CHAPTER 15
ACE
THE PUCK'S COMING straight at me and my brain decides now is the perfect time to remember the exact curve of Devon's smile.
I swing my stick. Miss. The puck sails past me, hits the boards, and ricochets back toward center ice where Petrov scoops it up with an ease that's frankly insulting.
"Ace!" Coach Martin's voice booms across the rink. "You planning on joining us today or should I mark you absent?"
I'd answer, but I'm too busy skating in the wrong direction. Toward my own goal.
Wall stares at me through his mask. "You lost, buddy?"
"Nope. Totally meant to do that."
I pivot too fast and my skate catches an edge. I don't fall, but it's a near thing. My arms windmill like I'm trying to achieve flight, and I somehow manage to stay upright through sheer force of not wanting to be roasted alive.
Too late.
"Did Ace just forget how to skate?" Becker's voice carries across the entire rink.
"Maybe he hit his head," Groover suggests.
"When? Just now? Or like, as a child?"
Coach blows the whistle. "Water break! Ace, you're doing extra laps."
Fantastic. Just what I need.
I skate to the bench, grab my water bottle, and try to drown myself with it. But it doesn't work. I'm still alive and still thinking about Devon.
The one I kissed.
The one who sent me a picture of his torso.
The one I jerked off to while imagining his face.
Yeah, it’s kind of complicated.
This is a special circle of hell designed just for me.
"Dude." Wall skates up, pulling off his mask. "You okay? You're like... really off today."
"I'm fine."
"You just tried to score on your own goal."
"That was—I was testing you. Seeing if you were paying attention."
He stares at me. "That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard, and I room with Becker."
"Hey!" Becker skates over. "I'm right here."
"I know. That's why I said it."
Practice continues, and I continue to suck at hockey, which is problematic considering hockey is my job and I never came up with plan B.
I miss passes I could make in my sleep. I'm offside twice in five minutes. At one point, I accidentally trip Jinx, who goes down hard and immediately taps his helmet three times and his stick twice before getting up.
Coach finally takes mercy on me (or maybe he just can't watch anymore) and benches me for the last twenty minutes of practice.
I sit there, supposedly watching the drills, but actually having a mental breakdown.
How is this my life now?
A week ago, I was a normal, straight hockey player with a simple life. Now I'm having a sexuality crisis because of a compact-sized bartender who's somehow invaded every corner of my brain, and also—also—whom I've been accidentally sexting online.
Petrov scores a beautiful goal, and everyone cheers. I clap along, trying to look like I didn’t miss it despite of staring right at it.
Finally, the practice ends.
"Ace!" Coach calls as everyone's skating off. "A word."
Oh God.
I skate over, trying to look attentive and not like I'm about to vibrate away.
Coach crosses his arms. "You want to tell me what's going on?"
"Nothing's going on."
"Son, I've been coaching hockey for thirty years. That was not nothing."
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. "I'm just... December's been a lot."
It's not a lie. December has been a lot. It's just not the whole truth.
Coach studies me for a long moment. "You need to sit out a game, you tell me."
"I don't—"
"Your performance today says otherwise."
Ouch. Fair, but still. Ouch.
"I'll be better next practice," I promise. "Today was just... off."
He doesn't look convinced, but he nods. "Get some rest. And Ace? Whatever's going on, figure it out before it costs us a game."
"Yes, Coach."
I skate off before he can say anything else.
The locker room is a familiar frenzy. Becker's singing something off-key. Petrov's on his phone, probably texting his girlfriend. Groover and Wall are arguing about Die Hard.
"It's not a Christmas movie," Wall insists.
"It literally takes place at a Christmas party."
"That doesn't make it a Christmas movie!"
"By that logic, Home Alone isn't a Christmas movie."
"Home Alone is obviously a Christmas movie!"
I tune them out, focusing very intently on unlacing my skates.
Jinx drops onto the bench next to me. "So what's her name?"
I freeze. "What?"
"The girl. The one who's got you all twisted up." He grins. "Come on. We've all been there."
Jesus. Maybe I should just confirm. Maybe that would be easier. "There's no girl," I say instead.
"Dude. You forgot how to hockey. There's definitely a girl."
Becker leans over from his locker. "Is she hot?"
"There's no—"
"She must be smoking if she's got you this messed up," Groover adds.
"I bet she's a model," Wall says.
"Or a doctor," Petrov suggests. "Smart and hot. Deadly combination."
"Maybe she's a spy," Becker says, completely fucking serious. "That would explain why he's so secretive."
"A spy?" Groover laughs. "What is this, a James Bond movie?"
Becker shrugs. "I'm just saying, we should consider all possibilities."
This is my life now. My teammates speculating about my nonexistent girlfriend who is actually a guy. I need to leave before I do something stupid like scream.
"No girl," I say firmly, shoving my gear into my bag. "No spy. No doctor. No one. I'm just tired."
"That's what they all say," Becker says.
"Who's 'they'?"
"People. In general. It's a thing people say."
