Chapter Eleven
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mason
West’s fingers tightened on my shirt, his arm stretching down across my upper back to my waist as I locked my arm underneath his and reached across his broad body to grip his shirt on the far side. I could feel Jaden’s forearm against mine as he also gripped West’s shirt, the three of us forming a solid wall as we faced up against the two other props and the hooker forming a line in front of us.
I dug my boots into the pitch, finding my grip as I stepped back and found the biting point where my muscles were straining but strong. The six of us locked together, forming the front of the scrum, and I felt our opposition pushing against us, trying to get us to collapse or step back.
Our scrum coach, Trevor, was yelling at us to keep our shoulders up and use our thighs, but his voice was slightly muffled by the heavy breathing and groaning of the five men around me. My legs burned as I pushed into the turf, my calves, thighs, and butt muscles all straining as we pushed back against the wall of muscle in front of us.
West’s hand readjusted on my waist, hauling me up slightly and making me redouble my efforts because I hadn’t realised my shoulders were dropping.
“Okay, that’s enough,” Trevor called and the six of us dropped to the pitch, panting as the scrum broke apart. That was the third time Trevor had made us run the drill in as many minutes, and every part of my body ached.
Although that might have also been because I’d done conditioning circuits that morning too, so my poor leg muscles had done nothing but suffer since the moment I’d arrived at training.
I could see a visit to our sports massage therapist in my very near future, a prospect that filled me with dread as much as relief because having the knots in my ass and thighs worked out with an elbow and hard, probing fingers was not something I enjoyed. It made me feel better eventually, but the massage itself could be so fucking painful I often made the most undignified noises known to humankind.
Maybe Ryan would gently rub my ass when I got home. It wouldn’t do shit in terms of helping my muscles recover, but it would feel good and that had to count for something.
“West, be careful not to over-straighten your left leg,” Trevor said in his soft South African accent as he looked over the six of us. “Jaden, you’re tilting your pelvis back too much and it’s why you’re becoming unstable in your waist. Remember to tighten your core and that’ll help with your stability a bit. Mason, you’re tilting forward a bit too much when you’re coming under pressure. Your spine is just rounding out and your shoulders are dropping”—he curled his shoulders forward slightly, rounding them out so I could see what the problem was—“and it means your side of the scrum is at risk of collapsing. Keep your back flat as you drive forward.”
“Yeah, I could feel that,” I said, rolling my shoulders and neck as Trevor continued his feedback to the other side of our training scrum. Despite the fact there were only ever fifteen players on the pitch at one time, the Knights had a total of thirty-eight players on their roster. Rugby Union was an incredibly physical game, so Clive, our head coach, always needed to have a deep pool of players to choose from—whether that was because of injury or varying the strengths of the squad.
I was one of two tighthead props, the other being George, who was a couple of years younger than me and only in his second season of professional rugby. It felt a bit weird to be the senior player at the age of twenty-six but maybe that was because I didn’t feel my age. Half the time, I still felt like I was twenty-one and floundering.
I didn’t know how old Ryan was, but I had a feeling he was older than me just from the settled, self-confident aura that he exuded. I’d have to remember to ask him when we got home—actually ask him this time, not think about asking him and then get so distracted by making out that I forgot about everything else.
In the ten days or so since we’d started our arrangement, we’d spent most of our free time in one of our rooms kissing until our mouths were chapped and dry and both of us were covered in cum. We’d not gone any further than kissing and hand jobs, but I liked to think I was getting very good at both.
Not that I’d ever had any doubts.
I’d always been a good listener in bed, and I didn’t think any of my exes had any complaints. None of them had ever mentioned any when we’d broken up.
“Okay,” Trevor said as he wound up his feedback. “Take a quick break. Get some water. Then we’re going to do some lineout practice, and after that we’ll do the scrum again with everyone involved.”
We all let out various groans of acknowledgement, tiredness, and a little bit of pain. I knew we only had just over a week until the first pool match of the Cup and then another four weeks until the start of the Premiership season, but it felt like the coaching team were really pushing us to our limit. I knew their aim was to get us fitter than ever, but at this rate we’d be starting the season at a battered, bruised crawl.
“I think they’re trying to kill us,” Jaden said as we staggered towards the edge of the training pitch where water bottles were waiting for us. Some of the other members of the team were there, having been released from their own practice drills.
“Mate, I’m so tired I just want to take a nap,” Charlie, one of the wingers, said as he poured water over his head. He was Danny’s best friend and despite the fact the two of them could be annoying little shits, I’d never met a pair who could run faster. “Do you think they’d notice if I just passed out here? ”
“You can try, but knowing Gavin, he’ll make you get up and run laps,” Matty, our scrum-half, said. Matty was our captain, and he was short and broad with an enormous ginger beard and shoulder-length red hair that made him look like a cross between a Viking and a fantasy dwarf. He also had enormous dark circles under his eyes from being a parent to a seventeen-month-old toddler who’d recently discovered he could open all the kitchen cupboards and had decided sleep was for other people.
“Fuck it,” Charlie said, dropping to the floor and sprawling out like a starfish. “It’ll be worth it for five minutes’ peace.”
