CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Showered and dressed, Tanner kept up a running commentary about the game last night as they packed their suitcases. Or, Leif packed and Tanner made a halfhearted attempt at not just shoving wads of stuff in his bag.
It was progress, Leif supposed.
After, they had breakfast together. Leif had preordered it to be delivered to the apartment and he answered the door when it arrived.
At the small round table in the open living and dining area, Tanner unpacked the bag and got this cute little smile on his face when he dug through it.
Tanner made happy moaning noises about the breakfast sandwiches Leif had ordered—egg, cheddar, and bacon on sourdough for Tanner and scrambled eggs, halloumi cheese, and sauteed spinach and tomatoes on wheat for Leif.
They devoured the berry muesli cups too, although Tanner was confused about what muesli even was.
“So, like … raw granola?” he said, wrinkling his nose at the oats, nuts, seeds, and dried fruits Leif stirred into his yogurt.
“It’s better when you let it sit overnight,” Leif admitted. “Try it? You might like it.”
Tanner made a face, but he did stick a spoonful of the mixed-together concoction in his mouth. He chewed, swallowed, then shrugged. “I don’t hate it. The sandwich was the bomb though. I could use, like, three more of those.”
“I figured two each would be enough.” Though, to be honest, he wouldn’t have turned down another one either.
“And the coffee,” Tanner moaned. “Oh my God, I can’t believe you got me iced coffee. I love you so much.”
Leif flushed and looked down at his muesli.
The iced coffee had been a gamble considering the time of year, but Leif had read somewhere online that bisexuals and people with ADHD preferred iced coffee to hot. Leif would have preferred some hard data to back that up, but he’d taken the risk and apparently it was accurate.
At least for Tanner anyway.
Why anyone would want iced coffee in March when they were in the middle of a rainstorm was beyond Leif, but Tanner was happy and that was all that mattered.
Leif wondered why making Tanner happy mattered to him at all. And then it sunk in that Tanner had said ‘I love you’.
He glanced up.
Tanner had immediately gone back to slurping down coffee and shoving spoonfuls of yogurt and muesli in his mouth, so Leif probably wasn’t expected to respond. But he still sat there, dumbfounded because what if Tanner meant it? What if it had been more than a throwaway statement of gratitude?
But that was crazy, right? Tanner was … well, Tanner, and he was probably like this with everyone he had sex with.
Leif sat there, his brain whirling with thoughts until Tanner looked up from his phone, smiled at him, and held out his drink. “You want to trade? It doesn’t look like you’re that into your hot latte. I’ll share mine with you, if you want.”
That snapped Lefi out of his anxiety-driven ruminations and he told Tanner, “Thank you, no, this is good,” and he finished his hot latte and the rest of his food.
After Leif cleaned up their breakfast, and Tanner pretended to help but mostly pushed crumbs from the table onto the floor, Leif checked the entirety of the apartment to be sure they hadn’t forgotten to pack anything.
Surprisingly, they hadn’t.
With about ten minutes to spare before they had to leave, Tanner bullied him onto the couch. “Sit,” he said, pointing to a cushion.
Leif sat.
Tanner plunked himself onto Leif’s lap, forcing a groan from the back of Leif’s throat because Tanner might not keep weight on any better than Leif did during a grueling season, but he was still densely muscled for his size.
“Kiss me,” Tanner said, smiling as he cupped Leif’s cheeks and stared down at him.
Leif kissed him.
He got his hands up under Tanner’s hoodie and kissed him like he didn’t know when he’d see him again. Which … he didn’t.
Sure, there was one last game New York would play in Boston before the regular season was up but who knew if they’d have another opportunity like this then. So he kissed Tanner and held him close and tried not to think about what he’d said earlier.
Because it didn’t mean anything. Obviously.
And it didn’t mean anything that just for a second, Leif had wanted to say it back. He’d thought about saying it back.
He’d thought about saying it last night.
But he wasn’t in love with Tanner, no matter what Tanner’s mom said and … Leif broke off with a gasp, burying his face against the soft fabric of Tanner’s sweatshirt. He wanted to hate the Harriers logo on the upper left-hand chest area, but he couldn’t.
Because it was a part of who Tanner was.
They’d hated each other on the ice last night and they’d hate each other the moment they went up against each other again, but in this moment Leif didn’t hate Tanner.
Not even a little bit.
Leif clung to Tanner, shaking, and Tanner ran his hands through Leif’s hair and, for once, didn’t say anything at all. He just sat there, his weight a welcome pressure on Leif’s thighs, and he didn’t ask why Leif was acting like that or tease him about it.
