Chapter Forty-Seven Reykjavík
Piper woke at seven. Noah was still asleep, face in the pillow, breathing steadily.
Piper went downstairs. Carmen was at the island with a coffee and her laptop. “Morning, Piper, I made sausage and eggs. I figured you would need it after the day you had yesterday.”
“Thanks, Carmen, ya, yesterday was a lot, we’ll be down for food shortly, oh and this place needs a Christmas tree,” Piper replied.
“Piper, I am not the fucking help, get the tree your damn self.” They both laughed.
He grabbed the wrapped troll from his jacket pocket and headed back upstairs.
“You’re up,” Noah said as he slowly opened his tired eyes and spread his arms to stretch.
“I’ve been up.”
Piper sat on the edge of the bed with the package in his lap. Noah looked at it.
“What’s that?”
“I got you something.”
“In Iceland. In the village.”
Piper handed him the package.
Noah unwrapped it slowly. He looked at the troll in his hand, went quiet for a minute, then he laughed to himself.
Piper watched him hold it in both hands, carefully rubbing its little belly.
Noah was not used to this, not the troll obviously, but the part where somebody gave him something and did not want anything back.
Noah had spent his whole life paying for everyone else, and he held it like it was the first gift he ever received.
“Piper. This is the fucking ugliest thing I have ever seen.”
“I know.”
“One eye is smaller than the other.”
“Yeah.”
“You picked this on purpose.”
“Sure did.” Piper smiled.
Noah held it up and stared into its little eyes.
“Why?”
“They are good luck. Apparently, they believe that trolls exist here, but sadly I have not seen one in the flesh yet. I want my fucking money back Iceland!”
Noah looked at him laughing.
He said, “Fuck, Piper.”
“Yeah.”
“You bought me a troll.”
“I did buy you a troll.” Piper grabbed Noah’s arm.
“For luck.”
Noah closed his fingers around it. He never knew he needed a fucking troll as much as he needed this troll.
“Thank you, Piper. This little guy will be with me at the Conference Championship. My locker during every game. In my bag for life. Are you fucking aware? Forever.”
“I am fucking aware,” Piper smiled.
Noah gave the troll a smile, “You are gonna take me all the way, aren’t you, little guy.”
He reached out and put his palm flat against Piper’s cheek.
Piper laughed, “Dude, it was probably the same price as those Ralphs flowers you got me.”
They both laughed and Noah’s hand stayed on Piper’s face. The troll was in his other hand, held loosely against his thigh.
Noah said, “I have an idea.”
“Okay.”
“Kristín left a phone number.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to call her.”
“What for?” Piper asked.
“I am not telling you, Piper.”
Noah got out of the bed, took the troll with him, and went downstairs in his boxer briefs to call Kristín on the kitchen phone. Piper sat in the bed and waited and didn’t ask what Noah was doing.
Thirty minutes later, Noah came back upstairs.
“I am taking you somewhere tonight.”
“Where are we going?”
“Trust me.”
“Noah.”
“Piper. Trust me.”
***
Noah drove later that night to the secret location. The road ran along a ridge for about twenty minutes through a volcanic landscape.
Noah pulled off the road at an unmarked gate. A man in a heavy coat came out, looked at Noah, nodded, and opened it. The gravel drive went a quarter-mile to a low building built into the side of the ridge.
Noah parked and turned off the engine.
He said, “Put this on.”
He handed Piper a strip of dark fabric. A blindfold.
Piper gave him a look.
“I want to surprise you. Put it on,” Noah smiled.
“Okay, just be gentle, I’ve been through a lot recently.”
Piper put on the blindfold.
Noah came around the car and opened Piper’s door.
He took Piper’s hand and guided him forward. A faint smell of sulfur drifted through the air. Steam brushed against his skin.
Noah stopped.
Piper could hear the sound of water moving over rocks below him and his own breathing.
“I’m going to take off your clothes, is that okay?” Noah whispered in Piper's ear.
“Why not,” Piper answered as Noah carefully removed each piece of his clothing, making sure to leave the blindfold on, until Piper was completely naked.
Noah slipped off his clothes, and eased Piper into the hot spring.
“Shit, it’s hot, I like it,” Piper said as his body was being immersed in the warm water.
Noah reached up and took off the blindfold.
They were both in a natural hot spring, completely naked, steam surrounding them in a white cloud.
Noah said, quietly, “Kristín knew a guy. We have it for as long as we want it. Fully private, so whatever we want to do.”
“This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me and you barely planned it.” Piper smiled.
Piper went quiet for a moment and grabbed his phone.
“I think we need a soundtrack.”
The first shimmering notes of Sia’s Chandelier drifted through the mineral steam.
“Figured it was appropriate.”
They both laughed.
The water was hot, not a hotel spa hot, not a sauna hot, but the thick mineral hot that felt like the earth was heating them from below rather than around, and Piper let out a long breath and Noah made a similar sound a second later, and they sank into the water to their shoulders.
