3
“My favorite part was the bit about not hitting on employees,” Sully said before taking another big bite.
The instructor had been talking about team, NHL, and arena employees, of course, and not one’s personal nanny, but Jordy flushed under Sully’s teasing gaze. “I hate you.”
“Aw, love you too, boo.”
Jordy sulkily ate his Clif Bar.
“All joking aside,” Sully said in an undertone, “you really should make a move on someone who makes you smile like that at your phone. Or pout at it. Don’t think I didn’t see your face just now.”
“I thought I wasn’t allowed to hit on him,” Jordy bitched.
“That’s why we gotta solve your nanny problem. That and so you don’t have to use my wife as free childcare anymore.”
“Adrianna loves me,” Jordy said, because if he didn’t hold firm to that belief, he’d drown in guilt for how often he’d put her out this summer.
“Adrianna loves your kid.” Sully gave him a no-nonsense look. “And I love her, and that means no more babysitting, Jordy. Seriously.”
Jordy sighed. “School started this week. She has after-school care now. And Rowan only works until five most days.”
“Work?” Sully raised his brows. “So Pinocchio is a real boy again? Does that mean—”
Fuck it. Jordy should’ve kept his mouth shut. He knew better than to give Sully a scrap of material. “It means that it’s none of your business.”
They had enough problems. Aging defense, inexperienced forwards. Somehow they were too old and too young at the same time. The new guy would help—Lord knew they needed all the twenty-five-year-old skaters they could get—but unless the trainers were going to start handing out robotic knees and HGH, Jordy had his doubts about a winning season. And that meant the media was going to be brutal. They already were—calls for trades, for their coach to be fired, for their GM to be fired, for Brady to be replaced….
“Oh, so you’re already fucking him, then,” Sully said.
While they were replacing people, they could replace Sully.
“We’re not talking about this,” Jordy said firmly, slinging his duffel bag over his shoulder. Apparently not talking about it at all was the only way to avoid Sully knowing all of his business. Sully didn’t get to figure out Jordy’s business before Jordy did. That was rude.
“I’ll call you later!” Sully shouted at his back as Jordy headed for the door.
Jordy gave him the finger over his shoulder.
JORDY DID not want to talk about it, which sucked because he could think of about a dozen things, off the top of his head, that he really should talk about. For example, he needed to hire a new nanny, but he didn’t want to because it might push Rowan into moving out. If he talked to Rowan about it, he could forestall that by offering him one of the upstairs guest rooms instead, but then it would sound like Jordy wouldn’t rather have Rowan in his bed, and they’d have to talk about that . That would lead Rowan to the realization that Jordy had big feelings, when Rowan had already been clear that he could not commit to Jordy because Jordy was inevitably going to leave Toronto, whether that be next month or next year, and Rowan would try to spare Jordy’s feelings by, again, moving out.
Then there was the whole thing where Jordy already felt like Rowan was avoiding him, but he couldn’t come out and say that because Rowan had started a new job this week so of course he was tired. Jordy didn’t want to make that about him. Obviously not talking about it was the way to go. Either Rowan would become more available this weekend and next week and Jordy could relax, or he wouldn’t and Jordy would….
Jordy would….
Jordy would figure it out when that happened.
Today, camp had finished early enough for Jordy to pick Kaira up on his way home, so he focused on that.
Kaira had been in daycare before, and obviously Jordy had chosen a nice one. But day care pickup and first-grade pickup were in totally different leagues as far as how much of a pain in the ass they were. When Jordy was Kaira’s age, he took a school bus and liked it. But these days parents all wanted to pick their kids up from school in person because they were—understandably—paranoid, which meant traffic nightmares even in cities that were not Toronto, which meant Jordy sat in his car for fifteen minutes while fifty other parents also sat in their cars, all waiting for their turn to be allowed to collect the correct child.
Jordy loved that he had the money to send his kid to the best school in the city. He loved having the freedom to pick her up some days. He just wished that didn’t mean this .
Sully texted him three times while he was waiting. Jordy shot his dashboard the finger and muted their chat.
