that Henri used to guide his right hand. His own cock was painfully hard inside his sweats, but he could wait. They had time, after all⁠—

Somewhere nearby, one of their phones vibrated. Not a message or notification, but the steady thrum of an incoming call. Dylan groaned, but otherwise didn’t react. Henri pulled away just enough to look around, to maybe figure out whose phone it was, but he was instantly pulled back.

“Ignore it,” Dylan said. “Keep going.”

So Henri did ignore it. The phone stopped ringing. He added a third finger and turned to press kisses into Dylan’s neck.

The phone vibrated again, more insistently than before. Dylan clenched around him, and his arms went rigid as he grabbed the back of the sofa. It felt like he wanted to snap it in half.

“I think it’s your phone,” Henri told him. It definitely was; he could see it now as it danced along the coffee table. “Do you want to…?”

Dylan finally lifted his head only to glare at Henri. “No, I do not want to fucking stop. Whatever it is, it can wait. Now get your dick in me.”

Amused, Henri prepared to do just that…except the call stopped, and immediately, a new one started.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Dylan hissed. Henri had never seen him so annoyed, not even during bad games. The whole situation was so ridiculous, he had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. “It’s not funny,” Dylan pouted.

“It’s a little funny,” Henri said. He tried to wipe away his amusement and put on his understanding boyfriend face. He wasn’t sure how successful he was. “It might be important.”

“It had better be,” Dylan said with the type of resignation normally saved for heroes in action movies about to make an epic sacrifice for the greater good. Henri carefully extracted his fingers, fully expecting Dylan to climb off him to get his phone. He didn’t; instead, he grabbed Henri for balance and leaned back. His fingers barely grazed the edge of the phone, and it took several attempts to get it in hand. He groaned as he sat back up and hit the accept button.

“Something better be on fire or someone better be in the hospital, because I swear—” Dylan stopped short. His head tilted to the side as he listened, the sound of a woman’s voice sharp but indistinct on the other end. “Turn on the TV? What channel?” He mouthed a sorry to Henri before his brow furrowed. “What do you mean, any channel?”

He and Dylan shared a look before Dylan loudly sighed and got to his feet to get the remote. While Henri wiped off his hand on his abandoned T-shirt (gross), Dylan shimmied back into his underwear and shorts. It was early evening, the sun long gone and the distant recessed lighting set so dim that it took Dylan a few tries to find the remote on the dark brown console under the TV.

‘Any channel’ was probably an exaggeration—short of an alien invasion or zombie outbreak, Henri doubted Dylan’s preferred 24-hour movie channel would ever be interrupted—so Dylan turned on the TV and changed it to ESPN. They should be running mid-game highlights for the East Coast games by now, and at first that was what it seemed to be showing. But as the Baltimore arena crystalized into focus, scenes of Lars Nilsson in his Blue Crabs jersey, red-faced and angry as he squared off against the Prowlers, it became clear this wasn’t about the hockey.

“Did he say something…?” Dylan wondered aloud. He liked to have the TV on with the sound off as a backdrop for when he cooked, and it was impossible for Henri to tell what Nilsson was shouting as he threw punches at his former teammate.

“He can be a hothead,” Henri said. The bar at the bottom only read ‘NILSSON MIC’D UP DELIVERS BOMB SHELL.’ “But normally nothing worth reporting. Turn it up.”

Then the sound was on, and suddenly the world had shifted on its axis, leaving them in some new reality entirely.

“Because they found out I’m gay… asshole!” Lars Nilsson screamed down at his old teammate. The sound wasn’t the crisp audio of the official cameras. It was garbled and choppy and filled with background noise, like it’d been recorded by someone in the stands and was being overlaid over the video footage of the fight.

He was saying more than that, but Henri could only match his lips to the words in the sound clip.

“Holy shit,” Henri said. The thought rattled through his head on repeat.

“I’ll have to call you back, V.” Dylan collapsed heavily next to Henri on the sofa. “What the fuck.”

“I…” Henri didn’t know what to say. He was genuinely speechless. “I had no idea he was gay,” he finally said, because those were the only words that could form. He really hadn’t suspected.

“Me neither. I saw him last month and would never have…” Dylan shook his head. “I mean, he’s European, y’know? My gaydar isn’t even calibrated that well for North Americans. I didn’t know you were gay until you were kissing me back.”

“I’m French-Canadian,” he said absent-mindedly as they started the replay over for the zillionth time. “It’s easy to fool English speakers.” A moment later, he actually processed what Dylan had said. “What?” He whirled around to face Dylan. “You kissed me without being sure?”

A faint blush colored his cheeks. He kept his eyes fixed on the screen, though Henri could feel Dylan’s attention on him.

“What were you going to do if I wasn’t queer and very interested?”

“Uhhh, hope that you were understanding about it and willing to keep it a secret? And not beg to be put on another line or traded?”

“Dylan!” He waited until Dylan looked at him. Just the slightest turn of his head. Henri dipped in to kiss him on the corner of his mouth. “Thank you for being brave enough to do that. It was very stupid, and you got very lucky.”

“Ha!” Dylan crowded in and stole a proper kiss. A hand curled around Henri’s cheek. “Don’t I know it.”

It was unclear which part he was acknowledging. All of it, probably.