Chapter 18
DES
It’s been barely a day since the night Tanner and I crossed a line.
And now there’s this...thing between us.
Not a wall, exactly. More like fog. A thick, quiet haze that follows us from room to room, softening the air between us, making it hard to tell what’s normal and what’s changed.
He doesn’t bring it up, and I don’t ask.
Because it was just a favor, right?
And if I can’t stop replaying the sounds he made in the dark—his breathing, the way his hand gripped my arm—well. That’s just a side effect. Muscle memory.
Right?
He needed release. He hadn’t touched anyone since his wife passed. I’m a good friend. That’s all. There are guys who give kidneys to their friends in need. I merely went with another body part.
Saturday night, we go to bed in silence. The kids are finally down, the dishes are done, and I climb into Tanner’s bed like it’s any other night.
Except it’s not.
Now I know what he sounds like when he falls apart under my touch. I know how he feels—hot, strong, trembling—how he tastes. After nearly thirty years of friendship, I got to discover new parts of Tanner. That’s not the kind of thing that goes away.
We lie on opposite sides of the mattress, not touching, not talking. The silence is heavy, loaded with everything we’re not saying.
There will be no heart-to-hearts or good friend blowjobs. I’m great in a room. I can schmooze and pitch and persuade with the best of them. But in this small, cramped room with creaky ceiling fan and dusty nightstands, I feel out of my depth.
I stare at the ceiling and listen to him breathe.
I don’t sleep well.
Sunday morning, we suit up for our recreational hockey league game. I’m grateful for it. At least on the ice, things make sense. There are rules, boundaries. Structure.
In the locker room, Tanner pulls on his gear beside me, his eyes cast down, focused on lacing his skates. His jaw is tight. I want to say something—make a joke, break the tension—but my throat is too dry. Everything I come up with sounds too risky, too honest.
Our teammates mill about us, seemingly unaware of the tension.
“Charlie thinks we should start a book club,” Mitch says as he laces up.
“At the bar?” Griffin asks. Mitch owns our favorite bar in town, the Stone’s Throw Tavern, which he runs with his husband Charlie.
“He says it could pull in more female patrons.” Mitch shrugs. If he had his way, there would be no evolving the business. Stone’s Throw would serve beer and nothing else.
“Isn’t it too loud to host a book club?” Bill wonders. “Don’t you need quiet?”
“You should do a book club with male strippers,” Hank says, totally serious.
“I’ll run it by Charlie.” Mitch arches an eyebrow. “So who are we playing today?”
“The Special Deliveries,” Bill says, slathering war paint under his eyes. “They’re a bunch of UPS drivers.”
“We can take ‘em.” Hank puts on his goalie gloves.
“Hank, these guys can hurl seventy-pound packages onto your doorstep. I’d take them seriously,” Griffin says as he tapes up his hockey stick. He looks up at Derek rubbing his eyes. “You okay, buddy?”
“Yeah. Jolene and I were up late. There was a meteor passing through the sky at 2:45 in the morning. It was pretty cool.” Derek’s teenage daughter is big into astronomy and even secured a part-time internship with the local college’s observatory.
I’d love to watch a meteor shower with Tanner.
Holding hands as the sky lights up. Maybe Lulu sitting on my shoulders.
Damn. I should be dreaming about a hot chick’s legs resting on my shoulders, not a precocious five-year-old.
“Des, you’re quiet. You actually nervous?” Griffin asks. I feel everyone look at me, including Tanner, aka my teammate, my best friend, my husband.
“I don’t get nervous. I’m mostly concerned about the state of my packages when we wind up kicking their asses. I might need to switch to FedEx.”
The guys chuckle at my comment, throwing off any suspicion of weirdness. Unlike Tanner’s bedroom, this is one room where I feel at ease. These are my guys.
“You good, Tanner?” I turn to him, try not to get bowled over by his big, sweetheart eyes.
“Yes. Just trying to get into the zone,” he says. Fortunately, Tanner’s pregame ritual is to be very quiet and pensive, so the guys think he’s acting himself. They can’t sense the I-got-sucked-off-by-my-best-friend weirdness that I can feel coming off in waves.
I bounce my knee against his thigh. “You good?”
“Uh. Yeah.”
“Tan…” I force him to meet my eyes.
He stands up and is the first one to throw on his helmet. “I’m good. Let’s get out there.”
On the ice, I don’t know what to expect from my fellow offense man. Bill, our center, wins the puck drop. He passes it to me. I take a quick breath and pass to Tanner, hoping this game isn’t a flaming disaster.