Finally it was his turn, and whatever child-herder they had on duty released Kaira into his custody. He scooped her up for a hug, planted a big, silly kiss on her cheek, and got her settled into her car seat. “Hi, peanut. Did you have a good day today?”
“So good, Daddy!” She spent five minutes breathlessly telling him about it while he waited in the agonizing line to leave the school parking lot—surely someone somewhere could solve this traffic issue? Surely the school’s parents would pool their money to hire someone to figure that out? Should Jordy join the PTA?—and then said, “Daddy, we should go out for dinner.”
The abrupt shift in direction threw him so much he almost missed an opening to turn left, which would result in seven hundred parents all laying on their horns behind him. But he made the turn fine. “We should, huh? Why do you say that?”
He knew his kid was spoiled, but dinners out were one place he had actually managed to create what he thought was a pretty good home life balance. She didn’t expect things like that.
“Because,” Kaira said as though Jordy had asked a question with a very obvious answer, “you and Rowan had your first week of work and I had my first week of school and we should celebrate.”
Jordy rewound Kaira’s rundown of her day and identified key phrases like weekend plans , which sounded like a thing a six-year-old shouldn’t care about but at least explained the sudden request.
He couldn’t fault the logic, though. And with Kaira providing such a convenient excuse, maybe he could get Rowan to come and relax. They could go for an early meal, walk along the lake, tire out the kid—
“I think that sounds like a great idea,” Jordy agreed. “You and I can choose a restaurant when we get home, okay?” One that was not McDonald’s or Tim Hortons.
“And we have to invite Rowan.”
“And we have to invite Rowan,” Jordy agreed. “We’ll make sure it’s someplace he likes too.”
“Can I get dino nuggets?”
“If the restaurant has them,” Jordy tempered, not wanting to make binding promises while also hoping he could talk his daughter out of the sort of restaurant that served dino nuggets.
It wasn’t until Jordy was searching the fridge for an afternoon snack and caught sight of leftovers that he got the idea.
As a bonus, it didn’t take much to get Kaira on board.
“Rowan, Rowan! Daddy says we can go out for dinner tonight!” Kaira said the moment Rowan was in the front door.
“Oh? Did he now?” Rowan lifted one eyebrow and smiled.
“Yes. He said we can go to get us food!” She collided with Rowan, wrapped her arms around his leg, and looked up at him.
“Us food?”
“Yes, like how you make,” Kaira explained.
“Ah, of course. Us food.” He shot Jordy a look, curious, maybe, about Jordy’s choice.
Jordy waited until Kaira hurried off to get her shoes and then said in an undertone, “I figured it was the only way to talk her into a restaurant that didn’t serve dino nuggets.”
Rowan snorted. “Right. So where are we headed?”
“I have some recommendations from the internet, but if you have a place in mind….”
“I know the perfect place.”
The restaurant was a tiny hole-in-the-wall, decorated with minimalist Indo-Asian flair. Kaira loved it. She stared at everything and asked questions, and when their server arrived, she almost fell out of her chair trying to touch the soft fabric of her embroidered tunic.
“Are you from India?” Kaira wanted to know.
Fortunately the server smiled, unoffended, and said, “Sorta. My parents were born there.”
“Oh! Like Dada and Dadi! They send me pretty dresses, but not one like yours.”
“Well, maybe Papa can put in a good word for you,” she said with a wink in Rowan’s direction.
Jordy sent up a thankful prayer that Kaira seemed oblivious to the insinuation. “Can you ask them, Daddy?”
“We’ll look into it, peanut,” Jordy said. “But right now we need to order food.”
“Oh!” Kaira squirmed in delight at the prospect, dresses forgotten.
An hour later, they were walking down the sidewalk, Kaira between them, holding their hands and calling out “One, two, three, swing!” before lifting her to dangle her feet.
It struck Jordy, as Kaira shrieked with joy, that he’d never been able to give her this before—a stupid, common, everyday thing that kids liked to do and that Jordy and Kaira never had done because Jordy didn’t have a coparent.
The tender feeling swelling Jordy’s heart might have been why he asked, “Shall we get ice cream?”
At least the extra excitement knocked her out. She was dead asleep by the time Jordy pulled into his garage.
