Chapter 12
ADAN
The whole day passed in a blur. I had classes, conversations, lunch, but none of it registered, as if I was dreaming. I responded when asked a question, reacted when needed, gave all the appropriate signals and did all the expected actions, even though my mind was racing faster than my heartbeat.
That training session had been a disaster. Every time Nils had gotten close to me, every casual touch during demonstrations, every moment of eye contact had all felt charged in ways that would have made no sense three days ago and were crystal clear now.
I was attracted to him. To a man. To my coach.
I liked women. I’d always liked women. I’d had girlfriends, hookups, crushes on actresses and classmates and that hot bartender at Murphy’s. But none of that seemed to matter now, because I was definitely, undeniably attracted to Nils Anders.
The realization should have been more earth-shattering.
Should’ve made me question everything I thought I knew about myself.
Instead, it felt like something clicking into place, like finally understanding why I’d been looking forward to our training sessions for reasons that had nothing to do with hockey.
But what was I supposed to do about it?
And Nils had noticed, I was convinced of that.
He had to have noticed. The way I’d jumped when he’d adjusted my shoulders, how I’d gone rigid during drills that used to feel completely normal.
There was no way someone as observant as Nils had missed my weird behavior.
And he’d been different too. More distant, awkward.
Team practice was more of the same. Every time I’d skated near Nils during drills, he’d moved away.
Every time I’d tried to catch his eye, he’d been focused on his clipboard or talking to Coach Brennan.
It was like Friday night’s bus ride had never happened, like the easy friendship we’d been building had been completely erased.
But it wasn’t erased. I could see it in the careful way he avoided looking at me, in the professional distance he was maintaining. He was trying too hard to act normal, which meant something had definitely changed.
The question was what he thought about it. He couldn’t be repulsed. His body language would’ve been different if he had been. Same with angry. That wasn’t it either. He’d mostly been stiff as a board and awkward. Uncomfortable. In other words: same as me.
When I was finally done with classes, I headed back to my dorm. Tank was in our room when I got upstairs, sprawled on his bed with his economics textbook open, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.
“How was your day?” he asked without looking up.
“It was okay.”
“And your private training this morning?”
“Fine.”
He did look up now. “Fine? Usually, you come back talking about some new technique or whatever.”
“Yeah, well, today was different.”
“Different how?”
I dropped my gear bag and sat down on my bed.
How the hell did I answer that question?
I didn’t even know where to start. It had been different because I’d spent the entire session hyperaware of every movement my coach made.
Different because I’d wanted to touch him back when he’d corrected my positioning.
Different because I’d realized I was attracted to him and had no idea what to do about it.
“Just different,” I said finally.
Tank studied my face. “You okay, man? You seem weird.”
“I’m fine.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been weird since that bus ride home Friday night. What’s going on?”
The urge to tell him everything was almost overwhelming. Tank was my best friend, my roommate, the guy who’d seen me through homesickness and academic struggles and the pressure of trying to live up to everyone’s expectations. If anyone would understand, it would be him.
But I wasn’t ready for that conversation. Not yet. Not when I was still trying to figure out what any of this meant. “Nothing’s going on other than that I’m tired.”
“If you say so.”
He went back to his textbook, but he still glanced at me occasionally. Tank knew me well enough to know when I was lying, but he was also smart enough to back off and give me space.
I tried to focus on homework, on the essay I had due for Professor Edwards’ class, on anything that might distract me from the memory of standing too close to Nils during training. But my mind kept circling back to the same questions.
Did he know? Had he figured out why I’d been acting strange? And if he had, what did he think about it?
The not knowing was driving me crazy.
By seven o’clock, I’d given up any pretense of studying.
Tank was about to head out to dinner with some guys from the team, and I didn’t want to come.
But it meant I would be alone with my thoughts and a growing sense of frustration that felt all too familiar.
It was the same feeling I got when I couldn’t figure out a play or master a technique: the need to do something, to take action instead of sitting around thinking about it.
I grabbed my keys.
“Where are you going?” Tank asked as I headed for the door.
“Out. I’ll be back later.”
“Adan—”
But I was already gone, taking the stairs two at a time and heading for the parking lot. I needed answers. And there was only one person who could give them to me.
The drive to Nils’s neighborhood took ten minutes, during which I tried to figure out what I was actually planning to say when I got there. But every script I came up with sounded stupid or crazy or both.
Hey, Coach, I realized I’m attracted to you. Are you attracted to me too?
So, I think I might be bi. And I think you might be too.
I can’t stop thinking about you and it’s driving me insane.
None of them sounded like things a sane person would say to their coach on a Monday evening.
By the time I pulled up in front of his apartment, I still didn’t have a strategy, but I was committed to this course of action. I’d driven all the way here, and I wasn’t going to chicken out now.
His living-room window was lit up, and I could see him moving around inside. Probably reviewing game footage or doing whatever coaches did in their spare time. Or maybe he was trying to build more furniture and that thought made me smile.
I stood there for another minute, gathering my courage. Then I got out and walked to his front door before I could change my mind.
The doorbell echoed, followed by footsteps. A pause, probably him looking through the peephole, then the sound of locks being undone.
The door opened, and Nils appeared, looking completely shocked to see me standing on his doorstep.
“Adan? What are you doing here? Is everything alright?”
He was wearing sweatpants and a gray sweater, his hair slightly messed up like he’d been running his hands through it. He looked good. Really good. The realization hit me again with the same force as Friday night on the bus.
“We need to talk.”
“About what? If this is about today’s session, perhaps we should discuss it at the arena—”
“This isn’t about hockey.”
