Page 68 of Full Body Hit, Part 1

From the kitchen, Noah’s voice floated out.

“Have you guys stopped talking about dicks now?”

“Oh my God,” Sammy said. “Yes, you big baby.”

Chase laughed as Noah trailed back in, pouting at Sammy. The Alpha was probably afraid of hearing Sammy say something complimentary about some other Alpha’s dick, what with how down bad he was for the Omega.

Not that Sammy seemed to notice. For how smart he was, he was ridiculously oblivious.

Chase wasn’t going to get involved in what those two had going on. The tension would break eventually, and Chase wanted to be as far away as possible when it happened.

***

Chase hated short road trips. It was easier to get into a good routine when they were gone for a week and then had a long stint at home. If they left for just two days? It was too little to adjust, what with the travelling and the short practices in strange arenas.

It was especially difficult when the team messed up the hotel room booking on the last night of the trip and it fell on Chase to share…

With Auston.

Chase blinked at the open hotel door from where he’d been rooting through his suitcase, taking in Auston’s surprised face. Chase had been ordered to share, what with being the rookie, but he’d thought they’d choose Sammy as his temporary roommate. Or Noah, maybe.

Auston stepped inside, letting the door shut behind him. “Thought Noah had gotten the short end of the stick,” he muttered.

“I thought you’d be Sammy. I guess we all lose,” Chase snarked back.

Auston blew a gust of air through his nose like a degenerate bull. He stood in place for a while, clearly considering going and getting Sammy anyway, but they both knew how bad it’d look for Auston, the veteran, to do that.

He took a step forward and froze again. “There’s one bed.”

Chase hated the way he immediately blushed. “The receptionist said they’d bring a cot up if we wanted.”

“Right.” He went straight to the phone to do just that.

Chase chewed on his lip, digging through his suitcase for his pyjamas. They’d gotten to Atlanta late enough to have gone straight to dinner and then the hotel, and he was exhausted from a day of practice and travel. The game against the Warriors was the next evening, and Chase needed a good night’s sleep.

With Auston sharing his space.

It wasn’t like the room was tiny, but Auston seemed to fill it up, the heat of his presence burning Chase’s skin. He could feel it on the delicate skin of his nape, the raised hairs there. He sifted through his clothes blindly, making a mess of everything as he tried to rip his focus away from Auston.

“You gonna use the bathroom?” Auston asked.

“I was gonna shower.”

“All right. I’ll wait for the cot and go after you.”

That prompted Chase to finally grab his sleep clothes and Dopp kit and escape to the bathroom.

He took a deep breath the second the door was closed behind him. His skin was sensitised, prickling all over, cheeks still hot and red.

He was sharing a room with Auston Mazdaki.

Chase thought of the poster he’d had of him throughout his childhood, before his mom had told him to take it down. He’d looked like a superhero to Chase, skates spraying the camera with ice, his hair tussled back with the movement, eyes dark and piercing.

Chase had spent way, way too much time on his bed staring at that image. He’d be able to describe every detail, had a million versions and a million moments of it in his memory.

Now, the real Auston was a door away, annoyed that he had to be alone with Chase for an extended period of time. Something that would have been a dream when he was younger was nothing but an unpleasant experience now.

Chase swallowed the heavy, rough-edged feeling down, like a stone caught in his throat.