Jordy waved Rowan off as he headed down the hall with his limp baby. After swapping her dress for a nightie, he kissed her forehead and left her to her sweet dreams.
He shut her door and stared at it for a long moment. Rowan was downstairs. He might have gone to his room or sat on the couch for some TV, or maybe he was waiting for Jordy so they could take advantage of their evening off. The possibility of that—and all the other possibilities it could lead to—warmed his blood. But once he was downstairs, he’d have an answer. No more Schrodinger’s sex.
But if Rowan was waiting, it was unkind of Jordy to linger. He swallowed, stepped away from the door, and went in search of Rowan.
He found him in the hallway, apparently as uncertain as Jordy as to what would happen next.
“So did you want—”
“We could—” they said at the same time. They both paused and stared. Then they spoke together again.
“Yes.”
“Please.”
The please was a gut-punch that pushed Jordy into movement. He closed the gap between them, cupped Rowan’s face, and kissed him with all the hunger of a week of waiting.
Rowan moaned and opened his mouth to Jordy’s tongue. The memory of how Rowan had acted and responded the last time flooded Jordy’s senses. He slipped his hands from Rowan’s face, grabbed his hips, and pulled until their groins collided. Rowan hissed and wrapped his arms around Jordy’s shoulders. “Fuck, I could get used to the manhandling.”
“Good.” Jordy grabbed Rowan’s thighs and lifted.
“Oh fuck .” Rowan clamped his legs around Jordy’s hips and huffed a laugh into the space between their mouths. “That was hot.”
“Good,” Jordy said again and made for Rowan’s bedroom.
Someday, Jordy wanted to strip Rowan, take off each item slowly and make a meal of him. But he didn’t have the patience today. He set Rowan down and tore at his clothes as they fell onto the bed, then draped himself over Rowan and reveled in the way he squirmed and pressed up against Jordy’s weight. “What do you want?” he asked between kisses.
Rowan shivered under him, but the voice he answered with was full of are you kidding? “ Fuck me,” he demanded.
Jordy just wanted to hear him say it again. “I don’t think that’s exactly what you want. What was it you said last time?” He bit down on Rowan’s jaw. “Rail me?”
“Yes, that.”
Jordy pulled back so he could get a good look at Rowan’s face. He wanted to do this right, to be good. “ How is the question. What do you like?”
“What part of ‘rail me’ is unclear?” Rowan groaned. “Hard, fast, and deep.”
Jordy pinched his thigh. “Brat.” Rowan shivered again, and his cock twitched. Jordy’s responded in kind. He was discovering lots of things about himself while in bed with Rowan. He added that to the list of things to explore later. “On your knees? Your back? Up against the wall?”
“Oh God, you probably could.” Rowan stroked Jordy’s pecs as if considering the strength of the muscles. “Hold me up against it, just fuck me right into it.”
Jordy let his own hand wander, stroking up Rowan’s inner thigh, teasing higher and higher, brushing the crease of Rowan’s ass but not pushing in.
“But that’s not what you want tonight.” He pulled back, changed direction, and headed for Rowan’s dick.
“Hands and knees,” Rowan gasped. “Wanna… wanna feel you in my throat—fuck!”
Jordy stroked once, twice, swiped his thumb over the head—a reward for good behavior.
“And before that?”
“Before?”
“How do you like being opened up? Can I do it? Do you want my fingers?” Rowan shuddered and grabbed Jordy’s head to pull him in for a kiss. Jordy let him, opened up for Rowan’s tongue and let himself be kissed, hungry and deep.
“Or,” he said, “maybe you’ll let me use my tongue first.”
“Use whatever body part you want, just get me wet and fuck me .”
Jordy grinned. “As you wish.”
He flipped Rowan over and dived down.
Rowan howled when Jordy made contact and spread his legs in invitation. Jordy gripped Rowan’s asscheeks and held them open so he could press his tongue in.
Rowan sobbed into the pillows and pushed back, impaling himself on Jordy’s tongue—or trying. Jordy pressed him into the mattress, keeping his mouth attached where he wanted it. The wet noises he made sounded obscene, but they barely registered over Rowan’s continued refrain. “Oh fuck, please, fuck me, Jordy, fuck !”
