Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ALEXIO
Jumping off the treadmill, I gulped down water and swiped my wrist over my forehead.
A good sweat was exactly what I needed before talking to Noah about my plans.
Vanya would be here later, and I was going to run the idea by him one last time before sitting down with our coach, and I didn’t have a good feeling about it.
Noah wasn’t a great guy, and he also wasn’t often a reasonable one. He was old-school and kind of basic, and I was hoping that he’d move on to a different team. But being that we were in the middle of a rebuild anyway, I doubted that was going to happen.
We were closer to a playoff spot now than we had been this time last season, but there also wasn’t a chance in hell we were going to make it. Even a wildcard spot was a pipe dream, and I wasn’t going to get my hopes up.
Maybe in a year, maybe two good drafts and a handful of decent trades.
Some guys were heading into free agency—mostly from the West Coast, and I knew Noah was vying for the newly drafted goalie from Boston U to play backup for Vanya.
I had no idea if we had enough cap space for anyone else worth taking, but if Noah let us slough off some of our dead weight, we could make room for some fresh blood.
It was an idea, anyway.
And ideas like that were what earned me the C on my chest, though I wasn’t feeling like the most stellar captain this year. Not just because of the losses, but also because of the fact that I was distracted. But Jonah would do that to a guy.
And so would hearing everything that happened to him at Nikos’s shop.
My brother wasted no time getting hold of me after practice to let me know what Peter had said, and it had gutted me.
Mostly because I wasn’t there to help Jonah deal with it after.
I had every plan to go back over there tonight, but with the meeting and the fact that I’d lost my fucking coin somewhere in the building, I wasn’t sure I’d make it.
Tomorrow was another day, but we had morning practice and an evening game, and then we were hitting the road for ten fucking days, which was not ideal.
Why did all of this shit have to happen mid-season? Why couldn’t I hit pause on everything and fix it all before getting back to the damn game?
“Yo! Zeki!”
I turned to see one of the security guards poking his head into the room. Lifting my brows, I nodded at him. “Yes?”
“There’s a guy here to see you. He’s, ah…from one of those teams. You know…with the canes, and—”
“Blind team?”
“Yeah.” He shifted uncomfortably, and fuck, was that what I looked like before? “He seemed kind of frantic. I tried to tell him to wait by the locker rooms, but he took off to try and find you.”
Christ. It had to be Jonah. Who the hell else would want to see me unless it was maybe Tiago, but I very much doubted that. Tossing my neck towel beside the machine, I dropped my water bottle on top of it and brushed past the guy.
“Where was he?”
“Uh—” He pointed toward the doorway that led to the admin offices.
I didn’t think he’d go in there, so I swept past them, turning the corner toward the locker rooms, and that’s when I saw him. He was walking out, his cane moving rapidly back and forth, his expression telling me he was in an absolute panic.
“Jonah!”
He froze.
Did I tell him it was me? Did I—
“Alexio?”
“Yeah, hey. Some guy came to find me and said you were looking for me. You seem upset. What’s—”
I didn’t get the chance to finish my sentence. He moved with a freaky speed, his cane smacking into my legs, and then his free hand grabbed my wrist, and he tugged me close.
“Take me somewhere quiet. Alone.”
Did he want to fuck here? We’d done it before. It was risky, but most of the guys were home, so as long as we stayed away from the cameras, we could make it work. I glanced left to right, then pulled him toward the equipment room. No one would be coming in there until tomorrow.
It was dark, so I flicked on the light as the door slammed shut, and before I could ask him what he wanted, he shoved me back against the door.
“I’m sorry. Fuck, Alexio.” His voice was shaking so hard he could barely get the words out. Unable to stop myself, I pressed my hands to his waist and tugged him until his chest met mine. “I fucked up. I fucked up so bad, and I’m so sorry.”
“Breathe,” I ordered. “Come on, Sparky. Breathe for me.”
He tried. I’d give him that. He was wheezing, and the inhale was stiff, but he was still obeying me.
“Good boy.”
He groaned, shaking his head before dropping his face against my collarbone. “No. I’m not good. I fucked up.”
One of my hands moved to his hair, combing through his gentle waves. It was soft against my fingertips. And gorgeous. “How did you fuck up? Did you test positive for something?”
“I—what?” He pulled back, his brows up. “No! Did you? But we haven’t, you know…done that much.”
I couldn’t help a small smile. “We’ve done enough. But no, I didn’t. And if you did test positive, it’s something we can fix, okay? Medications, treatments, condoms…”
“No! Jesus, no, I…” He squeezed his eyes shut, bowing his head. “Vanya knows.”
