Chapter 1. Mads #3
The fourth was worse because I was already pissed by then.
I called reverse behind the net, and Rodriguez hesitated just long enough to make me think he was ignoring me again.
So instead of staying with the puck, I watched him.
Watched his hands, his stick, the tiny pause before he moved it.
By the time I picked up the pressure, their forechecker had turned it into a scramble, the puck kicked out front, and I was late to everything.
First shot, rebound, back door. Open net. Thank you, good night.
Four goals. One cleanly mine, one just plain stupid, and two born from Rodriguez’s commitment to communicating like a malfunctioning appliance. So when I close my eyes, all I see is his stupid screensaver face, and I want to punch it hard enough to make him finally produce an emotion.
I press my forehead harder against the wall, trying to shove the ghost of his fucking face out through the metal.
For a few seconds, I just lie there with my eyes closed, listening to the train and trying very hard not to think about Rodriguez. Which would be easier if the compartment weren’t so small I could hear his breathing.
It’s probably not even that loud. But the guy breathes the way he does everything—controlled enough to be irritating—and in this tiny fucking closet, it’s too much for my riled-up brain.
In, out. In, out. Like a fucking metronome, which feels especially offensive when I’d at least like him to be slightly upset about the loss tonight.
I keep my eyes closed and my back to him. The last thing I need right now is to snap at a guy because his breathing has started to feel personal.
Then I hear him move.
There’s a rustle of clothes from his side, and I realize he’s probably changing too. I stay where I am, listening despite myself, and when he finishes, I hear his footsteps again.
What is he doing? Pacing?
He stops and exhales hard. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but it sounds frustrated.
The rustling continues. He zips something—his duffel, probably—then unzips it a few seconds later. Another sigh, shorter this time. More rustling.
I reach for my headphones in my jacket pocket, pull them out, and jam them into my ears.
I open Spotify, but the loading wheel just spins.
No service. I should have expected that—train Wi-Fi is a myth told to children—but being proved right still pisses me off.
I yank the headphones out and shove them back into their case with more force than necessary.
Rodriguez is still at it. Zipping, unzipping. Then there’s a soft rustle, like he’s searching one of the pockets. Another sigh.
Jesus Christ.
I let out a loud sigh of my own—the kind that says I’m not sleeping and it’s your fault—and roll over to face him.
He’s sitting on his bunk with the duffel on his knees, one hand digging through the main compartment, his expression tense in a way I haven’t seen before.
Usually, Rodriguez looks like nothing short of a natural disaster could put a dent in him, but right now there’s a furrow between his brows and his jaw is working slightly, like he’s grinding his teeth.
He’s wearing the sweatpants and T-shirt he changed into earlier, which look way too warm for this sauna of a compartment.
A thin sheen of sweat covers his forehead and neck.
He wipes at it with one hand, still searching with the other, and the frustration in the gesture is so obvious it’s almost funny.
I prop myself up on one elbow and watch him.
In the three months since he joined the team, I’ve seen Rodriguez serious, cold, giving away about as much as an ID photo.
But I haven’t seen him bothered. The guy is usually so fucking composed it feels medically suspicious, but here he is, digging through his bag like it personally betrayed him, and for the first time since he walked into our locker room, Christopher Rodriguez looks like a person who gives a shit about something.
It’s annoyingly fascinating.
And then, because my brain is apparently determined to make this night even weirder, it hits me: the guy is objectively fucking hot.
I’ve noticed it before, obviously. You don’t share a locker room with someone without registering what they look like, and Rodriguez has the kind of face that makes it hard not to look.
Strong jaw, dark eyes, and a mouth that would be really fucking easy to find attractive if it didn’t spend most of its time pressed into a flat line.
His body is the same story. Broad shoulders, lean but built, the kind of physique that comes from years of grinding on the blue line in the NIC. I’ve known all this, the same way I know what color the sky is or that Toledo’s spiked morning coffee could strip paint.
But knowing it and actually noticing it are two different things, and right now, watching him dig through his bag with that focus, sweat beading along his hairline and his forearms flexing as he moves, my brain decides to be an asshole about it.
