Chapter 4. Chris #2
“Good luck,” Mads says, standing. “I have a Danish passport, and we’re already in Denmark.”
“Right.” I smile.
He grabs his jacket from the bunk and pulls it on, then pauses with one hand still on the zipper. His eyes meet mine, and for a second, the whole compartment feels too small again.
“You okay?” he asks, quieter now.
I nod, looking up at him. “Yeah.”
His gaze flicks to the open door, checking the corridor, then comes back to me.
My heart kicks once.
Mads steps closer, slow enough that I know exactly what he’s doing and have time to pull away if I want to.
I don’t.
Then he bends down and kisses me.
It’s quick, barely more than a brush of his mouth against mine, but it still makes my stomach drop like I missed a step.
When he pulls back, his mouth twitches, almost shy.
“I’ll be back,” he says. “Don’t go anywhere.”
“Cool,” I say, my heart pounding.
Then he steps into the corridor and walks away, and I’m left sitting in our broken compartment with his kiss still warm on my mouth and something stupidly happy ballooning in my chest.
***
Copenhagen is gray and cold when we arrive, and aside from a couple of rushed kisses on the train before we get off, Mads and I spend most of the day pretending we’re not both extremely aware of each other.
We check into the hotel and make it through breakfast with the team, sitting at different tables and acting like nothing happened.
It mostly works, except I keep catching Mads looking at me, and every time I do, something stupid happens to my face that I have to kill before anyone notices.
After breakfast, we go to practice, where Toledo apparently decides last night’s 4–1 loss can only be atoned for through attempted mass murder. He keeps us moving until every drill starts to feel like punishment and even the rookies stop trying to look enthusiastic.
Normally, I would not look forward to that. But today, even Toledo’s attempt to skate us into an early grave feels weirdly tolerable, because it gives me a completely reasonable excuse to talk to Mads without looking suspicious.
And Mads is…different.
He isn’t glaring at me, ignoring me, or snapping at me like he has been for the past three months. Instead, he talks to me. Watches me. Jokes with me. And a couple of times, when nobody is close enough to hear, I’m almost sure he flirts with me.
Which makes it really fucking difficult not to grin at him like an idiot.
I manage, mostly because Roman keeps watching me every few minutes, and Sam is even worse. He keeps skating a little too close whenever Mads and I talk, like he’s not being incredibly obvious. The man has the subtlety of a burglar in a ski mask at noon.
By the time we hit the showers, my skin is humming.
I keep my eyes on the tile wall in front of me, because the alternative is looking three stalls down at Mads Holm with water running over his naked body and losing whatever small amount of composure I have left.
He doesn’t make it easy. He’s laughing with Roman, his voice carrying through the steam, and every time I hear it, my chest goes warm in this stupid, embarrassing way that makes me want to put my head through the tile.
The hotel bar that night is busy. The whole team is there, scattered across couches and high tables, watching the Redside Wraiths—my old team—play the Stockholm Boars on the giant flat-screen mounted above the bar.
I find a spot near the back with a beer in my hand and pretend to care about the game.
I don’t care about the game.
I care about Mads Holm, who’s sitting across the room with Roman, one elbow on the bar, his profile sharp under the low light.
He’s wearing a dark henley that stretches across his shoulders and clings to his chest, because apparently the universe has decided I don’t deserve peace.
He’s talking, gesturing with his free hand, and Roman is listening with a familiar half-smile, like Mads is being especially stubborn about something.
I try not to look at him.
It goes badly.
He’s like a fucking magnet for my eyes, and for the tenth time in five minutes, I look across the room and find him already looking back.
Mads holds my gaze, and something passes between us that has no business being that obvious in a crowded bar.
I take a long drink of my beer without breaking eye contact.
Maybe it’s the lighting or just wishful thinking, but I swear his eyes go darker.
Two tables over, Sam catches our little exchange.
Shit.
His gaze snaps from Mads to me, then back to Mads, then to me again. His expression cycles through confusion, dawning horror, and finally lands on scandalized delight, which he makes absolutely no attempt to hide.
Then he winks at me, looks across the room at Mads again, and mouths, What the fuck? with his eyebrows doing half the work.
