33. Griffin
33
GRIFFIN
W e celebrate our victory at Stone’s Throw Tavern. The Comebacks take over two big tables by the window, the snowy mountains just beyond us. People keep coming up to congratulate us. It’s even better than a victory in our high school days because we could go out to drink rather than sneaking alcohol in someone’s basement.
But rather than going over the game, relishing highlights from our thrilling match, my teammates only want to talk about one thing.
“So you’re dating Jack Gross?” Hank asks. “Like dating, dating?”
“We haven’t defined it, but we are together, yes.” I don’t need labels. Jack Gross is staying in my life for a long-ass time. As long as I get to wrap my arms around him on a daily basis, people can call it what they want.
“Have you been slipping him secrets about our team?” Bill asks. Even with a big victory, he can’t get into full celebratory mode.
“No. The opposite. He was the one who remarked on Hank’s positioning outside the net.”
Hank sits up straighter. “Shit. In that case, I should be the one making out with him.”
“I’ll handle that,” I tell him. Those lips are mine and mine alone.
“So since you guys are together, that means you’ve been able to finally pop your gay cherry, I hope.” Des drinks the last of his martini. While he usually dresses much nicer, we finally wore him down and got him to come to the bar in a matching Comebacks hoodie. But he’s still wearing fancy sneakers that probably cost a fortune.
I find myself blushing. “None of your business.”
“All the blush on your face tells me that’s a resounding yes.” Des claps me on the shoulder and bites the olive off its toothpick. “You should’ve come out sooner.”
“Everyone is on their own journey,” Tanner says.
“Exactly. Derek found love with his real estate agent. Bill found it through banging his assistant.” Des snorts a laugh.
“Bill’s banging his assistant?” Tate walks up behind us and puts his arms around his boyfriend. “Mavis? The kindly grandmother? Didn’t think she was your type.”
Where Bill is beefy, Tate is slender with a boyish smile and big eyes.
“Des has a preoccupation with how we got together,” Bill says, kissing Tate hello.
“Does he want to see video?” Tate arches his eyebrow Des’s way.
“I just love how much of a cliché it is. It’s sweet.” Des chuckles nervously.
Tate leans in, a gleefully dark smile on his lips. “Oh, Des. It was anything but sweet. It was raw, and hot, and epic. You would melt into your martini if you ever knew what happened on that snowy night in Chicago.”
Fuck. We sit around the table stunned into silence, mouths agape. The world around us pauses. Bill’s face is bright red, while Tate remains composed. He stands back up; the world presses play again.
“Great game, guys! I’m going to grab a drink.” Tate rubs Bill’s head and is off to the bar.
“I need to find an assistant like that,” Hank says.
* * *
A little bit later, we haven’t moved from our seats. We feel like kings, people continuing to come up to congratulate us.
“Crap. I need to check in with the babysitter.” Tanner checks his watch.
“Chancey, you’re too nice. You’re not with the kiddos. You’re allowed to say fuck.” Des barks out a laugh. “Can you please use some type of profanity? Please? Early birthday gift.”
“Buzz off.” Tanner winks at him.
“You two…that cross-crease pass to goal in the first period was a thing of beauty,” I say. They never lost their mojo. They always had it.
“We make a good team.” Des says. He and Tanner bump fists. “Who wants to play Jenga? I gotta move. Gin martinis make me a little hyper. Chancey?”
Tanner holds up his phone.
“Chancey.” Des pets his hand. He might be more than a little buzzed. Martinis are strong. “The crotch goblins won’t fall into a well if you stay for one game of Jenga. Live a little.”
“I can squeeze in a quick game.” Tanner glances down at their hands touching.
He hops up. They go to the giant Jenga set by the wall.
“How’s Jack taking the loss?” Derek asks.
Speaking of the extremely cute devil, Jack strolls into the bar. As soon as he finds me, a smile breaks onto his face. I am one lucky dude.
“Congratulations,” Jack says to our table.
The guys give him a round of applause. Bill shakes his hand.
“Great game out there. Truly,” he says. Bill may be competitive, but he respects hard work and playing against worthy opponents. A lopsided game is a waste of time in his mind.
“You guys should come to the arcade bar. They have games,” Jack says.
“We have games, too!” Des yells from the Jenga table.
Tanner slides a Jenga rectangle out of the tower. Des blocks him from putting it at the top.
“You sure you want to do that?” Des asks. “It’d be a shame if you were the one who made it topple.”