Jordy would fuck him as soon as he was ready. Right now Rowan was getting him hot just talking about it. He made a rough negative sound against Rowan’s ass and slid his thumbs inward to tease the edges of his hole.
“Oh fuck, never mind,” Rowan hiccupped into the pillow. “Keep—keep doing that, just—”
Jordy should have bought more expensive lube. This one tasted like plastic. But he didn’t care when Rowan was spread out in front of him, body hitching back and forth automatically, with Jordy’s thumbs hooked into either side of his hole to make room for his tongue.
This was supposed to be foreplay. The way Rowan was moaning and sobbing, Jordy didn’t know if he’d ever let him stop. If Jordy would ever want to. He pressed in deep, curling his tongue, then pulled back to flick over the edges of the muscle, teasing. Traced the rim lightly with just the tip, stretching him wider with his thumbs.
Still not wet enough, Jordy thought. He wanted Rowan sloppy and dripping so that when Jordy finished his task he could slide right in. But he wasn’t finished.
He wasn’t thinking when he pulled back and spat on Rowan’s open hole.
Rowan’s elbows collapsed and his shoulders pressed flat to the bed. “Oh fuck,” he gasped, chest heaving against the mattress. “Oh fuck, Jordy, please.”
Jordy hummed an affirmative against his rim and flicked his tongue over the open, waiting hole.
Beneath his hands, Rowan started to tremble. His breath quickened. “If you don’t— uh , Jordy if you don’t stop, I’m going to come.”
Suddenly Jordy was the one shuddering. Rowan would come from this? From Jordy’s tongue on him, inside him, nothing on his dick?
Jordy pulled one hand away from Rowan’s ass to wrap around his own cock and squeezed the base. “Can I still fuck you after?”
A tiny, ruined sound escaped Rowan’s lungs. “Yeah, God—”
Jordy put his mouth back on Rowan’s hole. He was ravenous for it—for every stifled cry of pleasure and tremor of Rowan’s thighs, for the way his toes curled into the sheets. He pulled Rowan open wide and devoured him, filling the room with slick wet sounds and breathless pleas until every line of Rowan’s body went taut.
“Jordy, Jordy— fuck —”
Anything else was lost in the sob that escaped him as his hole spasmed under Jordy’s lips, trying to close around his fingers. Jordy didn’t let it, fucking his thumbs in and out along with his tongue as Rowan’s cock spilled between his legs, untouched, making a puddle on the sheets.
Jordy had never been so turned on in his life.
“Rowan, I have to—can I—”
“ Yes .”
It took him three tries to get the condom on. He almost dropped the lube drizzling it down Rowan’s crack because the sight of his hole spasming made his fingers numb.
“Come on ,” Rowan urged, shoving backward like he could take Jordy’s cock faster that way. Like he was still desperate even though he was lying in a puddle of his own come.
Jordy lined his cock up and pushed inside.
Rowan’s body was tight and slick, and Jordy could feel the last of his orgasm trembling through him as he thrust, both hands on Rowan’s hips, yanking him back every time Jordy pushed forward.
“Oh fuck. Your thighs,” Rowan gasped. He was white-knuckling the sheets, his hair slick with sweat. And then just “Oh—fuck me, fuck me, fuck me .”
Jordy fucked him. He rammed in again and again, until Rowan’s body stopped fighting the intrusion and the pressure around Jordy’s cock relaxed. His blood pounded in his ears. When he looked down, the skin around Rowan’s hole was red and raw from Jordy’s stubble. He ran his thumb across the thin skin and pressed down, feeling it against his cock.
“Fuck—Jordy, come on, I can take it. Please —”
Did he mean Jordy’s thumb? Did he just want Jordy to fuck him that much harder? Jordy didn’t know. He didn’t ask. Rowan could have both. He coated his thumb in the lube he’d spread down Rowan’s crack and worked that inside him too.
The pressure had built so high now that Jordy couldn’t last. His body was tight with anticipation, straining toward orgasm. The clench of Rowan’s hole was intense. Jordy could barely see, barely breathe. Beneath him Rowan had gone almost silent.