“Better you than me, mate,” Danny said as he took a swig from his water bottle and then looked between it and Charlie lying on the floor.
“If you spray me with fucking water, I will shave your eyebrows off next time we have to share a room,” Charlie said, lifting his arm to gesture vaguely in Danny’s direction, his eyes still closed.
“Don’t you think I’d notice that?”
Charlie scoffed. “No. You sleep like the fucking dead.”
Danny opened his mouth to argue but was stopped by the rest of the team arriving for their own break and the general conversation turned back to everyone’s various aches and pains and how tired we all were. “Feels like I’m sitting at my granny’s,” I muttered to West with a wry smile. “Listening to her and all her friends moan about what hurts today.”
“Don’t they do that while playing poker?” West asked with a grin as he drained his water bottle .
“Yeah, but that doesn’t change my point. They still all moan—they just do it while taking all your money.”
West laughed and patted me on the shoulder. “You’re good at one part of that at least.”
“Oi, that was uncalled for,” I said, nudging him teasingly. “You and Rory still good for tomorrow night? Ryan’s getting really excited.”
Ryan had taken the idea of running a little Dungeons & Dragons campaign for us and set off at full steam. It was cute seeing how into it he was getting, and his excitement was contagious. I’d never played any kind of tabletop role-play game, and although the rule book and character sheet looked a bit intimidating, making my character with Ryan had been fun. Even if it had taken us several attempts to get to the actual character-building part of the conversation.
Somehow, we always managed to get sidetracked.
It was difficult not to when Ryan was sitting on my bed looking gorgeous as fuck and bubbling with excitement, chatting away at a hundred miles an hour and gesturing wildly with his hands as he talked about lore and monsters, desperately trying not to tell me too much about what he was planning. I wanted to listen to him talk forever and at the same time kiss him senseless because he was so fucking cute it was almost unbearable.
In the end I’d wind up kissing him and nothing else would get done for the rest of the night.
It was a nice way to distract myself from how tired I was, though.
“Yeah, it should be fun,” West said. “Rory got us some dice each and we’ve been watching a couple of game streams—you know, those ones where a group of people all sit around and play on camera? There was a whole one with some drag queens from Drag Stars , so we’ve been watching that.”
“You’ll be more prepared than me,” I said. “I haven’t got any dice, although Ryan said I can borrow some of his. I’ve been meaning to order some, I just…” I trailed off because I hadn’t told West what Ryan and I were doing and now didn’t exactly feel like the best time or place to have that conversation.
“I get it. I’m so tired I feel like I can’t even think straight.”
“Probably because you aren’t,” I said with a grin and West snorted.
“Yeah, that too.”
“Okay,” Trevor called as he walked over to us. “Break time’s over. We’re doing lineouts.”
I sighed and chugged the last of my water before stretching out my arms. “Think you can throw straight today?” I asked West as a group of us congregated.
“It’s about the only time you’d put me and straight in a sentence,” West said with a chuckle. “Just make sure Hunter can catch.”
“I heard that,” Hunter said as he joined us. He played at number four and was one of the second-row forwards. He was also an impressive six foot seven, which made him perfect to jump in the lineout because he was more likely to catch the ball. Jaden and I just had to do a good job of lifting and supporting him and making sure we didn’t drop him on his head. “Since when have I ever missed? ”
“You missed against York,” Jaden said, popping up beside us.
“Yeah, but you and Mason almost fucking dropped me.”
“Maybe, but it was muddy as hell and you were wet. It was like trying to lift a bloody greasy weasel,” I said. “You’re not exactly graceful.”
“Jaden and I will lift you next time then,” Hunter said with a laugh. “See if you do any better.”
“Just get your ass in the middle,” I said, gesturing for Hunter to take his position between Jaden and me as Trevor yelled out instructions. We’d practised these a hundred times over the last few weeks, and I wanted to think we’d got them down to a fine art.
I bent my knees and got into position, squatting down with my hands cupped under Hunter’s butt cheeks, squeezing up as Jaden crouched in front of him, his hands resting on the strapping around Hunter’s legs just below his knees. In a match situation, we’d have to get Hunter in the air in the split seconds after the ball was thrown, but since this was our first lift of the afternoon, we’d just do a couple of slower lifts to make sure we nailed the technique.
Trevor blew his whistle and the three of us pushed off the ground. I squeezed Hunter’s ass as I exploded upwards, my arms straightening to propel him into the air as Jaden and I came to standing almost chest to chest with Hunter’s impressive thighs between us. We held him there for a second, then slowly dropped him down.
“How’d that feel?” I asked Hunter as I wiped my sweaty hands on my shirt. I wasn’t sure if it was sweat from me or from Hunter’s thighs, but either way I was going to need a shower after today because I was dripping. “Stable?”
“Yeah, it’s good.” He nodded and grinned. “Plenty of ass support.”
“That’s what we like to hear,” I said and clapped him on the shoulder with a grin. “Better get your ass back in position then because we’re doing it again.”
I dropped back into position, focusing on the task at hand. This was one time my thoughts couldn’t deviate because I didn’t want to be the one who made Hunter land on his head.
But before the whistle blew, I did think about how easy it might be to lift Ryan up… and all the fun things I might do with that information.