“Des, I know where all of your tickle spots are. Scooch.” Tanner signals for him to step aside. Des puts his hand up in surrender and moves.
“Get a room!” Hank yells at them.
Jack fits in perfectly with the group. Like all good hockey players, he knows how to bullshit. He talks about game techniques with Bill and shares gossip from his time in the NHL. Having a boyfriend who gets along with your friends is a huge win.
“What are you looking at?” I ask Jack, who keeps glancing at the bar.
“Just remembering sitting over there and seeing the cutest guy once upon a time.” He runs his hand through my beard, an obvious favorite thing for him to do. “And now I got him.”
“Yes, you do.” I break out in a smile that takes over my whole body. I didn’t know this kind of happiness was possible. I guess any path is ours for the taking, if we’re open to it. “And you’re never getting rid of him.”
* * *
Once the celebration winds up at Stone’s Throw, Jack and I make our way to C&J pizza for an early dinner. Jack suggests we get our pizza to go so that we can continue the celebration. I’m embarrassed to say that it took me a moment to realize what kind of celebrating he meant.
The trip back to his place is one long form of edging. Our knees touch in the front. Jack finds my truck to be a major turn on, so this car ride is essentially foreplay for him.
“Just so you know, I’m hard,” he strokes himself over his jeans.
“I’m not even touching you!”
“You’re that good. Simply looking at you behind the wheel of your big truck in your gray sweatpants.”
“Wait, my sweatpants are a turn-on?”
“Yeah. It’s a thing. I can’t wait for you to fuck me and make me come all over myself.”
I grab my stiffening cock in an attempt to calm myself down, but it only does the opposite. I pick up the speed, and my cock throbs in my pants when I pull into the parking lot. No sign of any parental figures waiting for us. When we stumble into Jack’s apartment, he closes the blinds immediately. Glad we are on the same page. While I am very much turned on by the idea of doing it in front of a window with Jack, perhaps we could try it in a city where nobody knows us.
“Sit on the couch,” Jack says.
“I won the game. Shouldn’t I be telling you what to do?”
“No.”
“Would it be better if we pulled the couch out first?”
“No.” Jack is definitive. He obviously has thoroughly thought-out plans.
He dives into my lap and plants an epic kiss on my mouth, instantly shifting the mood in the room. I moan into his lips, wanting this more and more.
“Are you planning to play next season?” he asks, grinding against my cock.
I nod yes.
“Then we should continue having sex to keep the good juju alive, don’t you think?”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Good.” Jack whips off his shirt, and pulls my hoodie off my head so fast I worry the fabric will tear. Our warm chests rub together, sending a rush of heat to my groin.
Jack repositions himself to straddle my lap, and the friction makes my dick stand at attention.
“We need to have lots of sex to keep the good juju alive over the summer, too.” He slips a tongue in my ear, sending me crazy.
I pick him up and toss him onto the couch. Jack lands on his back and throws his legs open, like a gymnast doing a very dirty dismount. I want to hug and cuddle him, but also fuck his lights out. At the same time. The heart wants what the dick wants, apparently.
“Let’s get these fucking pants off.” I undo his belt and unzip his fly. Jack wants to help push his pants down, but I have a better idea.
I throw his legs up in the air and pull them off that way. He holds onto his big, thick, pale thighs, two lumbering tree trunks in this tiny studio apartment. His hard cock flops against his stomach. I slip my thumb into his mouth to get it nice and slick, then I drag it down his length and his balls. His lips quiver with want when he figures out I’m going farther south. He pulls his thighs closer to his body. My thumb slides down his crack to his hole and slips inside.
He throws his head back and lets out a guttural sigh. It’s everything.
I dip my thumb in and out of his hole, savoring its tightness. I kiss along his thigh as I plunge inside his tight hole. I replace my thumb with my index and middle finger. They can get deeper.
“Finger that hole.” He gasps against his leg, his face scrunched in exquisite pain.
He pushes my face in between his cheeks. I slide my tongue into his tart opening, letting it stretch.
“Yes. Feels so good.” He grips his fingers around what’s left of my hair, pushing me deeper against him.
I lap circles around his opening, getting it nice and slick. I slap his ass hard and grab, leaving fingermarks on the pale surface.
“Rub your beard on my hole,” he begs.
I comply. My rough facial hair prickles his wet heat, rubbing all over him like a sponge cleaning up a delightful mess. I spread his cheeks and go deeper, feeling his body vibrate under my touch.
