Chapter 29 #2
That compliment makes me wildly uncomfortable. We’re firmly in the more-than-sex category, and I don’t do that. It’s not my thing. I shift in the chair and stare at the marshmallows. “Look, I think I’ll just pack up and head back to my place for the night.”
There’s a long beat of silence, and I’m too much of a chicken shit to look up from my disintegrating marshmallows to gauge his reaction. Finally, he speaks. His voice calm and unaffected. “Right. Makes sense. Your place is going to be a dark freezer. Why wouldn’t you want to sleep there?”
“It’s just… I’m wiped after the road trip, and I mean the sex is great, but I’m too exhausted and—”
“And why would you want to be around me if we couldn’t fuck, right?” Landon cuts me off, his voice still calm and even, which is becoming mildly unnerving to hear. “It’s not like we get along, are basically best friends, or give a shit about each other at all.”
Finally, I find the nerve to lift my eyes to his. His expression is blank. No emotion on his perfect face. “I like you. As a friend.”
Ouch. That hurt to say, and clearly, by the way Landon’s face drops, it hurt to hear. I don’t know if I can make it better, but I'll try. “We’re great friends. We’re great fuck buddies too. I’m just not… I don’t do relationships, and if I start staying over without sex or like—”
“Spending the night being the big spoon?” Landon cuts in. “Like you were half the road trip. The half where you weren’t fighting your feelings?”
I swallow. How is my throat so dry when I’ve been pouring liquid down it? I take another sip of the hot chocolate. “This is complicated. I don’t want to make it messy, Landon.”
A sliver of a smile quirks his lips, and his eyebrows rise. “Grady, I’ve had your cum all over my chest and in my mouth. I think we’ve done messy.”
My dick stirs in my pants. I ignore it. “That’s not what I meant.”
We’re silent for a minute, and he leans forward and puts his half-empty mug back on the table.
He stands and walks right up to my chair, lifting the mug from my hand.
When he turns to place it on the coffee table, it causes Landon to bend with his ass in my face.
My mouth waters with the urge to bite his cute butt right through his thin flannel pajama bottoms. “Well, this whole thing started with a threesome with my girlfriend, which we both agreed to only so we could touch each other. So we’ve had the emotionally messy covered from the start, too. ”
He turns to face me. He’s standing so close to the chair I’m sitting in that our knees are bumping. I should probably get up and just leave. “I don’t date.”
“Why not?” Landon asks. “And is it that you don’t date or you don’t date me?”
“I don’t date, period,” I say, still not moving.
Still trying to ignore how much I like his closeness.
How easy it would be to reach up, cup his perfect round ass, and pull him into my lap.
“I’m closeted and I’m staying there. That’s not a fair position to put anyone in.
Also, you’re freshly out of a relationship, and jumping into a new one is probably not the best idea. ”
“Angie left three and a half months ago, Grady,” he says, and then he starts to climb up on the chair.
In a quick succession of movements more graceful than a man of his size and bulk should be capable of, Landon is straddling my lap, sitting right on my growing erection.
He doesn’t miss that fact—I can tell by the smile that blooms on his face.
“And unlike you, I can’t pretend that this isn’t real. You want to stop altogether?”
“Well, I’m all for a bed buddies thing.”
“Because you don’t like me?”
“Landon, you’re like my best friend,” I scoff at his stupid comment.
“And people who date are…?” He waits for me to answer him, but I don’t, so I roll my eyes.
He puts both hands on my shoulders. “People who date are simply people who like each other and are sexually attracted to one another. And you can lie if you want, but your body has made it clear I turn you on.”
He rolls his hips, grinding into my cock, and I bite back a groan.
My hands move to his hips to make sure he doesn’t do that again, because I will lose my train of thought and just kiss him.
He squeezes my shoulders. “Oh, and dating is also usually exclusive. We’ve already agreed we aren’t fucking other people.
So… is that the issue? Now you want to fuck other people? ”
“I haven’t thought about another person since that first night.” I should have lied, but I can’t bring myself to do it. “Fucking only you sounds like a reward, not a hardship.”
He moves closer, tipping his head down so our foreheads touch. My eyes close because he’s all blurry now, and his scent, a mix of that mint shampoo he uses and his sandalwood body wash, has me so turned on I’m dizzy. “Talk to me then, Grady. What the hell has you so scared?”
“I can’t talk with you sitting on my dick,” I admit and push him off me gently and with a wave of regret. But if we don’t have this talk now, then when? It won’t get any easier the more we fuck.
He stands up again, and I adjust myself and then also stand up. I run a hand through my damp hair. “Look, I know you can pretend this isn’t happening in front of everyone, especially the team. You’ve done a fine job so far, and I haven’t even had to ask.”
“I kind of like it, honestly,” he replies.
“Yeah, but for how long?” I sigh. “I know you, Landon. You enjoy being in a relationship. You’re fascinated by Abbott and Declan and how domesticated they are. How normal.”
“Oh fuck off,” he barks out, but his tone isn’t really upset.
Maybe mildly annoyed. He walks over to the couch and perches on the oversized arm.
