Page 34 of Caught Offside

“Hi,” Asher said.

“Hi.”

Asher got the door shut, and then they weren’t talking. He had a fistful of Patrick’s shirt, and Patrick had a hand at the back of his neck, and the kiss landed like the end of something they’d both been holding through weeks of bad timing and a phone screen. Patrick tasted like coffee and the drive. His bag hit the floor. Asher backed him into the wall by the door and kept him there, and the sound Patrick made, low and surprised and gone the second it surfaced, went straight down Asher’s spine.

He made himself stop while he still could. He pulled back an inch, breathing hard, his forehead against Patrick’s.

“Okay,” he said. “Hi.”

“You said that.”

“Sorry. You rendered me stupid with that kiss.” He stepped back because they had the whole night and he didn’t want to spend the first ten minutes against a wall. “Come in. Sit down. Let me feed you before I jump you. I’ve got standards. Low ones, but they’re standards.”

Patrick came in. He set his bag by the couch and looked around, taking the measure of the place the way he took the measure of everything. It was lived-in in a way Patrick’s bare apartment never was, warm and a little cluttered, Asher’s whole personality left out on every surface. Asher watched him take it in.

“What?” Asher said.

“Nothing. It’s you. The whole place is you.”

Asher didn’t have a comeback for that, which was happening to him more and more.

He’d made food, actually made it, which Pops would have demanded a photo of. They ate at the small table, and between bites, Patrick talked about the series because that was what the nerves did to him. Two days out, and he was already living in it.

“Toronto’s fast,” Patrick said. “Their top-line transitions are quicker than anyone we’ve played all year. If we can’t control the neutral zone in the first two games, the series tilts.”

“You’ll control it. That’s your whole thing.”

“The regular season doesn’t count for anything now. It’s one team for an entire series, both sides studying tape till they know your tendencies cold. It comes down to who shuts down whose best guys.” He turned his fork over. “First one’s Wednesday. I haven’t been able to think about much else for a week.”

“Then it’s you they should be worried about.” Asher pointed his fork at him. “I’ve watched you play for months. You get sharper when the stakes go up. Your gap control tightens, your stick positioning gets meaner.”

Patrick looked at him across the table, caught off guard at having his own game handed back to him by somebody who’d been watching the parts nobody else did.

“You watch a lot of hockey for a baseball player,” Patrick said.

“I watch a lot of your hockey. There’s a difference.”

Patrick picked up his water and drank. The pause was longer than the sip required.

The talk wound down on its own, and Asher let it. For once, he didn’t reach for something to fill the quiet. The want had been building under the whole meal, and now there was nothing left on the table to pretend it was about.

Patrick set his fork down and looked at him, taking his time, and this time, he wasn’t bothering to hide the heat under it.

Asher closed the distance first.

This kiss was nothing like the one at the door. It was slow and certain, Patrick’s hand coming up to the side of Asher’s neck, thumb against his jaw. Asher’s whole body went hot, sudden and thorough, in his hips, his hands, the base of his spine. He fisted the back of Patrick’s shirt and felt the muscle shift underneath it. When he bit Patrick’s lower lip, the sound Patrick made was quiet but hot, and it sent a spike of want through Asher that was sharp enough to hurt.

The last time they’d had their hands on each other, they’d had to stop before either of them wanted to. Not tonight. Asher could feel the difference in Patrick’s hold, the other hand finding his hip and pulling, closing the last inch, and the press of him, chest to hip, was so much at once that Asher had to break the kiss just to breathe.

“I’ve got it bad for you,” Asher said. He hadn’t planned to say it, but he didn’t take it back.

“I know,” Patrick said, and then, quieter, “I’ve got it worse.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Asher said.

They didn’t make it far. The bedroom was down a short hall. They made a mess of getting there, Asher’s back against the wall once, Patrick’s thigh between his legs, his shirt lost somewhere behind them. The room was dark. Asher reached past Patrick and left the hall light on, just enough to see by. This was the part that scared him, getting looked at this close with no joke to hide behind. Patrick was about to see the version of him nobody else got, and Asher let him.

He kissed Patrick instead of finishing the thought.