Because Rodriguez-the-problem is still sitting right there. Unfortunately, Rodriguez-the-person is too, and the person is—fuck—really, really good-looking.
The thought catches me off guard enough that I almost laugh. Three months of pure animosity, and this is when my brain chooses to point out that my least favorite teammate has a jawline that could cut glass. In a hotbox train compartment. After the worst game of the season.
Great timing, truly.
I let my eyes track over him, partly because I’m still processing the revelation and partly because he hasn’t noticed I’m watching.
His hair is dark and slightly curly, damp at the edges from the heat.
His T-shirt clings at the collar, drawing my attention to the line of his throat, which is apparently something my brain has decided to care about now.
There’s a scar on his left forearm I’ve never noticed before, pale and thin, running from his wrist almost to his elbow.
Does he have a girlfriend? He must. A guy who looks like that doesn’t spend his nights alone.
I try to picture him with a woman, but the image doesn’t work in my head. Not because someone wanting him is hard to believe. It’s picturing Rodriguez wanting anyone badly enough to lose control, even for a second, that feels ridiculous.
My brain supplies an attempt: Rodriguez on top of a faceless woman, moving as if someone programmed the general idea of sex into him, his face showing exactly as much emotion as it does during a Tuesday practice.
The woman making noises beneath him while he stares at the headboard like he’s waiting for his browser to stop lagging.
It’s so absurd I almost laugh. The guy is objectively attractive, but imagining him in any context that requires genuine passion feels like trying to picture a brick wall having an orgasm.
Even his sweat right now looks organized, beading in neat lines down his neck instead of the messy, dripping kind the rest of us get.
Rodriguez stops digging and glances up, catching me mid-stare. His eyes narrow slightly.
“What?” he says.
“Nothing,” I say, echoing our exchange earlier, and I can feel the smirk pulling at my mouth before I can stop it.
He holds my gaze for a second longer, as if he’s trying to decide whether he believes me, then zips his bag shut with a hard tug and stands to put it back on the shelf.
As he turns, the overhead light catches the sweat at the nape of his neck and the dark patch on his T-shirt where the damp fabric clings to his back between his shoulder blades.
And then, without warning or permission, my brain throws an image at me so vivid it might as well be projected on the compartment wall.
Rodriguez, naked, kneeling on the bunk, facing the wall, his back arched and his hands braced against the metal.
Me behind him, one hand gripping his hip, the other tangled in his hair, pulling his head back.
Sweat running down the line of his spine as I fuck into him, my cock sliding in and out, hard enough that the bunk rattles against the wall.
His face turned up, twisted with pure pleasure as he finally lets go of all that control—gasping, moaning, begging for me to give him more.
My cock stirs in my pants, starting to go hard.
I blink, and the image is gone as suddenly as it arrived, leaving a hollow rush under my ribs.
What the fuck was that?
I look away fast, my heart hammering in my chest. Did I just picture myself fucking Christopher Rodriguez? And did my cock, my fucking traitorous cock, find it so hot it went semi from a single image in my head?
Worse, why did it feel so specific? Detailed. Like my brain had already mapped out exactly how I’d do it.
I lie there, trying to look normal while there’s a fucking storm inside me.
I’ve only ever dated women. Hooked up with women. Thought about women. I’ve noticed handsome men before—it’s not a crime to have eyes—but noticing is different from imagining, and imagining is different from the kind of visceral, detailed fantasy that just ambushed me without warning.
It’s the heat. Has to be. The compartment is close to thirty degrees, my brain is overcooked from the game and lack of sleep, and Rodriguez is the only other person in here, so naturally my fried neurons latched onto the nearest available subject.
That’s all it is. A glitch. The psychological equivalent of seeing faces in clouds.
Except my heart is still beating too fast.
Rodriguez reaches into his jacket pocket and starts patting it down, his movements getting more frustrated. He checks the left pocket, then the right, the inside breast pocket, then goes back to the left again.
I wipe my face with the hem of my shirt, suddenly aware of how much I’m sweating, and the irritation comes rushing back in full force. Not just at my own body turning traitor or the heat or the lack of sleep, but at Rodriguez himself and his loud fucking fidgeting.