“About?”
“This.” He smacked me on the chest, then himself. “About us. That you were at my house last night.”
I still didn’t see what the problem was, but I had to ask. “Okay, how? You told him?”
Jonah pulled back and dug into his pocket, and a moment later, my breath fled my chest. My coin. My fucking coin! Thank fuck. “This was on my floor. I found it when I was looking for my phone. Vanya recognized it.”
I took it from him and felt the familiar comfort of its weight against my palm. I knew it was actually nothing. I knew I wouldn’t suddenly lose all my hockey skill if I didn’t have it, but it was one of the few tangible memories I had of my dad.
“Thank you. I was looking for this.”
“Yeah, but…” Jonah bit his lip, then shook his head again. “Vanya’s going to tell people you were at my house. And even if he doesn’t get it, other people will.”
I stared down at him, then took him by the chin and lifted his face up. I looked into his painted eyes—somehow so real. So full of nerves and pain. “What’s the problem, Jonah? Because you’re in the closet.”
“What? I mean…no. I haven’t told everyone yet, but…no. That’s not it.”
“You’re ashamed of me, then?” That stung. Saying the words felt like speaking around thorns in my throat.
His eyes went wider, and his cheeks pinked. “Oh my god, no! Are you—of course I’m not ashamed. But…”
I waited patiently and silently, stroking a touch down his spine because he seemed to need that right then.
He leaned back against me slightly. “You don’t like me.”
“Says who? Did someone fucking tell you that?”
He scoffed and took a step back, breaking my hold on him. “Uh, yeah. You did.”
“Jonah,” I started.
He cut me off with a shake of his head. “Come on, Alexio. You’ve made it very obvious you can’t stand me.”
“I’ve made you come. A lot. I ate your ass and loved it,” I reminded him. His face bloomed red, and his hand flew to his dick, stroking downward like he was trying to hide his erection. “I don’t do those things to people I don’t like.”
“I—but.” He swallowed heavily. “Our first time…”
“Okay,” I conceded. “I didn’t love your attitude back then, and I thought you might be kind of…cruel. But I was wildly attracted to you. I liked that.”
“You’re a dick,” he spat, but he was starting to smile.
Reaching forward, I tugged him close. “That’s not new information.” I tipped his chin up again and stroked a touch over his jaw. It was in that moment I realized this was why he was upset. He thought I was going to be angry at him because people might know we were…whatever we were.
“I’m not ashamed of you,” I told him. “And I don’t dislike you.”
“High praise,” he snarked, then collapsed against my chest, breathing out heavily. “I didn’t mean for him to find out like this. I didn’t know the coin was yours. I didn’t even know what it was.”
I pulled it back out of my pocket and lifted Jonah’s hand, pressing it into his fingers. I watched him trace the faded, sea-beaten images on both sides.
“It’s a drachma,” I told him.
He hummed as he turned it in his fingers the same way I did in mine. “Vanya said you found it with your mom?”
“My dad,” I corrected. “We didn’t spend a lot of time together when I was younger. He was always busy, I was…a lot to handle. Nikos was the better son.”
“I believe that.”
I squeezed him so hard he burst into laughter, and fuck, the sound made me smile.
And I rarely smiled these days. With a sigh, I dropped my cheek against the top of his head and leaned my weight against the door as I held him.
“We were beachcombing. We didn’t find much that day, but before we left, I spotted this as the tide was going out.
It seemed special. He told me to keep it in my pocket. That it would bring me luck.”
I held my fingers over Jonah’s as they continued to explore the shape of the coin. “Did it?”
“I think so.” I had it with me for every championship in the Q, for the draft, for every decent contract I signed, and for every cup I’d won.
And I’d had it in my pocket the night I met him.
Lifting my hands, I cupped his cheeks, stroking my thumbs over his jaw before dropping my hands to his shoulders. His own hand reached out, feeling along my pants, and then he slipped the coin into my pocket before grasping my shoulders and coasting his fingers upward.
“Beard.”
I blinked. It was strange, suddenly, to know he didn’t know what I looked like at all. Not really. Not with how other people saw me, and not how he saw things. “You didn’t feel it when I had my face buried in your ass?”
He burst into laughter, shoving the sound into my chest. “Yeah, I…I kind of did, but I was too far gone to really think about it.” He didn’t lift his head as his hand explored my cheek, then down my neck, where I was trimmed neatly. “Not a neck beard, eh?”
“What the fuck is a neck beard?”