The water moved around them. The steam came off and coated their bodies. The sky was a pale silver color. Noah was about a foot away, half-submerged, his hair wet, his eyes closed. Piper watched him.
He watched him for a while, and then the sky changed.
It was not sudden. It was the way a light came up in a theater, except the theater was the whole sky. A pale green ribbon moved across the black where the silver had been. It thickened. It shifted. A second ribbon joined it, lower, and the green deepened into a color Piper didn’t have a word for.
“Noah. Fuck, you know what that is?!”
Noah opened his eyes.
He looked up. The aurora borealis moved overhead in slow pulses, green and then a thread of pink, purple, green and blue at the edge, and the steam from the spring rose up into it and through it, and Piper exhaled.
Piper’s mind released all of it, Jayson, Riley Dane, Atlanta, Seattle rain, and Donna Ashton.
He was thinking about Noah, about Noah’s wet hair, Noah’s eyes and Noah’s shoulders just above the waterline, and about the thing Piper had figured in the car on the drive back from the village yesterday which he was going to understand again now, with more clarity.
He moved across the springs. He put his hand on Noah’s face. Noah opened his eyes.
Piper said, “I want to. This time.”
Piper put his mouth near Noah’s ear.
He said the line Noah had taught him in a bed in L.A. He had looked it up on Google Translate. He said it now, the way Noah had taught him to say it, slowly, the pronunciation that hadn’t mattered the night he learned it, but Piper wanted it to matter tonight.
“Quiero follarte hasta reventarte el cerebro.”
Noah gave Piper a grin. Piper kissed him.
Piper said, against Noah’s mouth, “Come here.”
Noah moved closer. Piper moved them to the edge of the spring, where the stone shelved wide enough for Noah to bend over facing the rocks.
He directed with his hands. Noah’s shoulders. Noah’s hip. Noah’s knees. The way he directed a receiver in a huddle. Noah watched him. Noah hadn’t stopped watching him since Piper had said I want to.
Nobody was asking him to keep going. Nobody had asked him to start. This was not a clause. This was him, doing what he had wanted to do for months, because he wanted to.
This time, he chose.
The water was hotter than anything Piper had ever felt, thick and mineral and volcanic.
Piper dipped his fingers in the hot water and worked them against Noah’s hole. The water made everything slick but Noah was still tight, and Piper felt every ring of muscle stretching open around his fingers, he was slow, careful. He was not going to do this the way it had been done to him.
He used his other hand to tilt Noah’s face up.
“Look at me.”
Piper added a second finger. Noah groaned and bent over the rock formation.
“Fuck.” Noah moaned.
“Yeah.”
“Piper.”
When Noah pushed back on Piper’s fingers, Piper pulled them free.
Piper’s cock was fully hard and he drove into Noah’s tight hole, discovering every inch.
For once he was taking instead of being taken.
Noah was tight around his cock and the feeling was intense.
The heat of the spring and the heat of Noah’s body were almost too much to hold inside one body at once.
Piper braced one hand on the rock beside Noah’s head.
He moved slowly. Every stroke was calculated.
Every roll of his hips was deliberate. He felt Noah’s hole clenching around him, and felt the pulse of every muscle giving way.
Water churned around them with every thrust. Steam clung to their skin. Piper watched Noah’s face open and tighten and open again, watched Noah being fucked.
“You good?”
“Fuck, Piper. Yeah.”
“Tell me.”
“I’m good. Keep going, fuck my tight hole.”
He fucked Noah harder. Deeper. The volcanic water slapped against the stone with every thrust. Noah made a sound Piper had never heard him make, broken, open, an inch away from begging. Piper kept going.
The hand he had braced on the rock slid down to Noah’s neck and tightened around it. He held Noah’s neck while he fucked him. Tight but not too tight. The way Noah had held his throat on the carpet in L.A. months ago.
“Look at me,” Piper said.
“I’m looking.”
Piper kept going. He flipped Noah over, looking into his eyes with every deep thrust.
He was not performing.
He was not being watched.
He was fucking another man because he wanted to.
Noah’s nails were dragging down his back and the sky above was giving them a show.
He looked at Noah’s face. Noah didn’t close his eyes. Neither of them did. Their eyes stayed locked.
As Piper moved, Noah moved with him.
No scoreboard. No cameras. No crowd. This was theirs.
Noah came first, streaming against the rocks, with a groan that was loud enough for the groundskeeper to hear. Piper felt him clench and kept going for the strokes he had left in him. Then Piper came inside Noah, deep, his whole body shaking in ecstasy.
Noah stared at him like he’d finally found the real Piper.
Noah closed his eyes, opened them, and said it.
“I love you.”
Piper paused like he had heard a word in a language he never learned.
He looked at Noah.
He reached for his phone on the rock, opened his Spotify playlist, Gimme More by Britney Spears pulsed through the steam.
The opening beat hit deep. Then Britney said the iconic opening line.
Piper winked in that confident way he envied Noah was able to pull off.
He smirked.
Then he said it in the way only Piper FUCKING Ashton could.
“Back at ya, bitch.”