CHAPTER TWO TWO CAPTAINS, ONE LOFT #2
“Expansion teams trade people,” Tyler said. “That’s how they build. Nobody here should get sentimental.”
“Too late for me.” Brock nodded toward the skyline. “But you might surprise yourself.”
The breeze pulled at Tyler’s shirt. Brock stood close enough to block part of it, radiating the same troublesome heat Tyler remembered from the locker room.
“Thirty days,” Tyler said.
“Sure.”
“Then one of us moves.”
Brock finally looked at him. “You keep saying things like you’re trying to convince your body.”
Tyler’s fingers tightened around the bottle.
Below them, one of the movers called Brock’s name.
Brock headed for the stairs. Before descending, he paused close enough that his arm brushed Tyler’s.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m glad they picked you.”
Tyler stayed on the roof until the cold made it possible to blame the tightness in his chest on weather.
They chose rooms without argument. Tyler took the eastern suite for the morning light.
Brock took the western one because it had a view toward the old neighborhood where he had grown up.
Movers brought boxes for an hour. Tyler’s side filled with tailored clothing, framed campaign photographs, art books, and enough skin-care products to stock a boutique.
Brock unpacked cast-iron cookware, old vinyl records, a battered tool chest, and a framed photograph of three boys standing on a frozen pond.
The youngest was unmistakably Brock, already scowling at the camera.
“Cute,” Tyler said from the doorway.
Brock placed the photograph on a shelf. “Break into my room often?”
“Your door was open.”
“So is the front door. That doesn’t make it yours.”
“Technically half of everything here is mine.”
Brock turned. “You planning to claim half my bed?”
The air tightened.
Tyler leaned against the frame and forced his expression to remain bored. “I saw the mattress. I prefer mine.”
“You haven’t tried it.”
“I haven’t tried food poisoning either.”
He left before Brock could see the heat rising along his throat.
For the next two hours, they established territory with the solemnity of hostile nations.
Tyler claimed the upper shelves in the bathroom.
Brock claimed the cabinet beside the stove.
Tyler organized the film room by opponent.
Brock moved the remotes to a carved wooden bowl.
Each man pretended not to notice whenever the other passed too close.
At eight, Tyler ordered dinner for one.
Brock cooked steak for two.
They ate together without acknowledging the compromise.
Conversation stayed safely on hockey. They discussed the roster, the young goaltender’s tendency to drop early, the second line’s weak entries, and Keller’s habit of hiding conditioning drills inside games.
Brock knew the tactical system better than Tyler expected.
Tyler understood defensive spacing better than Brock wanted to admit.
By the time the plates were empty, they had disagreed on twelve subjects and solved three problems.
“Thirty days,” Tyler said, carrying his glass to the sink.
“Twenty-nine and a half.”
“Separate schedules. Separate rooms. No bringing anyone home without warning.”
Brock leaned against the island. “Planning to bring somebody home?”
“I like options.”
“So do I.”
Tyler turned. “Men?”
The question escaped more directly than he intended.
Brock considered him. “Sometimes.”
“Women?”
“Sometimes.”
“Teammates?”
Brock’s pale eyes held his. “Never before.”
That final word lodged beneath Tyler’s ribs.
He set down the glass. “Good.”
“Good,” Brock agreed.
They stood across the island, both lying.
Tyler went to his room and remained there for forty-three minutes.
He showered, answered messages, and attempted to review the next day’s schedule. Every few minutes, a muted impact traveled through the floor. Metal settled against metal. A cable machine whispered. Someone breathed with controlled force.
The private gym.
Tyler turned another page on his tablet without absorbing a word.
The next impact came harder.
He told himself he needed to stretch.
The gym lights were low. Milwaukee glowed beyond the windows, gold reflections breaking across the river. Brock stood inside the squat rack with a loaded bar across his shoulders. He wore black training shorts and nothing else.
Tyler stopped outside the glass.
Brock lowered into a deep squat. His thighs widened, back flexing beneath a sheen of sweat. He drove upward with steady power. The bar rose. Every muscle from his calves to his shoulders tightened in sequence.
Tyler’s body reacted before he entered the room.
The loose shorts he had chosen for bed did almost nothing to hide it.
Brock completed the repetition, set the bar into its hooks, and looked at Tyler through the mirror.
“Need something?”
“The stretching mat.”
“Behind you.”
Tyler looked. It was.
He entered anyway.
Brock took a towel from the bench and moved it over his face, chest, and abdomen. The motion only spread the sweat across skin and dark body hair. Tyler tried to focus on the resistance bands lining the wall. His gaze returned against his will.
