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"You were so good tonight," he says. "Both goals. Brekke. The backhand. I could barely breathe."

"Yeah?"

"I took a step out of my crease when he hit you."

"I saw."

"I don't do that." His thumb moves over my hipbone. "I've never done that."

"I know, Dane."

He wraps his hand around my cock. He strokes me slow, matching the way I'm moving on him. I'm close. I don't even know how. It's so slow. It's barely anything. It's everything.

"Can I?" I whisper.

"Yes," he says. "Whenever you want. Yes."

I come with his name in my mouth and his hand on my face, slow and deep, like a wave rolling over me. I feel him come a second later, his hips jerking up into me, his eyes wide open and fixed on mine the whole time.

After, I lie on his chest.

His heart is slowing down under my ear. His fingers are in my hair. Downstairs, the music's off now. The house is quiet.

"Theo."

"Mm."

"After the season," he says.

I lift my head. "What?"

He's looking at the ceiling. His face is very calm.

"After the season. We tell them. The team. Nico." He swallows. "Everybody."

I stare at him.

"If you want," he says. "If you don't want to, we don't. But I want to. I'm tired of the long table. I want to sit at the card table."

I stare at him.

I want it. God, I want it so badly I can feel it in my hands. Walking into the Lantern with him. Sitting next to him. Him holding my hand in front of Wes, in front of Gunnar, in front of Nico and Priya and Marcy and Walter the fish. Not being a secret. Not being the guy who did the thing.

I want it so much it scares me.

Because the last time I wanted something this much, I was twenty and sitting in a locker room in Ashby, and a man put his hand on my knee and told me what I had to do to keep it.

"Okay," I say. My voice is shaking. "After the season."

"Okay." He pulls me back down. He puts his lips against my hair. "After the season."

I lie there and listen to his heart, and don't sleep for a long time.

22

DANE

The conference final is Harrow.