Something flickered across his expression: surprise, maybe, or concern. “Then what—”
“Can I come in? Please?”
He hesitated, glancing past me like he was checking to see if anyone was watching. “I’m not sure that’s appropriate—”
“Nils.” The use of his first name instead of ‘Coach’ got his attention. “Please. Five minutes.”
He looked at me for a long moment, clearly struggling with whatever internal debate was happening in his head. Finally, he stepped aside. “Five minutes.”
I followed him into his living room, neat and tidy as always.
“Would you like some coffee? Water?” he asked, falling back on politeness like it was armor.
“I don’t want coffee.”
“Then what do you want, Adan?”
I turned to face him, and the careful distance he was maintaining between us felt deliberate. Like he was trying to keep me at arm’s length both physically and emotionally. “I want you to answer a question.”
“What question?”
My heart was pounding so hard, I was surprised he couldn’t hear it. This was it. The moment where I either got the answer I was hoping for or made everything infinitely more complicated. “Are you attracted to me?”
The question hung in the air between us like a live wire. Nils went completely still, his face cycling through shock, panic, and something that might’ve been fear. “That’s… That’s not an appropriate question for you to ask.”
“I’m not asking if it’s appropriate. I’m asking if it’s true.”
“Adan—”
“Because I’m attracted to you,” I said, the words rushing out before I could stop them. “And I think it’s mutual, and I need to know if I’m right.”
His face had gone pale, and he was looking at me like I’d detonated a bomb in his living room. Which, I guess, I had. “You don’t understand the implications of what you’re saying.”
“I understand that you’re not answering my question.”
“Because I can’t answer that question. Because even discussing it crosses professional boundaries that exist for very good reasons.”
“Fuck professional boundaries,” I said, taking a step closer to him.
“I’m not asking you as my coach. I’m asking you as someone I brought soup when he was sick and let me help build furniture with him and talked to me on the bus for hours.
I’m asking you as the guy you spent a whole day with on Volunteer Day, talking and having fun. ”
“Those were mistakes.” His voice sounded strained. “I should’ve maintained better boundaries from the beginning.”
“Were they mistakes? Really?”
“Yes. Because they led to this conversation, which should not be happening.”
I studied his face, looking for any sign that he was lying. But Nils was too honest, too fundamentally decent to be good at deception. And what I saw there wasn’t rejection or disgust.
It was fear.
“You’re scared.”
“Of course I’m scared. Do you have any idea what would happen if anyone found out about this conversation? About what you’re suggesting?”
“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking a simple question. Are you attracted to me? Yes or no?”
“It’s not that simple—”
“It is that simple. The consequences may not be but the question is. It’s binary. Either you are or you aren’t.”
He was quiet for a long moment, and I could see the war happening behind his eyes. The part of him that wanted to lie, to maintain the professional facade, battling against something else. Something that looked a lot like honesty.
“Yes,” he said finally, so quietly, I almost didn’t hear it.
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, I’m attracted to you. But that doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t mean—”
I kissed him.
It wasn’t planned, wasn’t thought through, wasn’t anything but pure impulse. One second, he was talking about why nothing could happen between us, and the next second, I was closing the distance between us and pressing my lips to his.
For a moment, he went completely still, like he was too shocked to respond. Then his hands came up to my shoulders, and for a split second, I thought he was going to push me away. Instead, he kissed me back.
Our lips met, touched, rubbed, and then opened. When my tongue met his, I couldn’t hold back a soft moan in the back of my throat. I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him closer, but it still wasn’t enough. I wanted more, needed more.
We tangled, sliding wetly against each other with slow, sensual strokes. His mouth was bitter with coffee and sweet with something like strawberry, and the pressure of his lips was both demanding and restless, like he was starved for contact.
It was nothing like kissing a girl. His lips were firmer, his jaw rougher with stubble that scraped deliciously against my skin. But it felt right in a way that loosened something inside me and that made my heart race and my brain go completely quiet for the first time in days.
I pressed myself against him, every line of his hard body flat against mine. No curves, no softness, nothing but raw male muscles, but god, I loved it. It was everything I’d never known I needed until now.
So I poured every confused feeling into that kiss, every ounce of passion I’d developed for him, and he kissed me right back, meeting me slide by slide, touch by touch, lick by lick.
When we broke apart, we were both panting, and my cock was hard as iron in my pants. That, too, was a first. Kissing had never turned me on this much before.
“I don’t…” Nils seemed lost for words.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
We stood there looking at each other, both of us probably trying to figure out what happened next. The kiss had answered the question I’d come here to ask, but it had also created about a dozen new problems.
“Adan, this can’t happen. You understand that, right? The coaching relationship, the potential consequences—”
“I don’t care about any of that. Right now, I care that you kissed me back.”
“That was a mistake.”
“Was it? Because it didn’t feel like a mistake.”
He was quiet again, and I could see him struggling with the same thing I was struggling with: the difference between what we should do and what we wanted to do.
“I will go,” I said finally. “But I’m glad I came here. I’m glad I know.”
“Know what?”
“That I’m not crazy. That this thing between us isn’t just in my head.”
I headed toward the door, then turned back. He was still standing in the middle of his living room, looking like he’d been hit by lightning.
I straightened my shoulders. “For what it’s worth, I don’t regret it. Any of it.”
I left him standing there and drove home through the Buffalo streets, my lips still tingling from the kiss and my mind clearer than it had been in days.
Everything had changed. There was no going back to professional distance or pretending I didn’t feel what I felt. But for the first time since Friday night, I wasn’t confused about what I wanted.
I wanted him. And now I knew he wanted me too.
The rest was details.