Chapter 13 #2
That realization should have served as a reminder of why Dawson should keep his distance. Leo had no plans to stay here, and Dawson no plans to leave. They were just too different for anything other than a bit of fun.
“Come on.” Leo was halfway across the lot before Dawson had his jacket zipped.
The Third Ward was brick and iron and coffee shops Dawson wouldn’t have walked into alone. Leo moved through it like he’d been coming here for years, hands in his pockets, head up. His shoulder bumped Dawson’s as they walked.
Dawson’s eyes swept the sidewalk before he could stop them.
Checking faces, scanning parked cars, looking for a plate from Door County or a bumper sticker he’d recognize from the garage lot.
His shoulders had crept back up around his ears.
Fifteen years of habit didn’t switch off just because Leo was walking close enough that their arms kept brushing.
No one he knew would likely be walking around the historic, artsy area in the middle of a weekday. His shoulders dropped an inch. Then another. By the time they hit the next crosswalk, he’d stopped checking.
Leo ducked into a coffee shop with exposed brick and a chalkboard menu that Dawson would’ve walked past on his own. He ordered something with too many adjectives in the name. Dawson ordered a black coffee, and Leo looked at him like he’d committed a crime.
“You’re in a city with actual espresso machines, and you order drip.”
“I like drip.”
“You like what you’re used to.”
Dawson took his cup and didn’t argue because it was true. He’d never understood the appeal in paying three times as much just to get a couple pumps of syrup and too much milk.
Leo led without asking, which Dawson let him do because Leo in discovery mode was something worth watching.
He stopped at a vintage store and walked out with a leather jacket that looked like it’d seen some things in its lifetime, dragged Dawson into a bookstore where Dawson found a Jim Thompson paperback he’d been looking for.
They ate lunch at a taco place Leo found on his phone, sharing a table so small their knees touched, and Dawson didn’t move his leg away.
“This is good,” Leo said, mouth full.
“It’s a taco.”
“It’s a great taco. But I’m not talking about the food.”
Dawson looked at Leo across the table. Hot sauce on his chin, sleeves shoved up past his elbows, eating like he’d forgotten anyone could see him. This was a version of Leo that Port Haven didn’t get. Dawson wasn’t sure Leo knew how sexy he was when he let his guard down.
Dawson reached across and wiped the hot sauce off with his thumb. He couldn’t help himself — the urge to take care of small things for Leo kept catching him off guard. Leo went still, eyes tracking the motion, and Dawson pulled his hand back before either of them could make it into something.
“You had sauce on your face,” Dawson said.
“You could have just told me, you know.” Leo’s grin had gone quieter, warmer. “Don’t hear me complaining, though.”
After lunch, they walked along the riverwalk. The path was wide, the trees lining the opposite side of the bank were turning orange and gold, and the foot traffic was thin enough that they had stretches of sidewalk to themselves.
Leo’s hand brushed his. Not an accident. Dawson could tell by the way Leo kept his pace steady, didn’t look over, gave Dawson the space to pull away without anyone having to acknowledge it.
Dawson didn’t flinch.
He let their hands brush again. Then again. And on the third pass, Leo’s fingers caught his and held.
Dawson’s pulse thumped once, hard, in his throat. His head didn’t turn. His eyes didn’t sweep. He just walked, hand in Leo’s, on a sidewalk in Milwaukee where nobody from his life would ever see him, and the feeling that moved through him was so far from fear that he didn’t have a word for it.
Leo’s thumb moved over his knuckle. One stroke. Slow.
Fingers laced together, a thumb on a knuckle. Such a small thing. Dawson had watched other people do this his entire life and told himself it wasn’t anything he needed. Walking next to Leo with their hands locked together, he understood for the first time how much that lie had cost him.
They walked. Leo filled the silence the way he always did, talking about the riverwalk, a gallery he wanted to check out, whether Jonesy could survive in a real city.
Dawson listened, held on, and let himself have this: a Thursday afternoon, a man’s hand in his, a city that didn’t know or care who Dawson Mercer was.
His jaw was loose. He hadn’t noticed it unclench, but it had, somewhere between the coffee shop and the taco place. His shoulders sat where they were supposed to. His breathing was even. He wasn’t mapping exits or sightlines or the distance between his body and Leo’s.
Eventually, he’d drive back to Port Haven and become the other version of himself again. The one who deflected when his brothers asked who he was talking to. But that version was still hours away, and right now he wasn’t in a hurry to reach it.
“Hey,” Leo said. They’d stopped at a railing overlooking the river, the sun catching the water and throwing light across Leo’s face. “Where’d you go?”
“Nowhere. I’m here.”
Leo studied him. The look he got when he was deciding whether to push or let something go.
Leo let it go. He squeezed Dawson’s hand once and turned back to the river.
“Good,” Leo said. “Stay here.”
Leo found a record shop two blocks off the riverwalk, and they lost an hour in there. Leo flipped through crates of vinyl with a focus Dawson hadn’t seen from him outside of hockey, pulling out albums to show Dawson covers he thought were funny or terrible or both.
“Do you even have a way to play these?” Dawson asked, watching Leo add a third record to the stack under his arm.
“Not currently.” Leo didn’t look up from the crate.