No—Rowan hadn’t gone silent. The whole world had, whiting out in a thick haze of pleasure as Jordy’s orgasm caught him. Release thundered through him, his balls jerking against Rowan’s ass. Only the clutch of Rowan’s body remained, the endorphins singing in Jordy’s blood.
Jesus Christ.
When it ended, Jordy pulled out, brainless with pleasure, and rolled Rowan onto his back. His cock was hard, shiny with come, his eyes glassy.
Jordy pushed two fingers back inside him and wrapped his other hand around Rowan’s cock.
Sound returned to the world as Rowan howled, his feet braced on the bed. “Jordy, oh my God—”
Jordy rubbed his thumb in a circle under the head and Rowan came apart in his hand and around his fingers, shaking as his orgasm wrung out of him.
Finally Rowan whimpered at the overstimulation and nudged Jordy’s hands away.
Jordy knew the feeling. He figured his brain and Rowan’s body felt about the same right now.
“Yeah,” Jordy agreed. He glanced at his hand, at the condom hanging off his dick like a sad flag, and then at the ruin they’d made of the sheets. Fuck it. He’d just buy new ones. Rowan could sleep in his bed tonight. They could set an alarm.
He wiped his hand and then pulled off the condom.
Rowan made a noise of protest so weak it barely counted.
“You wrecked them first.” Jordy lifted a thigh to prove it. His leg hairs were clumped together. He’d maneuvered himself right into the wet spot.
“Fair.”
“I’ll buy new ones tomorrow.”
“Do you not have a washing machine?”
“I don’t have a sewing machine.” Jordy gestured toward Rowan’s head, where three small tears had rent the fabric.
Rowan turned. Looked. Turned back. Blinked. “Oops.”
Jordy bit down on a grin.
Rowan, on the other hand, didn’t bother trying not to laugh. “God, how smug are you right now?”
“I made you rip the sheets!” Jordy’s teammates would have a bad time next week. His ego had just tripled in size. Not that he’d tell them why. Not unless Sully pissed him off, at least. Then Jordy could traumatize him like he deserved.
“Is that a first for you?” He eyed Jordy’s thighs as though doubting this were possible.
Jordy felt like any answer he could give would incriminate him. “Is it a first for you?” he countered.
“You could say that.” He winced. “Okay, I need a shower or you’re going to have to throw me out along with the sheets.”
A shower sounded fabulous.
KAIRA WAS talking a mile a minute as Rowan followed the automated voice to “Turn right.”
“I want a hot dog and a soda!”
“Sure,” Rowan agreed, because Jordy had suggested Rowan buy her food at the arena and said not to worry about spoiling her dinner.
He hung another right, stopped at a gate, and rolled down his window to show security the parking pass Jordy had given him.
Attending Jordy’s final preseason game in Toronto was a tradition for Kaira, Jordy had explained, and Janice had previously been her chaperone. Of course, Jordy had offered to find someone else, but Kaira was ecstatic to bring Rowan to his first ever hockey game. Because “field hockey doesn’t count, Rowan!”
Kaira took his hand and skipped up to the private entrance, continuing her narration of everything she wanted to do today. “We need to go to our seats so that we can see Daddy do warmup. We can’t miss it.”
Not that Rowan wanted to deny her anything, but he didn’t know how to get there from here.
“Hello! Are you Kaira Shaw?” A young employee dressed in a team-branded blue polo with a bright lanyard around her neck stood nearby, smiling and waving.
“Yes. Who are you?”
“I’m Jessica. Your dad asked me to check in to make sure you found your seats okay.”
“Oh! Do you know where they are? We have to go now so we don’t miss warmups.”
Jessica smiled brightly, clearly charmed, and guided the way. “I hear it’s your first game,” she said to Rowan. “Is there anything else I can help you with while I’m here?”
“Uh, I’m guessing it should be straightforward to find food and bathrooms from our seats.”
Jessica laughed. “It should be. You’re right at the glass, regular fan seats, so everything is clearly marked.” She led them into the stands and pointed down the steps. “All the way down and to the right.”