The second the puck hits my stick, everything shifts.
Because this? This is ours.
This is where we’re most us.
From the opening whistle, we fall into our usual rhythm.
No, not our usual rhythm. Better. More in sync.
Like we share the same damn brain. It’s uncanny.
Tanner and I move like two parts of the same body—passes gliding between us without a word, instinct taking over.
Tanner cuts left, and I’m already there.
I drive forward, he drops behind, scooping up the rebound like he knew I’d miss just a hair too high.
We’re art out there. Fluid, fast, unstoppable.
The play unfolds before I even think about it, like Tanner and I drew it up in secret.
He cuts left, I drift right, and the defense scrambles, chasing shadows.
I send the puck across the slot, trusting he’ll be there, and of course he is—he always is.
One touch from him, back to me, and it’s like the ice clears just for us.
I don’t even see the goalie, just Tanner’s grin flashing in the corner of my eye as I bury the shot.
The crowd roars, but all I hear is the quiet certainty between us—that perfect, wordless connection, as if we’ve only ever shared one brain.
By the second period, we’ve scored three goals between us. The rest of the team is feeding us the puck like it’s automatic.
By the third period, we’re laughing. Laughing.
Whatever fog was between us—gone. Melted away by sweat and speed and the solid thunk of blades carving ice.
He slaps my back after we score again. “That pass was disgusting.” He grins.
“You’re welcome, husband,” I mutter, catching my breath.
He laughs and bumps his helmet against mine. “Guess this marriage has some benefits.”
It’s ridiculous how good that makes me feel.
After the game, we head into the locker room. Steam rises from the showers. The guys are all chatter and towel slaps, stretching and hydrating and catching up like Sunday warriors do.
“That wasn’t just a victory out there. That was domination!” Bill yells.
“Best game you guys ever played,” Mitch says nodding at Tanner and me.
“MVP! MVP!” The guys shout in unison, their voices echoing against in the small quarters.
Tanner grabs my hand, and we lift our arms in the air, soaking in the acclaim.
Bill Crandell is not one for showing emotion.
A half-smile from him is as happy as he gets.
He’s gruff and serious and has no intentions in changing that, not even after falling in love with his assistant last year.
He is the only guy that love hasn’t turned into a softie.
But he’s positively glowing. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen his face more animated.
“You guys were on fire out there! Holy shit! Your passing was freaking poetry. We nearly shut them out.”
“It was all Tanner,” I say.
“No. It was all Des,” he zings back. “That shot in the second quarter was a thing of beauty.”
“Only because of your cross-ice pass through the legs of that other player. That pass needs to be hung in the Louvre.”
“You can stop sucking each other off,” Griffin says.
I fumble my stick out of my hands, sending it bumping into the head of Hank, seated in front of me.
“Ow!”
“Sorry, Hank.”
Tanner lets out a laugh, but I detect the red lingering on his cheeks.
“You did great out there. Don’t let it get to your head. Next Sunday is a blank slate,” Bill says as he walks his bare ass into the showers.
“Hey.” I hold out my fist to Tanner once the other guys go back to getting undressed and heading into the shower. “We did good.”
He gives it a pound. “Dynamic duo pounces again.”
“Are we, uh…”
“Good? Yeah.” There’s a definitiveness to his nod. Tanner wouldn’t be able to lie about something like that. But it seems all it took was a little hockey to fix the weirdness.
He peels off his pads, tugging his shirt up and over his head.
I don’t mean to look. I really don’t.
But.
There’s a moment when the shirt sticks, and his torso flexes as he yanks it free. The stretch of his arms. The curve of his back. That thick scar above his hip from where he slipped fixing the roof years ago.
My mouth goes a little dry.
I am an admirer of the human body—Tanner’s especially.
I look away and continue undressing. I yank my sweaty undershirt off, then my pants. I love hockey, but am so ready not to smell like a gym sock anymore.
Then I look back.
Because he’s standing there in nothing but compression shorts, damp curls stuck to his neck, his skin flushed from the game, and my brain short circuits. Completely. Spectacularly.
Is he...?
Wait.
Is he looking at me too?
I catch him, just for a second, glancing over.
Not a long look. Not obvious.
But his eyes sweep over me—over my chest, my arms, down to the towel slung around my waist—and then dart away like they weren’t there at all.
Except they were.
And I know it.
My stomach flips.
I head to the showers, hoping the hot water can cool the thrum low in my gut.