Chapter 15 Griffin
FIFTEEN
Griffin
The morning of the following day was rough.
For one thing, it was difficult to wake up because we had barely slept.
I wish I could say we’d spent the hours talking, making sure we were on the same page, or planning what to do next.
But no. We’d spent the hours kissing, touching, caressing one another in ways and places that had been unimaginable just a few hours into the past.
Our kisses turned into a cuddle, which was deeply frustrating on a very basic level because I had wrapped myself around Andrei like a big spoon, my chest pressed against his shoulder blades, my stomach molded against his lower back, and my persistently semi-hard dick settling right against his ass.
The first moment when the awareness of this fact set in, I expected a wave of fear.
I knew that I had, in the past, found myself deep into a hookup when this sudden panic made my heart hammer, when every instinct told me I was making a mistake, when every move I made felt forced and practiced. But not last night.
I braced myself for it, but it never came.
Instead, Andrei let me hold him like he was all mine. And when I got hard, he chuckled, pushed his ass against me, then slapped my hand when it traveled a little too low. “You’re hopeless,” he’d muttered, but his voice was so soft with heat and desire that I knew he was no better.
When my fingertips moved along his arm, feeling the knots of his muscles even through the thick fabric of his hoodie, he let me.
When my palm settled on his stomach, he exhaled quietly, as if trying not to moan.
And when he turned around and I kissed him again, there was no mistaking the steep rise of his sweatpants.
He was hot for me, no doubt about it, and seeing it didn’t make me sweat with fear and panic. It made me glad.
So when we woke up, each in his own bed after Andrei admitted he couldn’t trust either of us, he was the first thing I saw.
On the far side of the room—which wasn’t that far at all—one bare leg hung off the side of the bed, the comforter pushed slightly aside, covering only half of his body.
His white underwear had rolled up in his sleep, revealing a fading tan line, and the small of his back was deep and narrow, his back spreading into the triangular shape the fan fiction writers had pointed out to me.
His shoulders were broad, rounded on the sides, extending into long, fine muscles that made me just a little more horny than I’d have expected.
I didn’t think about it. I reached for the camera on his desk, the vintage thirty-five-millimeter one, and brought it to my face.
I peeked through the camera and turned the wheels until I figured out which one zoomed in and which one sharpened the image.
I knew fuck all about framing, composition, and the more technical side of things, but I had seen Andrei use this camera a million times, and I knew the click of the button, so I did it, capturing something that we would discover someday.
The heap of cuteness stirred in his bed at the sound of the shutter opening and closing. A short buzz of the film moving followed. Andrei’s head turned around, and he blinked awake, a curious smile touching the corners of his lips. “What are you doing?”
“Making smut,” I said.
He snorted and rolled his eyes the way he would have at any other time, and it soothed my heart to see my friend in him.
“Give,” he said, sitting up. His bare feet planted on the carpet with the inexplicable paint stains, and his arm stretched out, hand open to take the camera.
“You can’t see it,” I said. “I don’t know where that little display is.”
He shot me a look that said, “Don’t make lame jokes until I’ve had my coffee,” and took the camera. “Stay like that,” he said.
The light filtered through the curtains like beams of molten gold this morning, and my gaze dragged down Andrei’s body, finding all the places where the sunlight kissed him and I still hadn’t.
His chest was broad and defined with firm, round pecs and dark, small nipples.
The sides of his torso showed the muscles and ribs in great definition, and his abs were sculpted like someone had painted him straight from their dreams. His legs were big and strong, spread out so he could plant his elbows on his knees as he leaned in, and his underwear tightened over his balls and cock.
My mouth went dry in an instant. There was little left to imagination there as I gazed at the soft roundness that packed his underwear.
Snap.
I looked up. “Wait, I wasn’t ready,” I said.
“You were beautiful,” he replied, neither flattering nor teasing. The buzzing from the camera made us both look. “You won’t believe it,” he said.
The film was spent. That was the last image. “You can develop it.”
“I’ll need to get some supplies,” Andrei said, putting the camera down on the desk. He listed out the items he needed, liquids, and chemical things, and their purpose. “I could grab them tomorrow morning.”
