Chapter 21
Twenty-One
Hawk loaded Caleb in the car the day after his meltdown and drove him to Idaho Springs.
His heart ached for Caleb because he did know exactly how it felt to suddenly realize everything you’d worked for in your life was over and you had to make a new plan.
It had cracked him down the middle, opened him up and scooped his insides out. It had left him feeling hollow and completely wrecked, unable to move for a while. He’d gone through the motions of doing healing and rehab and physical therapy and getting his shit together.
The guys from his team had come to visit him in the hospital. They’d brought him food and all sorts of shit for him, but eventually their visits had trickled off and become texts, and then the texts had become fewer and farther between.
Hawk had sunk pretty deep, and it was his mom who’d finally pulled him out of it, coming down from Maine, setting up camp in his guest room. Poking and prodding at him, making him create lists, ensuring he had plenty of food to eat, and just not allowing him to be alone.
So Hawk was going to do that for Caleb. He was going to distract him with a new place to be and new things to do, and with Beau Jo’s pizza to inhale. When Caleb was ready, Hawk would start him making pros and cons lists and get him thinking about what he wanted to do, but they had plenty of time.
He would also talk to Caleb about what his mom had kind of forced him into, which was talking to a sports therapist. Hawk’s was an ex-football player who had ended his career with a terrible separated shoulder, broken arm, and broken collarbone, along with a concussion that had sent him spiraling.
He understood everything Hawk was going through and he’d been the perfect person to talk to.
Caleb had dozed off on the drive, so Hawk reached over and put a hand on his leg, squeezing a little. “Hey, babe, we’re here.”
“Oh, shit, I missed the drive. Was it nice?”
“At least the weather didn’t suck. And we didn’t have to do the tunnel like you would to Vail.” He hated Eisenhower tunnel in the winter. A person could drive in on one side with perfect weather and out the other into a blizzard.
Caleb peered at the white clapboard house that slumped into the side of the foothill, the big slate blue barn looming over it at the back. Hawk knew it looked bizarre.
He adored it.
“Wow,” Caleb told him, “This place is wonky as hell. It is so cool.”
“You don’t think it’s ridiculous?” His heart beat a little too hard, and he held his breath because he wanted Caleb to think it was a good place. A solid place.
“No, I think this is much more like the boy who grew up bouncing between Maine and Montreal, and it suits you way better than the condo.” Caleb grabbed his hand. “Come on let’s go inside and look at it. Somebody has been shoveling the drive and the walk for you, huh?”
“I have somebody who does it for me anyway, but I called and had them come over because I knew we needed to make sure you could get inside without snow and ice.” He had a couple of teenagers who absolutely loved to make money, and they did a good job.
Plus, their moms pretty much kept an iron grip on them and made sure they did their work.
It didn’t hurt that they were both hockey fans.
Hawk got Caleb out of the car and into the house, where the heat had also been turned on, so it felt warm and toasty.
One of the first things he’d redone was the front room situation, which included the entry way, the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen.
The house had mostly linoleum tiles that looked like wood over top of the old hardwood floors, so he’d pulled that out and refinished the wood.
He’d left the whole wall of brick around the fireplace but had stained it a little bit less red and more weathered.
He’d replaced the windows, and he’d had to gut the whole kitchen because it had been a 1970s monstrosity with orange cabinets.
Then he put his big bedroom down on the main floor, replacing the family room somebody had sort of tacked on at the back, and slotted in a bathroom. He still had a lot of work to do upstairs. The ground floor was pretty much exactly what he wanted.
He got Caleb in and ensconced on a kitchen stool, with his foot up on the next one over, while he got them both bottles of water and put the kettle on to make some hot chocolate.
“This place has amazing bones, man. It’s kind of stunning.” Caleb looked around. “I can see the work you put into it.”
“Thanks. I really have spent a lot of time here just sort of getting shit done. I had to put out a powder room and a bathroom down on this floor and then the upstairs is still kind of a mish-mash.” He shrugged, taking down cups and filling them with powdered drink mix.
“But you should be comfortable here because there’s no stairs for you right now.
Later when you need to use the home gym, you’ll have to go down to the lower level. ”
“That’s cool. I can do a bunch of stuff up here with free weights and a yoga mat. No big deal.” Caleb rested his chin on his hand. “Do we need to go get groceries or whatever?”