Brock dropped the towel.
His eyes lowered to the front of Tyler’s shorts.
“That from the stretching mat?”
Tyler refused to cover himself. “You’re very pleased with your own body.”
“I’m not the one staring at it.”
“There’s nowhere else to look. You occupy the room.”
Brock stepped out of the rack. “Then stop staring.”
Tyler’s pulse changed. “Or?”
“Do something about it.”
The challenge was quiet. That made it more dangerous.
Tyler crossed the distance between them.
He placed one palm in the center of Brock’s chest and pushed.
Brock did not move.
“That something?” Brock asked.
Tyler pushed harder. Brock took one deliberate step back, not because Tyler had forced him but because he had chosen to allow it.
The distinction infuriated Tyler.
He caught Brock behind one knee and drove his shoulder into the larger man’s center. Brock twisted. They struck the mat together, Tyler landing on top.
“Better,” Tyler said.
Brock rolled them before the word finished.
Tyler’s back hit the mat. Brock straddled his hips and captured both wrists above his head with one hand. His other palm settled against Tyler’s chest.
Their breathing filled the glass room.
Tyler tested the hold. Brock’s grip tightened.
“You done?” Brock asked.
“Not close.”
Tyler hooked both legs around Brock’s waist, shifted his center of gravity, and pulled. Brock caught himself on one arm. Tyler used the opening to wrench a wrist free and reverse them again.
They fought without striking. Every move had another purpose. A pin became an excuse to align their bodies. A trapped leg became permission to grip a thigh. Tyler dragged Brock down by the shoulders; Brock lifted Tyler bodily and carried him three steps before Tyler twisted free.
Their shorts made the effect of the struggle impossible to misunderstand.
Each time they pressed together, Tyler felt Brock’s arousal answer his own. Each time they separated, the absence became intolerable.
Tyler caught Brock’s wrist and forced it toward the mat.
Brock allowed him to come close.
Then he surged upward.
Tyler found himself lifted completely from the floor, one of Brock’s arms beneath his thighs and the other across his back. Instinct made him lock his legs around Brock’s waist.
The position stopped being remotely athletic.
Brock stood between Tyler’s knees, chest heaving, holding him with insulting ease.
“Put me down,” Tyler said.
“Make me.”
Tyler kissed him.
Brock answered with a sound that Tyler felt more than heard. His grip shifted, drawing Tyler closer. The kiss was harder than the first and somehow less angry. Tyler held Brock’s damp face, tasted salt at the corner of his mouth, and felt the man walk without seeing where they were going.
The glass shower door opened against Tyler’s back.
“Lawson,” he said, breathless against Brock’s lips.
“Hayes.”
“If you drop me—”
Brock carried him beneath the rain head and reached for the controls.
Water struck them cold.
Tyler shouted and nearly climbed higher. Brock laughed for the first time without mockery, a deep, startled sound that changed his entire face.
Tyler stared.
“You did that on purpose.”
“Wanted to cool you down.”
Tyler slapped the control toward hot. “You first.”
Steam began to fill the glass enclosure.
Brock set him on his feet but did not release him. Water flattened the hair across Brock’s chest and ran along the scars on his ribs. Tyler followed one pale line with his fingertips.
Brock went still.
The same unguarded reaction Tyler had felt in the locker room returned.
“This okay?” Tyler asked.
Brock looked down at the hand on his body, then into Tyler’s eyes. “Yes.”
“All of it?”
“If I want you to stop, I’ll tell you.” His thumb passed over Tyler’s lower lip. “You do the same.”
Tyler nodded.
The agreement changed everything.
Competition remained in every touch. Brock crowded him against the warm tile; Tyler turned them and claimed the stronger position.
Brock trapped Tyler’s wrists; Tyler demanded his release with a look, received it instantly, and pulled Brock back by the shoulders.
They kissed beneath the water until neither could remember which man had started it.
But between each struggle came attention. A hand slowed at a bruise. A mouth softened over an old scar. Brock held Tyler as if his strength could be used for shelter instead of impact. Tyler discovered that surrender did not have to mean defeat when it was chosen and returned.
Steam erased the city beyond the glass.
Their shorts landed outside the shower at some point neither later remembered clearly.
There was only skin, heat, breath, and the shock of nothing left to hide.
Tyler had imagined Brock naked since the first assessment.
Imagination had failed to capture the scale of him, the roughness and warmth, the vulnerability of a powerful body offered without apology.
Brock looked at Tyler with equal hunger.
“Still want me to stop staring?” Tyler asked.