That reminded me. We had practice in two hours and just enough time to have some breakfast, shower, and look over the notes from various classes on which we were behind.
What an odd thing college was. You always went into it thinking this was going to be your semester, you would study and be on time and finally be the person you imagined yourself being, and then it ran you over like a high-speed train.
We each went into the bathroom, brushed our teeth, washed our faces, and got dressed.
When I stepped out, Andrei was fiddling with the camera.
We both knew it. I’d never taken a photo of him before.
Not with one of his cameras, at least. Sure, my phone gallery was full of selfies of us together, but he had never wanted to swap places and let me take photos of him.
I knew the way he shrugged like it didn’t matter, even if he secretly wanted something but didn’t want to say it.
He looked at me as I stepped out. “Coffee at the Thinker or downstairs?” he asked.
I crossed the room silently and placed my hands on his hips.
He didn’t pull away as I leaned in and kissed him, lips feeling lips, mouth pressed against mouth.
I inhaled through my nose, hungry for this soft, wonderful scent of lavender that came from his skin or his hair.
It was the softener he used for the bedsheets, and he wore it early in the morning.
We went out, dizzy with the heat that flooded our heads.
I could see it in the way Andrei walked, stiff and careful.
Downstairs, Phoenix was muttering about the cursed docuseries like it was a splinter under his nail, while Damon spread butter across a burnt piece of toast. “If you don’t shut up about your role, Phoenix, I swear I’ll cut you into pieces. ”
“It’s a butter knife,” Phoenix said. “You’re struggling with the toast.”
So, everything was normal. The world wasn’t stuck in some kind of cosmic glitch that had snapped my soul to Andrei’s. It was all still very much real.
I poured myself a cup of black coffee and made one for Andrei, cream and sugar, then slid it across the counter of the large kitchen island, and we planted our elbows on the marble block, facing one another.
“What happened yesterday?” asked Phoenix.
“Nothing,” I blurted.
Andrei shot me a frustrated—albeit adorably forgiving—look while Phoenix glared at me. “You spent the whole day with two camera crews, Griff.”
“Oh.” I shrugged. “You’ll see it when it airs.”
“Sure. Fine. Whatever. I don’t need to know the meandering plotlines. It’s trash TV anyway.” He drank from his mug and frowned. “Cold coffee.”
I turned around and brought the pot of fresh coffee to the counter, letting Phoenix top up his mug. “Has Jaxon seen it?”
“He thinks it’s cute. Cute!” Phoenix shook his head hopelessly. “I’ll have a word with Jen to straighten some things out. Or gay them up, rather, because they’re making the team look too much like every hypermasculine sports team on the planet.”
I didn’t look at Andrei, although I almost did. We had agreed not to tell anyone anything. Not that Andrei was gay or that I was whatever I was, which I suspected was bi, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. When you’re into someone, what else is there that matters?
It was one of the rare days we had practice without the intrusion of the cameras and directions from Jen and Coach Neilsen. Andrei and I played in unison, and it wasn’t just me who noticed we were flowing even more in sync than before.
We ran the cycle along the boards until it stopped feeling like practice and more like choreography. Sharp passes, tight pivots, mirrored movements. When I dropped back to cover, he surged forward, and when he got caught deep, I was already filling in behind him. It felt effortless.
There was a moment near the blue line, he deked past two cones and glanced over his shoulder. Our eyes met for less than a second. I crashed the slot, and the puck hit my stick like it was meant to be there. One-timer. Net. Andrei grinned as he met my gaze, and I wanted to kiss him there and then.
The guys chirped. Coach didn’t say much, just scribbled something down and let us keep running the drill.
I didn’t know what it looked like from the outside, but inside the rush of cold air and skate-blade shavings, it felt like I was the same kid who’d played with Andrei some of our first games. I found the same kind of joy, the same importance in scoring this little point.
“Good work, guys,” Coach Neilsen said as we filed back to our locker room. “Sokolov, Shaw, extra credit for cooperation. Damon, pay attention to that. This is a team. You don’t have to come out on top every time.”
“I’m always on top, Coach,” Damon said.
“Fly high, bottom hard,” Mason tossed from the back of the line.
Damon threw his head back and laughed so the whole rink boomed.