“I know gay people are normal, Grady. And if you’re talking about when we had that dinner, I was fascinated by any relationship that wasn’t spiraling because the last two years of my life with Angie was just that. ”
“Okay, but you are gonna want to be open about your life, this part of it.” I swallow and once again wonder where all the saliva went. “I can’t give you that. Maybe ever, but definitely not while I’m in the league. And I mean, I haven’t told a single soul, and I would be uncomfortable if you did.”
“So I couldn’t tell my family?” he questions, his tone suddenly not so confident. “My parents wouldn’t care, and they wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“I’m not comfortable with that,” I reply honestly. “See, this isn’t going to—”
Landon scratches the back of his neck at his hairline and then shrugs. “Well, I can’t guarantee I wouldn’t come out to my parents. But I can guarantee that I won’t out you. Or tell them I’m in a relationship.”
I start getting agitated. He isn’t making this easy, and I don’t know why. I start to pace a little, just a couple of short steps in each direction. “Landon, seriously. Why me? You’re new at this. You should probably explore.”
“Nah. Thanks. I’m good.” Landon presses his palms into his thighs and leans forward, as if he’s about to drop some sort of news flash.
“And for the record, in case I haven’t made it clear, I don’t want to be with any other guy.
Just you. So even if you dump my ass right now, because you’re a six-foot-six pile of chicken shit.
I won’t be fucking my way through gay bars or other players.
I’ll still be attracted to you. I’ll still like only you. ”
“What if one of us gets traded?” I blurt out.
“What if we both get traded to opposite sides of the country. Or one of us gets traded to a Canadian team? My whole career is an example of how quickly everything can change. Will you still think this is worth it when we can’t even see each other unless our teams play each other, which, depending on where we end up, could only be two times a season? ”
He doesn’t respond. His pretty face is growing more and more serious because what I’m saying is finally sinking in. “And we have just had a few months in between seasons, and your family is in San Francisco. Mine is four hours from here. Spending time together would be tricky and risky and—”
“You’ve got it all figured out. It’s kind of amazing,” Landon interrupts as he stands. “You are really talking yourself out of this.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You’re being an idiot,” Landon counters and walks over to stand in front of me again. “Do you know what my grandfather told me?”
“No.”
He wraps his arms around my shoulders. I should step out of this embrace, but I just don’t want to.
God, it feels so good to be touched by him.
“Well, he died of ALS before I was born, but he left all his kids letters, and in his letter to my mom, he told her to always remind her kids, when she had them, that life is short and promised to no one. For a long time, I thought it was just some motivational cliché… until I collapsed on the ice and was told I had cancer. Then it suddenly had some context.”
I’m an ass because I rarely think about his cancer.
He just seems so healthy, and he never talks about it.
It’s hard to imagine he went through that.
He leans in, tipping his head up so our lips brush just long and hard enough that familiar, addictive electricity runs down my spine.
When he speaks again, his tone is back to being overbearingly confident.
“So yeah, could this all blow up in our faces? Sure. Could the league inadvertently rip us apart? Yeah. In fact, the odds are stacked against us that we finish our careers on the same team, let alone get traded together again. But is that going to stop me from telling you I like you? Fuck no. Life is short and promised to no one, so man up, Grady, and admit to yourself, if not me, that we have become much more than a fuck buddy situation.”
I stare at him. He’s been my crush for so long, and now he’s basically offering himself up on a silver platter, demanding I do the simplest little thing, admit what we both already know. “So what? You want to be my… boyfriend?”
He grins, and my stupid, illogical heart sprouts wings. “That’s exactly what I want.”
“I don’t even know how to begin to be someone’s boyfriend,” I say like a fucking idiot because what twenty-eight-year-old hasn’t been someone’s boyfriend?
“Just keep doing what you’re doing.” Landon’s fingers tangle in the back of my hair. “Only maybe with more blow jobs. And a toy or two.”
I lift both eyebrows. “A toy?”
“I’ve been thinking about buying some,” he confesses, and the pale pink starting to color his cheeks is so fucking sweet I think my blood sugar just spiked.
“You haven’t been subtle, and I knew you were gonna try to run like a feral ginger cat.
So I was looking at ways to keep exploring without you, if I had to.
But I think it would be fun to play around with them together. Have you tried a butt plug before?”
“Oh my God,” I hiss out and lean in and kiss him. Neither one of us is gentle or timid about it. Our tongues battle, and our hips bump, and his hands tug at my hair as I palm his perfect ass.
He finally pulls back, lips swollen. “So you’re going to stop trying to pretend this isn’t a thing?”
“I can’t walk away from a good butt plug,” I say, trying to keep it light so my head and my heart don’t freak out again. I nip his chin. “You’re gonna come so hard when I put it in you.”
He shivers. I can literally feel it. My sweet, ridiculously eager but oblivious… boyfriend. Fuck. How the hell has this happened? I push that question from my head and follow Landon as he walks to his bedroom.
Maybe this isn’t a big deal. Maybe, like everything else about us, it will just miraculously work out against all the odds. Maybe, I’ll get to be in love…