“You are so beautiful.” I stammer as I speak, nervous to be so genuine. Is that too mushy for us?
“I know I am.”
I shove two fingers inside him to pull him back down to earth. “You fucker.”
“I’m sorry I have such a high opinion of myself.”
I twitch my fingers inside him, eliciting a hungry groan from his lips.
“You are…wonderful.” He stares at me with a ferocious intensity that underlines the simple word. I suppose coming up with clever things to say when a guy has two fingers inside you is a challenge. He means every syllable with all his heart.
He pushes his legs down to sit regularly and grabs me by the collar. He pulls me close, that twinkle in his eye. “I love you, Griffin.”
It’s not the first time he’s said it to me, but it’s just as powerful. I’ve never had a man tell me he loved me. As a closeted kid and adult, it seemed like a moment that I didn’t deserve to dream about. Guys like me didn’t get happy endings, right? My chest clogs with emotion. I want to hug my younger self and tell him it’s all going to work out in the end.
“I love you, Jack,” I say, a bit speechless that I would ever be so lucky to say this to another man. I thought that coming out so late in life meant the time for love had passed for me.
“But I said it first.”
“It’s not a contest.”
“It’s not. But I still win.” He shoots me a wink.
“Always a fucker.”
“You sure you want to be with someone this insufferable?” Jack asks.
I kiss him, showing him my answer.
“My turn to get a taste of you.” Jack puts his legs down. I stand up and pull my sweatpants down to just above my knees. My hard cock flops out in front of me, all for Jack.
“Turn around,” he says.
“Turn…around?” A fresh round of heat rushes to my loins. My ass twitches with excitement as he gives it a welcoming spank.
I jut my ass out and push his face against my opening.
“Fuck.” New explosions of pleasure open inside me as Jack flicks his tongue on my hole. Heat and lust sweep across my body. His tongue circles my opening. His thumb dips in. Everything I do to him, he’s doing back to me, and I am a better man for it.
My cock swells, and the ecstasy of getting rimmed gets me achingly close to the edge.
“Need you,” I grunt. I could come like this, but I want to feel Jack’s ass clench around my dick as I pump into him.
“Baby, I need to fuck you,” I say. A man can only hold out for so long. My dick is about to burn a hole in my hand.
Jack gets on the couch and kneels over the back, his hole mine for the plundering. He reaches for the side table and pulls a bottle of lube from the drawer.
“Leave your sweatpants where they are,” he says. The appeal of raggedly old sweatpants mystifies me, but I’m not here to yuck his yum. If anything, I want to encourage it.
I coat my cock with lube, and slip two lubed fingers inside him.
“Give me the real thing,” he says to me through the mirror above the couch.
“For a bottom, you can be really bossy.” I give his ass a slap as if we’re going out on the ice. I press inside. Jack punches the couch arm in delight.
“Fuck yes,” he screams. “I can feel my ass stretching for you.”
“You’re mine,” I growl. I sink into his hole all the way until he groans. I hug his torso and pull him close.
“You’re so beautiful,” I say in his ear, kissing his ear lobe. “You’re fucking amazing.”
He squeezes my hand. I want to keep telling him this over and over. Jack is fucking amazing, and it’s time he believed all the hype, not just on the ice.
“Fuck me, Griffin. Please fuck me.”
I kiss along his neck, savoring his salty taste as my dick pumps in and out. I watch my thickness disappear between his red cheeks. I caress along his taut stomach and up his chest, pinching his nipple. There was a contest years ago where people had to keep a hand on a car to win it. If Jack’s body were a car, I’d win every time.
I stare at us in the mirror, my hairy chest glistening with sweat. The yearning lust flushes Jack’s cheek. The abandon in his eyes as he rams himself backward against my cock. I can barely keep standing as the orgasm thrashes its way through my core and squeezes my balls.
“Coming,” I grunt out. Jack goes faster, fucking himself against my cock as I feel him tighten around me. I bury my face in his neck as I shoot my load inside him.
I pull Jack up against my chest, wrapping a hand around his neck as I kiss his ear. He strokes himself frantically, his body coiled and possessed with impending release. His ass clamps around my still-hard cock as I continue to fuck him.
“Yes! Make me come. Make me come,” he gasps out, practically speaking in tongues as he comes over his fist. I keep Jack from collapsing, holding him against my chest, rocking with him as we come down from our high.
“I love you,” I whisper to him, wanting our connection to be this strong always.