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“Like I told you before, it’s fine,” Ford protested. “I’m not as young as some of these guys, which means I deal with aches and pains they don’t have. Doesn’t mean I’m falling apart.”

Except he was pretty sure that was exactly what was happening. He wasn’t sure how much longer he’d be able to put off the inevitable. As soon as Theo forced him to get imaging, the jig would be up, and he’d be riding the bench.

“Ford.” Theo waited until he looked up. “Tomorrow.”

Ford didn’t bother arguing further. The harder he pushed, the more Theo would realize there was something to be worried about, and the last thing Ford needed was him going to Deluca. Theo straightened and moved off, and they both knew the subject wasn’t closed, only postponed.

Cole was undressing at the end of the row. He’d caught an elbow somewhere along the way, and there was a red mark coming up along the side of his ribs. All that padding, and someone had found his weak spot. Ford watched him press a hand to it and go back to his laces. He thought about crossing the room to get a closer look, just to find out if it was tender. He made himself quit looking.

“You riding with me?” Cole asked as he passed Ford on his way to the showers.

“Yeah.” They’d driven in together that morning, Cole at the wheel, the most ordinary thing in the world, and tonight, the thought of that dark cab and the twenty quiet minutes home kicked Ford’s heartbeat into his throat like he was seventeen.

He’d spent a year fighting his attraction, and he was beginning to lose that battle. To make matters worse, he wasn’t so sure anymore that the feelings were one-sided. Neither of them had said a word, and in a few minutes, they’d climb into the same truck and drive back to the same dark house and sleep down the same hall, both of them pretending there wasn’t a seismic shift taking place.

The lot had mostly emptied by the time they reached Cole’s truck. Cole started it and sat while the heater coughed itself awake. Ford climbed in and pulled the door shut on the cold, and then it was the two of them and the dark stretch of road between the Forum and home.

Cole drove unhurried, one wrist hooked over the top of the wheel and the other hand loose on the shifter between them. The dash light caught the side of his face, a red mark on his jaw, the long line of his throat when he checked the mirror.

Cole’s moved his hand the bench seat between them. It’d be so easy to reach over and place his hand over Cole’s. God, Ford missed those innocent touches that weren’t the least bit sexual. Sure, getting laid would help keep his mind from constantly drifting to thoughts of Cole, but that wasn’t what he missed the most. Sex he could get anywhere. A real connection was what he longed for.

Neither of them had said a word since leaving the arena. The quiet in this truck had always been the easy kind, the kind you could ride the whole way home in and never need to fill. Not tonight. Tonight it had a charge to it. They both knew where the charge came from, and neither of them went near it.

“I talked to Russ,” Cole said to the windshield. “About the apartment.”

Ford’s stomach dropped. “Yeah?”

“He’s about out of patience with me.” Cole geared down for the turn onto the county road and didn’t look over. “Says I’ve got to give Delgado an answer.”

This was Ford’s opening. He could tell Cole to scoop it up before someone else did. Surely, he had to be getting sick of spending all his time with a single dad and his daughter. Not that he’d ever say it, but Ford couldn’t imagine any twenty-eight-year-old being content with that long-term.

“Cole.” It came out rough.

Cole’s eyes left the road and found him in the dark, and Ford had the whole of it lined up behind his teeth. But the words that threatened to come out were the exact opposite. Don’t take it. Stay. I don’t want the spare room empty. I don’t want you across town over a hardware store. I want you at my sink and my table.

“It’s a good price,” he said. The words tasted like acid on his tongue. “You’d be dumb to pass it up.”

Something went out of Cole’s face, quiet, there and gone. His gaze drifted back to the road. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what everybody keeps telling me.”

The heater ticked, and the county road unspooled in the headlights. Ford turned to his own window so he wouldn’t have to watch what he’d just done settle between them, and hated himself for it.

FIVE

Cole had Russ’s text open at the end of the bar, thumb over the screen, trying to figure out what to say. His buddy had stuck his neck out when not many had ever been willing to do that for him in the past. If only things with Ford weren’t in this weird limbo, it’d be easier to sign on the dotted line and wait for the landlord to drop keys into his hand.

Russ

Landlord needs a yes or no by Friday. If you’re not interested, you gotta say so, but idk why you’d pass it up.

Gunnar had delivered the first beer without being asked and moved down the bar. Cole traced the condensation on his pint glass with his thumb while staring at the phone. It was time to shit or get off the pot, so to speak.

“Bad news?” Wes grabbed one of the white towels off the rail and started wiping down the bar.

He’d approached without Cole hearing him. Wes ran the Penalty Box with Gunnar. Gunnar poured and said about four words a shift. Wes worked the length of the bar and made the small talk Gunnar hated. He leaned on his forearms across from Cole and waited, which he was better at than most people were at talking.

“It’s nothing,” Cole said.

“You can tell me to piss off if you want, but that’s not the look of a man with nothing on his mind.” Wes reached for a cup and poured himself a soda. “Not having trouble on the home front, are you?”