Chapter 12
TWELVE
ADAM
And then he remembered Skylar was out on his couch with two little blankets.
Something was wrong with his furnace, which he wouldn’t have been able to predict, but he regretted making Skylar stay on the couch another night. He just…wasn’t ready to give his heart away, and he didn’t know how to date without doing that. Usually too quickly.
He pulled a sweatshirt over his head as soon as he got out of bed and flipped the blanket back in place to retain a bit of heat in his bed. Then he went to check on Skylar.
There was a warm glow in the living room, and Adam’s heart sank, wishing the stupid TV fire gave out any heat. Skylar was on the couch, curled into the smallest ball his big body could make, shivering. A glance at the thermostat told Adam it was forty-eight degrees in his apartment.
“Hey,” Adam whispered, kneeling down next to Skylar. He had the blankets pulled up nearly to his ears. Adam felt like such an asshole.
“I’m cold,” Skylar said, hurting Adam’s heart.
“I know, sweetheart. I need to go check out the furnace downstairs but I’ll be right back. Go get in bed. Bring the blankets. There should be a space heater in the hall closet you can set up.”
Skylar nodded and gathered his blankets and pillow from the couch as Adam geared up to be outside for a very short period of time and inside in a potentially freezing building for a while.
This was the price of leasing an ancient building.
He let himself into the door leading to the bar and headed into the back room.
The utilities closet was tucked into the corner, and Adam fiddled with the furnace for a bit before realizing this was above his pay grade.
The number for his furnace guy was in a binder on the desk, and he left a message, then left a message for his landlord.
He turned his taps in the bar to a drip so the pipes didn’t freeze.
Sometimes, there wasn’t a lot you could do with a middle-of-the-night emergency. The only thing that made him keep his cool was knowing that upstairs, Skylar was keeping his bed warm.
It had been a long, long time since Adam had been able to say he had someone waiting for him in bed.
He locked up behind him and ran up the stairs to his apartment as quickly as he could. Fuck, it was cold out. The inside of his nose was instantly frozen. He knew his old truck wouldn’t start in this weather.
His apartment was warmer inside than it was outside, but the gust of wind he let in wasn’t helping anything. Adam shed his outside gear, flipped his lights back off, turned the kitchen and bathroom sink to drip, and headed to bed. His heart raced as he made his way to Skylar.
The bedroom door was open, and he closed it behind him to shut in the heat. Skylar had found the space heater and plugged it in and was waiting for Adam, curled up under layers of blankets in his bed.
“Sky, I am so sorry,” Adam said, pulling his hoodie off and then sliding his jeans down his legs.
“For what?”
“For making you sleep on the couch and nearly freezing you to death.”
“It’s not your fault the furnace went out.
” Skylar had been curled on Adam’s side of the bed, and before Adam could go around to the far side, Skylar scooted back a bit, lifting the blanket for Adam to climb in right after him.
He was also in a t-shirt and boxers, and it was too fucking cold to feel precious about this moment.
Adam flipped the lights off, and the second he was under the covers with Skylar, he had a broad, dense hockey player attached to him.
Skylar was shivering lightly, and Adam snuck a hand up the back of his shirt to get him back for doing the same thing Skylar did to him when he arrived.
Skylar yelped, but instead of pulling away, he pulled Adam closer.
Adam wasn’t sure if it was because he hadn’t been held like this in years or because he tended to date guys who looked more like they played D&D than hockey, but there was something so solid and comforting about Skylar’s strong body.
Skylar was sweet and friendly, hotheaded, confident, persistent, and Adam was into him, of course.
But Skylar was also jacked, with a chiseled jaw and beautiful hazel eyes.
If Skylar had been in his early twenties when Adam was a teenager, he could have easily made it into an Abercrombie catalogue, if the photos he had on his Instagram were any indication.
They clung to each other as they warmed up, shivering. “I can think of a few activities that could warm us up faster,” Skylar said, his voice quiet in the dark room.
“I’m having a hard time remembering why I keep saying no,” Adam joked. Half joked.
“There are so many ways we could make something work.”
“Are there?” Adam asked genuinely. The only path forward in his head ended with Skylar leaving and Adam once again spending several years getting over a boy.
“Long distance. Summers. You could come see me.”
Adam hummed.
“And who knows how long I’ll be down here. Maybe I’ll never make it up.”
“Don’t say that,” Adam said. “Don’t open yourself up to failure just because of me.”
“You’re not a just for me,” Skylar argued. “Adam, you are important to me.”
“I’m not more important than your dreams. Your life goals.”
“A whole life isn’t a job and then sleeping while you’re not at your job. I want something outside of that, too. I want a husband someday.”
“And you’re going after a guy whose life is his job and sleeping while he isn’t at his job?” Adam kept his voice light, jokey, but he felt like he was two seconds from cracking open. Skylar was right. A life should be more than a job. Adam didn’t know how to get to that point.
“I’m going after someone who is kindhearted and funny. Someone who doesn’t take my shit and simultaneously has a lot of fucking patience for me. Someone who sees me.”
“Sky…”
“Earlier tonight you kissed me. Does that mean we can do it again?”
They were finally warming up beneath the blankets, and suddenly Adam was worried about getting too hot. But Skylar was right. He deserved to have more than just a job in his life. They both deserved more.
“Yes,” Adam said. A smile flashed over Skylar’s face as he leaned in, capturing his lips in a kiss that went beyond the chaste peck Adam had given him earlier. Skylar was unsurprisingly a demanding kisser, not waiting a single second for Adam to take the lead now that Skylar had his permission.
This was why Adam had waited so long for this.
Because there was no coming back from it.
Skylar guided Adam onto his back, and the feeling of Skylar’s body on top of him was irreversibly burned in his brain now.
He was heavy, and it was both comforting and blisteringly sexy as Skylar’s thigh parted Adam’s legs.
Adam had one hand on the back of Skylar’s head and one across his shoulders as Skylar devoured him with insistent kisses.
It was the middle of the night. Adam had a maintenance emergency to deal with first thing in the morning as he prayed his pipes wouldn’t freeze.
When Skylar’s kisses trailed down to the sensitive skin of his neck, Adam couldn’t help his yawn or the simultaneous way he ground his hardening cock against Skylar’s thigh.
“Mmm mixed messages,” Skylar said, voice quiet against Adam’s neck.
“I think…we should slow down.” While his body wanted everything from Skylar right this minute, something was telling him to take his foot off the gas. Being with Skylar was like skiing on a black diamond slope when he’d barely seen more than the bunny hill in years.
Skylar took a shaky, slow breath in, then reached between the two of them to adjust himself.
“Fuck,” he said, breathing hard above Adam. Adam pulled him in for one more sweet kiss.
“I really like kissing you.”
“You’re a good kisser,” Skylar said, that easy smile on his face. For all of the difficulty Skylar had keeping his emotions in check, Adam was glad he let his happiness flow so freely.
“Happy to report the same back to you.”
Skylar moved the two of them onto their sides and pulled Adam to his chest again.
The t-shirt under Adam’s cheek was soft, and Skylar’s strong arms held him tight.
Adam looped an arm around Skylar’s waist and fell asleep with his nose tucked against Skylar’s chest. He wasn’t always great at sharing a bed, but he was thrilled Skylar had ended up in his.