I give up. There's no winning this conversation.
I shower faster than I ever have in my life, throw on my clothes, and escape to the parking lot before anyone can follow me with more questions.
My car is freezing. I start the engine, crank the heat to maximum, and just sit there, hands gripping the steering wheel like it's the only thing keeping me tethered to reality.
Which, honestly, it might be.
Because my reality has become this: I can't stop thinking about Devon. Not for a single fucking second. Not during practice, not during sleep, not during the five minutes I tried to meditate this morning before giving up because my brain kept supplying images of his face, and his laugh, and his—
My phone buzzes.
Sighing, I fish it out of my pocket, fully expecting more mockery, or worse, someone staging an intervention, which is the last thing I need right now. Instead, my thumb goes still, hovering over the screen that greets me with the absolute last thing I need right now. A Reddit DM.
I take that back. An intervention would have been much better.
I should ignore it. I'm going to ignore it.
Then I click on the notification, because I have zero self-control and open the app with the enthusiasm of a man walking to his own execution.
There's a video file. Just a video, no message, except for a caption that reads: "in case you need some more research ??"
The preview image loads.
And then my entire cardiovascular system just... stops.
It's a hand. A small, soft-skinned hand with long, dexterous fingers.
Fingers wrapped around a cock.
The image is cropped—no face, nothing identifying—but I know. I know whose hand that is. I know whose cock that is.
Devon's hand.
Devon's cock.
Devon sent me a video of himself jerking off.
I'm holding my phone like it's a live grenade, which it basically is, staring at this tiny preview image that's already seared itself into my brain permanently.
The cock is hard. Obviously. Flushed dark at the tip. There's a vein running along the underside that I can see even in this shitty resolution, and I'm memorizing these details like I'm going to be tested on them later.
Which I won't be. Because I'm not going to watch this video.
I'm absolutely not going to watch this video.
My thumb hovers over the play button.
Don't do it. Don't fucking do it.
I press play.
The video starts and Devon's hand moves, slow, deliberate, a long stroke from base to tip, and I hear him. This soft exhale, barely audible, that hits me like a gut punch.
I pause immediately, heart slamming against my ribs so hard I'm worried I'm having a cardiac event.
The frozen image on my screen shows Devon's cock, mid-stroke, a bead of precum visible at the tip, his thumb swiping through it on the way up.
I'm hard. Instantly, painfully hard. My dick went from zero to aching in approximately half a second, and now I'm sitting in my car in the arena parking lot, in broad daylight, with a boner and a video of my coworker jerking off paused on my phone.
This is still fine. Everything is still fine.
I should delete this. Right now. Delete it and pretend I never saw it and go home and take a cold shower and never think about this again.
But I'm still staring at the screen. At the way his grip looks firm but not too tight, confident, like he's done this a million times—
Stop. Stop thinking about how many times Devon has jerked off. That's not helpful.
Except now I'm thinking about it. About Devon in his dorm room, maybe lying on his bed, maybe sitting in a chair, hand wrapped around himself, making those sounds—
I press play again.
Just for a second. Just to—
Devon's hand speeds up, and there's another sound, this quiet hitch of breath that might be the beginning of a moan, and I watch his hips shift slightly, thrusting up into his own fist, and the angle changes just enough that I can see—
I pause it again.
Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.
My hand has somehow migrated to my lap without my permission, pressing against my cock through my jeans, and I'm two seconds away from jerking off in a parking lot like some kind of deviant.
I can't do this.
Devon doesn't know it's me. He thinks he's sending this to some random stranger on the internet. Some faceless guy who's "figuring things out." He doesn't know he's sending it to Ace. To the guy he works with. To the guy who kissed him in front of fifty people and got hard from it.
If he knew, he wouldn't have sent it.
Or... would he?
No. Stop. That's not the point.
The point is consent. The point is that Devon consented to sending this to Need_Tailor_Chicago, not to Ace, and those are two different people even though they're technically the same person, and this is making my head hurt.
I look at the paused video one more time.
Then I delete it.
It takes everything I have. Every ounce of willpower I've ever possessed. But I do it. I delete it without watching the rest, without seeing Devon come, without hearing whatever sounds he makes when he tips over the edge.
The screen goes blank.
I sit there, breathing hard, cock still straining against my zipper, hands shaking.
I can't keep doing this. I can't keep talking to him online, pretending to be someone else, while simultaneously working with him in person and trying not to combust every time he looks at me.
I have to tell him.
I have to tell him it's me before this goes any further. Before he sends something else. Before I do something I can't take back.
My phone feels like it weighs a thousand pounds as I pick it up again.
I open the message thread and type:
Need_Tailor_Chicago: Hey, so. I've been thinking… Are you free for drinks tonight?
My thumb hovers over send. This is either the most responsible or the dumbest I’ve ever been. I hit send, then drop my phone on the passenger seat, grip the steering wheel with both hands, and stare straight ahead at the gray concrete wall of the parking structure.
What the fuck did I just do?