Chapter Fourteen #3
“When it didn’t stop raining, and the field was like a pool? Yeah.”
“Kicked your ass in that game.”
“You pinned me to the ground and elbowed me in the ribs.”
Sebastian chuckled, looking down at Marcos’ hands pressing the towel against his chest. “You’d been asking for it all game.”
“Yeah, by winning.”
“By running your mouth.”
“Running my mouth?” Marcos paused, leaning back slightly. “What’s running my mouth?”
Sebastian tilted his head. “You know. Talking shit.”
“Oh.” Marcos bit his lip, then shook his head and shifted the towel around.
Sebastian stared at him.
Marcos could feel warmth sitting in his cheeks, and it had nothing to do with the shower.
English wasn’t hard for him. It had never been hard.
He knew the words. He knew what people meant most of the time.
But every now and then a phrase landed wrong, too literal in his head for half a second, and Sebastian’s attention made that half second stretch.
Marcos pressed the towel harder than he meant to. Sebastian’s breath caught.
Marcos eased off at once and moved the towel lower.
The dried blood started to shift off Sebastian’s chest, slowly and stubbornly.
It caught in the thin trail near his collarbone and clung along a spot below his throat where the jersey must have rubbed it into the skin.
Marcos worked carefully, circling the towel with his fingers inside it, trying not to irritate anything already scraped raw by the match.
The two of them stayed silent as the water rushed down Sebastian’s body and Marcos’ arm. Steam rose around them as the sound of water slapping the tiles filled the room. It turned the air close, softening the edges of everything outside the showerhead’s reach.
His hand shifted from Sebastian’s chest to his shoulder, then up to his neck. He wiped under Sebastian’s jaw, mindful near the pulse. Sebastian tipped his head back without being asked. His throat stretched under Marcos’ hand.
Sebastian’s eyes were half-lowered when Marcos glanced back at his face.
Marcos swallowed and dragged the towel across the corner of Sebastian’s mouth.
After another minute, pain started to work its way into his knees.
It began as pressure, then a hard ache under both kneecaps, then something sharper when he adjusted his weight.
He groaned and tried moving one knee back, but the angle made his thigh pull.
He shifted again and groaned again before he could stop himself.
“You okay?” Sebastian asked.
Marcos nodded. “Yeah. Just uncomfortable.”
Sebastian’s eyes dropped to Marcos’ legs, then to his own. “Here. Straighten your legs.”
Sebastian wiggled a little, grabbing Marcos’ wrist and lifting it from his chest. Marcos did what he was told, following Sebastian’s movement and letting himself be guided.
It should have been awkward enough to stop whatever this was becoming.
Two exhausted footballers on shower tiles, shifting limbs around, towel half-forgotten, water hitting the wrong places.
Instead, every adjustment made Marcos more aware of where Sebastian was.
Eventually, they ended up so that one of Marcos’ legs ran behind Sebastian’s lower back, and the other underneath Sebastian’s leg.
Marcos felt Sebastian’s arm resting beside him, held firmly against his thigh, while his fingers sat underneath him.
The now drenched fabric of his underwear did nothing to stop the chills the touch caused from running up Marcos’ spine.
Water had soaked through everything, dragging the waistband lower on his hips and pressing fabric tight against his skin.
Sebastian was no better, his underwear darkened and clinging, his bent leg close enough that Marcos could feel the occasional shift of muscle against him.
Marcos hunched over, his hand finding the towel again and working over the blood. He crossed Sebastian’s chest, up to his neck and jaw, using the task to keep himself from looking anywhere else for too long.
It didn’t work.
Every part of Sebastian was too close. His thigh against Marcos’ leg. His arm against Marcos’ thigh. His stomach rising beneath the towel. The small flicker in his abdomen whenever Marcos’ fingers pressed too near the edge of muscle.
“Why did you kiss me?” Sebastian asked suddenly, voice quiet against the sound of running water.
Marcos’ hand went still.
For a moment, his mind gave him nothing.
Water hit tile, skin, fabric, and the towel still trapped beneath Marcos’ hand.
Steam climbed around them. Sebastian was close enough that Marcos could see where one drop had caught on his lower lashes before he blinked it away.
His mouth was clean now except for the faint redness left behind by the towel.
There was no good way to answer.
“I...” Marcos sighed. His hand dropped, landing on Sebastian’s stomach.
Neither of them moved. “When you kissed me, it was confusing. And I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
And then when you hit me, I didn’t know what to think.
I didn’t plan on kissing you when I showed up.
I didn’t really know what I was going to do. ”
His hand twitched on Sebastian’s stomach as he became aware of where it was sitting and how Sebastian felt underneath him.
Firm and warm. Alive beneath his palm in a way that made Marcos’ thoughts loosen.
He wanted to let his hand move. Wanted to follow the lines his eyes kept finding.
Wanted more with an ache that had been there for over a month, only buried under panic, training, and the stupid hope that if he didn’t think about it, it might eventually leave him alone.
Sebastian stayed still.
Marcos stared at the place where his palm rested and felt Sebastian’s abdomen tighten beneath him.
“Do you regret what happened?” Sebastian’s voice was even lower now, blending in with the sound of the water.
Marcos’ gaze ran down Sebastian’s body, to his own hand, then further.
The fabric of the underwear had soaked through and stretched around his thick thighs and the shape of him.
Marcos saw the twitch when his eyes landed there, saw the way Sebastian’s breath changed even though he didn’t say anything, and heat hit Marcos hard enough that he had to drag his attention back to Sebastian’s face.
Sebastian held his gaze.
Marcos lifted the towel again, wiping the remaining blood off Sebastian’s lips, working gently now, slower than he needed to. The stain came away, leaving Sebastian’s mouth clean and a little swollen from the pressure. Marcos’ thumb brushed near the corner without the towel between them.
Sebastian’s fingers moved along Marcos’ hamstring. A slow pass, gliding along the hem of his underwear, then stopping as if Sebastian was waiting for him to pull away.
Marcos didn’t.
His hand fell back where it had been, palm resting against Sebastian’s abs, feeling them contract beneath him.
The towel dropped away from Sebastian’s face.
“Not anymore.”
The words sat between them.
Marcos felt them after he said them, settling somewhere low and final.
Not enough to explain everything. Not enough to make him suddenly brave.
But true. He had regretted leaving. Regretted how he had handled it.
Regretted the silence, the mess, the way he had made Sebastian stand on one side of something neither of them had known how to talk about.
But Marcos didn’t regret wanting him.
Sebastian’s fingers moved again, sliding along the back of Marcos’ thigh, firmer this time. Marcos’ thumb rubbed across Sebastian’s abdomen as it curled. The motion was small, but Sebastian’s breath caught with it, and that sound went through Marcos with more force than the crowd had.
Marcos felt himself leaning in, and he didn’t stop. Sebastian met him halfway.
And after what had felt like an eternity, lips were moving against each other again, only this time, Marcos knew exactly what he wanted.