“My grandfather had this collection. Hundreds of records, all organized by year. He’d put one on every Sunday morning and make me sit and listen to the whole side before I could go outside.
” He pulled out another album, studied the cover, put it back.
“He died last year. My mom sold the whole collection at an estate sale. She said she didn’t realize I’d want them because I move so often. ”
Leo said it fast, without looking up, already moving to the next crate. Dawson watched him sort through the records and didn’t push.
Leo bought three records and carried the bag out of the store like he’d won something.
They found a bar with a patio overlooking the river and ate burgers as the sun went down. Leo ordered something on draft that came in a glass with a logo Dawson didn’t recognize. Dawson ordered a Leinenkugel.
They sat on the same side of the table, which Dawson hadn’t planned and Leo hadn’t mentioned. Leo’s knee pressed against his and stayed there.
Leo talked about Orlando. Not hockey, not the trade.
The apartment he’d had near the beach, the Cuban place on his block where the owner knew his order, the Sunday phone calls with his grandfather that stopped last year when he died.
Small things. The kind of details you only share when you’re not trying to impress anyone.
Dawson told him about the garage. How he’d been in the shop since he was old enough to hand his dad a wrench, and how, when their dad decided to retire, Wyatt took it over without anyone really discussing it.
It just made sense. Wyatt was the oldest. Wyatt had the head for the business side.
Dawson and Ethan never talked about doing anything else.
Somewhere along the way, it stopped being his dad’s shop and became Dawson’s life, and he’d never stopped to ask himself if he’d chosen it or just never left.
He hadn’t said that aloud before. Not to Wyatt, not to Ethan. Not to anyone. Never let himself admit that he might have wanted to do something else because he didn’t want his family to think he felt trapped.
Or was it that he was scared they’d encourage him to spread his wings?
Dawson swallowed hard at the thought. What if Leo was right and he kept his desires locked up inside because it was easier than taking a chance?
At some point, Leo’s hand landed on Dawson’s thigh. When the conversation moved on, the hand didn’t. They stayed until the bartender started stacking chairs.
They drove home in the dark. Leo nodded off not long after they got on the highway, his head against the window, breath fogging a circle on the glass.
Dawson glanced over. He couldn’t help it.
The highway was empty, the cab was quiet, and Leo’s face in the dashboard light was something Dawson couldn’t look away from.
His jaw, the way his hair had come loose over the course of the day.
His hands open in his lap, still for once.
This was what Leo looked like when he wasn’t filling a room.
He should let him sleep. They were only a couple of weeks into the season, but Leo had been running hard between games, travel, practices, and now a full day in Milwaukee on top of it.
Dawson reached across the console and put his hand on Leo’s thigh. Light. Not enough to wake him. Leo shifted in his sleep, turned his head toward Dawson, and settled again.
Dawson left his hand there for the rest of the drive.
Dawson pulled into the lot behind Leo’s apartment and put the truck in park. Leo stirred, blinked, and sat up like he didn’t know where he was for a second.
“Did I fall asleep?” His voice was rough. He rubbed his face with one hand and looked around. “Sorry. That’s embarrassing.”
“You needed it.”
Leo turned to him. The streetlight through the windshield caught one side of his face. His hair was wrecked from sleeping against the glass, and he looked so good it made Dawson’s chest hurt.
“Today was good,” Leo said. Not casual. He was watching Dawson like he was making sure it landed.
“Yeah. It was.”
Leo didn’t move to get out. Dawson didn’t move to rush him. The truck was still running, the heater pushing warm air between them, and the silence had a weight neither of them was breaking.
Leo leaned across the console. His hand found the side of Dawson’s neck, thumb against his jaw, and kissed him.
Not quick this time. Slow, warm, his mouth still soft from sleep.
Dawson’s hand came up and gripped Leo’s jacket at the hip without deciding to, pulling him closer.
Leo made a sound against his mouth—quiet, almost nothing—and Dawson felt it in his whole body.
Leo pulled back just far enough to look at him. His hand was still on Dawson’s neck. “You could come up.”
Dawson wanted to. The want was so sharp it sat behind his teeth. Leo’s apartment, Leo’s door closing behind them, Leo’s hands somewhere other than his neck. He could see all of it.
“I should get home,” he said.
Leo held his eyes for a second. Then nodded, squeezed the back of Dawson’s neck once, and got out. He took the stairs two at a time. The apartment light came on.
Dawson sat in the truck with the engine running and didn’t pull away until the light in the window went off. He could still feel the kiss on his mouth, the grip of Leo’s fingers on his neck.
When he got home, Ethan was on the couch watching TV.
“Where’ve you been?” Ethan asked without looking up.
“Milwaukee. Errands.”
“Errands.” Ethan snorted. “Since when do you run errands in Milwaukee?”
“Since today.”
Ethan looked at him, then back at the TV. “You want a beer? There’s a couple in the fridge.”
“I’m good.” Dawson hung his jacket on the hook by the door.
The house was warm, the TV was on, and Ethan was already back to the highlights.
Everything exactly where it always was. Dawson stood there for a second longer than he should have, his keys still in his hand, thinking about Leo’s apartment and the door he hadn’t walked through.
Leo had offered. Dawson had pulled away anyway, the way he’d been doing his whole life. That man made it hard to live with the status quo.