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Henri released a sound that was something between a laugh and a groan, but mostly sounded like air escaping a balloon.

“This.” He motioned between them with one hand, the other still clutching at Dylan’s shirt in a desperate bid to hang on to the good thing they had going. “What we’re doing.”

Again, Dylan didn’t seem to understand. “Eating dinner?”

“Dylan,” he said with a frustrated groan. The sound at least made something shift in Dylan’s expression. A spark of understanding, though he still seemed confused.

“We’re having sex.” Dylan pursed his lips and rubbed the back of his neck. The motion caused him to move just out of Henri’s reach; Henri let go without a fight. “Right?”

Henri’s body stiffened, his defenses going up. “Yes, obviously. But I meant we should talk about why. How often. Ground rules. Things like that.”

Dylan held up his hand and counted off each answer with his fingers as he rattled them off. “Why? Because it’s good sex. How often? As often as you’re up for it. Ground rules?” Here he hesitated. “Do you mean, like, if we’re exclusive? I don’t normally sleep around much. Not if, I, uhm.”

“We can circle back to the ground rules,” Henri said gently. “I just wanted to…see what you thought this was.”

And blockade my heart if it is just sex.

“Oh.” Still, Dylan looked uncomfortable. Not angry or resentful or defensive, which was perhaps a good sign. Or not. Henri didn’t have a good read on this at all. Normally, this was something he discussed with partners ahead of time, not at the tail-end of a sex marathon. “I’m not used to talking about this. Usually, it really is just sex.”

Henri licked his lips. He didn’t want to push, because this didn’t seem like it was his business, but he felt the answer to this next question would help him better understand the shape of what Dylan expected.

“Was that all it was with Sokolov?” He tried to keep the accusation out of it. It wasn’t his place to judge any of Dylan’s former relationships (or his taste in men). Though if he really had been having sex with his former roommate/teammate/friend, that was important to know going forward.

Dylan’s whole face turned bright red. He said nothing for so long Henri assumed he wouldn’t answer at all, but eventually he whispered, “Yes, mostly. Some feelings too, but we didn’t talk about that. Didn’t talk about anything but hockey.”

“Okay,” Henri said, making his voice as reassuring and soothing as possible. He could tell the admission cost Dylan. “Is that what you want with me? Just sex and hockey?”

Dylan nodded, his head going through a full upward and downward motion, before he abruptly shook his head instead. “That’d be enough,” he said, “but I’d like more.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he gulped. “Is that okay?”

If Henri could, he’d scream that it was abso-fucking-lutely okay. He was pretty sure too enthusiastic an agreement or too negative a refusal had the potential to spook Dylan right now, so he opted for a, “Yes, that’s very okay,” as calmly as he could manage. The most okay.

A small smile, like the first hint of green in spring. “Really?”

“More would be great,” Henri assured him again. Hardly a difficult concession, that he would like more than casual sex with the likes of Dylan Everett. “What does more mean, though?”

And it broke his heart, because he could tell that Dylan’s real answer was, Whatever you’d give me. The part that hurt wasn’t that Dylan was so protective of his own feelings, but that someone had made him be that way. Someone hadn’t spelled out the ‘more’ and only given Dylan scraps that when pieced together almost took the shape of ‘more than sex and hockey’ but never quite did.

Someone who’d then abruptly torn those scraps apart when he’d left for Chicago in the dead of night.

“I don’t know,” Dylan said. This man was so unlike his on-ice persona, so different from how he presented himself to the media. Much more real, not some caricature of what a hockey player should look like and aspire to be. “I, uh, I really don’t know.”

“Exclusive? And we hang out when we’re not at hockey?” Henri offered.

“And the sex.”

Henri tried not to smile. “That goes without saying.”

Dylan bridged the small gap between them, the one that had felt like a mile until suddenly it was gone and they were chest-to-chest once more. “Exclusive sex and hangout buddies,” Dylan said, leaning in for a kiss. Short, chaste, sweet. Very unlike the ones before. Not a prelude, just a kiss.

Henri’s favorite of all the kisses they’d shared (and possibly of all the ones he’d had).

“Dinner?” Dylan’s eyes had their usual luster, that boyish grin back in place. So handsome, so happy.

“Wine?” Henri countered, because it afforded him the opportunity to turn away. It was like staring at the sun. If he didn’t look away, he’d go blind.

“Read my mind.”

They ate at the kitchen island and very pointedly didn’t talk about hockey. Instead, Dylan got Henri going about sailing, and in turn, Henri listened to Dylan talk about his childhood in Seattle before his parents found him a billet family further east.