He just let Leif cling to him.
When Leif’s phone buzzed with a reminder that his car would be arriving soon, he was the one to finally coax Tanner to stand up. He kissed Tanner goodbye, said, “Thanks, this was nice. We should do it again,” picked up his bags, and left the apartment.
In the hallway, Leif groaned because that was quite possibly the stupidest thing he could have said. The entire ride down to the first floor he ran through the other things he could have said instead that would have been infinitely better.
But when Leif stepped out of the building, the cold driving rain was coming down hard enough to snap him out of everything but the thought of protecting himself from it.
He realized he’d left his umbrella in the apartment as he strode through the courtyard and flipped up the hood of his sweatshirt. It would get soaked quickly, but it was the best he could do.
The ride was still a few minutes or so away, stuck waiting to turn left at the light at the intersection, and Leif waited a small distance from the bus stop, impatient for the SUV to arrive.
A guy waiting for the bus glanced over at him a couple of times, then looked away.
The wind snatched at Leif’s hood, dragging it back off his face, and he felt the cold spatter of rain on the back of his bare neck just as the guy’s face lit up.
No, fuck no, Leif thought. Not this. Not now.
But as Leif fumbled to get the hood up again, the guy stepped closer, hollering to be heard over the rain and the speeding wet tires on pavement “You’re Leif Rasmussen, yeah?”
“Yeah,” Leif admitted a little grudgingly. He was half tempted to lie to the guy, but he wasn’t that good at it and if someone got a picture of him and posted about it online, it might blow up into something even bigger.
“Fucking hell. That’s awesome. I was a huge fan of your dad’s growing up,” the man said.
Leif got that a lot, especially here in Boston. They’d loved Aksel before he’d been traded. And they loved him even more now that he was back home coaching for the Harriers.
“I’ll let him know,” Leif shouted back. “What’s your name?”
“William Sullivan.”
“I’ll pass that along.”
William frowned. “What are you doing here, man? Traveling teams don’t stay here, do they?” He glanced back at the building.
Leif shook his head. He’d been dreading this. He glanced down at his phone to see that his ride was still waiting to turn at the light. It still said he had two minutes to wait. Fuck this was taking forever.
“Uh, visiting a friend,” Leif said vaguely because he figured that was his safest bet. Tanner was close enough to being a friend for that to be technically true and no one had to know who the friend was or what they’d done together.
“Very cool. Can I get your autograph?”
“Sure,” Leif said. “Do you have a pen and paper?”
The guy pulled a notebook and a pen out of his bag and Leif signed it, cupping his hand over the paper so the ink wouldn’t smudge from the rain. It was more or less a lost cause, but he did his best and handed it back.
Thankfully, the SUV arrived before William could ask him for anything else—like a photo—and Leif gave him a vague wave before he hurried to get inside.
He released a big breath once the door was closed behind him and the vehicle pulled away from the curb. The driver didn’t talk much, and Leif was grateful as they sped through the crowded streets, weaving in and out of traffic.
They got stopped in a traffic jam, eating up the twenty-minute buffer time Leif had allowed and despite the driver doing his best impersonation of an F-1 driver, Leif barely made it to the hotel in time.
He slid in the front door just as guys were gathering in the lobby to get on the bus to the airport.
Nicky raised an eyebrow at him and strolled over, asking “Late night?” in low voice.
He didn’t sound upset but Leif flushed anyway. “Uhh, kind of.”
“Did you stay here at the hotel at all?”
Leif shook his head.
Nicky grinned and tapped him on the arm. “Good for you. Hope he was hot and knew what he was doing in bed.”
“I could do worse,” Leif said rather than that Tanner’s eyes were definitely hazel, not just brown, and that he didn’t think he’d ever felt that good after getting fucked.
And that he was pretty sure he was falling in love with Tanner Clayton.
Tanner dicked around at the apartment for twenty minutes or so after Leif walked out the door—because he’d been all stressed about the idea of them being spotted leaving together—and drove to the practice facility.
He’d offered to drive Leif to his hotel, but he’d looked totally scandalized by the idea. “Do you want people to know about us?” he’d asked.
Tanner didn’t, but he still thought Leif was being a little paranoid.
Okay, so maybe JockGossip had been picking up steam again lately.
The sports gossip site was a nuisance sometimes, but Tanner found it entertaining.
It was kind of a guilty pleasure, and he followed them on social media using his fake accounts.