“I had somebody bring some stuff in. One of the moms of my snow removal team went shopping and put some staples in the fridge and pantry for us.” They had the door code, and he trusted them not to mess with his shit. It didn’t hurt that he had cameras.
“Cool. And then you’re gonna take me to Beau Jo’s, and we’re gonna have pizza, right?”
“Yeah, we’ll go tomorrow.” He wandered over to stand next to Caleb, wanting a kiss badly, and Caleb tilted his head back immediately, letting Hawk slide a hand behind it and lift him up just enough for their mouths to meet.
This was a dream, having someone in his house, someone he felt like he could rub elbows with in the kitchen, someone he could get to know and maybe have a real deep sort of relationship with.
Maybe he was putting the cart before the horse, but it felt solid with Caleb, and he hoped Caleb felt the same way.
As if they were at the beginning of something important.
Caleb wrapped both arms around his neck, pulling him down to kiss him harder, the heat flaring between them like it always seemed to.
They’d been super careful since Caleb’s injury, making out some but not really pushing it past that. This kiss, though, this kiss said things to him. It told him Caleb might be ready for a little bit more enthusiasm.
“You should turn the kettle off,” Caleb told him. I think we could go have a break and you can show me your bedroom before we have hot chocolate.” Caleb ran a hand down Hawk’s chest and over his belly, hooking his fingers into Hawk’s jeans.
Hawk’s body responded predictably, his cock firming up in his pants, his breath coming faster. “You sure?”
“Fuck yes, babe. I’m sick and tired of recuperating. I’m ready. I mean I’m not I’m not going to be doing any enthusiastic shower sex standing up or anything but I’m totally ready for your mouth on my dick.”
“Fuck, I’m ready for that too.” He reached down to pull Caleb’s legs around his waist. “Careful now. Don’t let me whack your foot on anything.” Then he hoisted Caleb up in his arms and carried him to the bedroom.
“Fuck, that’s so fucking hot.” Caleb twined around him, holding on, clinging like a vine. “I missed you being physical with me, babe. I hated feeling like I was fucking fragile or something.”
“I wasn’t gonna chance hurting you. Not ever.”
Caleb dug one hand down to his hair. “I appreciate that, but I trust you.”
He eased Caleb down onto the big bed in his bedroom, grinning down at him as he stood perpendicular to Caleb’s hips. “I’m glad. I want you to be able to trust me.”
Caleb stretched hands up over his head, rippling from the tips of his fingers all the way down to the toes on his good foot. “Get naked. I want to watch you get naked. It’s been too damn long.”
He nodded but instead of tugging at his own clothes, he went for Caleb’s.
Caleb rolled up to sitting and Hawk grabbed Caleb’s sweatshirt to tug it off.
Caleb’s tight chest and belly appeared, his hair all wild now.
While Hawk thought Caleb was looking a little leaner these days, it was still enough to have his cock pressing against his zipper in a painful sort of way.
Caleb turned him inside out with how fucking beautiful he was.
“Now these.” He tugged at the waist of Caleb’s sweatpants, and Caleb helped him by lifting his hips. He slid them off gently over the bad foot but then yanked them off the other side with a flourish.
He wanted Caleb bad, and he wanted his lover to know it.
Caleb chuckled, wiggling the toes of his good foot. His cock was hard, and it bounced when Caleb moved, pointing up toward his navel. “You’re gonna suck me, babe?”
“We’re going to start with that for sure.” Hawk carefully spread Caleb’s legs then tucked a pillow under the foot that needed to be stationary. He slid his hands up the insides of Caleb’s thighs, feeling the muscles quiver under his fingers, feeling the soft, heated skin and springy hair there.
“God, I missed touching you like this. I knew if I got started we’d never stop, and I’m not used to being gentle.
” Licking his lips, Hawk stared down at Caleb’s flat little nipples at the ridged plane of his belly.
Hawk wasn’t sure where to start because he wanted to lick and suck and bite every little bit of what he was looking at.
Caleb ran a hand down his chest and across his belly to grab his cock and stroke it in a slow, leisurely kind of way. “Mostly I seem to be touching myself, babe.”
“Let me fix that, baby.” He huffed out a laugh before shucking his own clothes so fast he was afraid he was going to leave fabric burns. He crawled onto the bed then, hunting Caleb like a big cat, at least in his own mind. To Caleb he probably appeared like an overeager Great Dane.