I ignore him.
Sam Winnick getting his nose into my personal life is not a problem I’m equipped to solve tonight.
The game ends. The Wraiths win, which means Toledo’s mood tomorrow will somehow be even worse, because another two points for them puts more pressure on us in the standings, and Coach takes that kind of thing personally.
The bar starts to thin out after that. Guys head upstairs in twos and threes, and Mads walks off with Sam and Roman.
I don’t know what I expected, but I feel a stupid little pang of disappointment anyway. I finish my beer and go upstairs alone.
My room is quiet. Standard team-hotel setup—king bed, desk, bathroom with decent water pressure. I let the door fall shut behind me, toe off my shoes, and sit on the edge of the bed. Suddenly, the silence feels a lot louder than it should.
The disappointment is familiar, which somehow makes it worse.
It’s that hollow, nagging feeling in my chest that shows up whenever I’ve built something up too much and reality starts correcting me.
Mads looked at me all night. He smiled at me during practice.
He did everything short of putting it on a sign, and still, here I am, alone in a hotel room in Copenhagen, trying not to feel stupid for wanting him to knock.
I take a shower because my body aches and because standing under hot water is less complicated than therapy.
The water hits my shoulders, and I close my eyes and let myself think about last night—overthink it, really, like if I replay it enough times, I can convince myself it actually meant something.
His voice in the dark. His little confession. The way he touched me and kissed me. How hard he was in my hand, hot and real and mine for a few impossible minutes.
The knock comes just as I’m considering wrapping a hand around my cock and making the whole night even more pathetic.
I turn off the shower and freeze.
Water drips down my back and onto the tile, and for one second, I think I imagined it.
Then the knock comes again, harder this time.
I get out of the shower, grab the hotel robe off the hook, and pull it on without drying off properly. By the time I leave the bathroom and cross the room, my heart is doing somersaults behind my ribs.
I open the door.
Mads is standing in the hallway.
He’s changed into a fresh gray T-shirt and jeans, simple enough that it should not be doing this much damage to my nervous system.
His hair is damp at the ends, like he took a quick shower too, and he smells clean—that warm, citrusy smell that’s been living in my brain since I first noticed it three months ago.
“Hi,” he says.
His voice is quiet, a little rough. He looks almost embarrassed, which is insane, because I’m the one standing in a hotel robe with water soaking through the fabric.
“Hi,” I say back.
For a second, we just stare at each other.
Then Mads shifts his weight. “Can I come in?”
I nod and step back to let him in.
As soon as the door clicks shut behind him, Mads closes the space between us.
He crosses the room in two strides, one hand finding the back of my neck, the other catching me by the waist through the hotel robe, and then his mouth is on mine before I can breathe.
The kiss is nothing like last night. Last night was discovery, tentative and breathless in the dark.
This is something else—hungry, certain, his tongue already in my mouth, his fingers pressing into the skin at my nape.
I gasp against his lips, ragged and involuntary, and Mads makes a sound deep in his throat that goes straight through me.
I kiss him back because my body doesn’t know how to do anything else.
My hands find his chest through the gray T-shirt, and the fabric is thin enough that I can feel the heat of him, the muscle under my palms, and Jesus Christ, I’m in a hotel robe with nothing underneath it, and Mads Holm is here, kissing me like he’s been thinking about doing it all day.
He probably has.
I probably have too.
His mouth moves to my jaw, then my throat, his teeth grazing the skin below my ear, and I groan, my head falling back. The robe starts to loosen, and his hand slips beneath the fabric, warm against the bare skin of my hip. My whole body shivers.
“Fuck,” I whisper, because it’s the only word I have.
Mads doesn’t answer. He just kisses me again, deeper this time, his hand sliding from my hip to the small of my back as he pulls me closer. I feel him through his jeans, already hard against my stomach, and the realization makes my cock throb.
I’m hard too, the rough fabric of the robe dragging against my dick. The friction makes me lose my breath, but it only leaves me wanting more. I want his hands on me. I want my hands on him. I want him to fuck me right now—against the door, on the bed, anywhere he’ll have me.
I grind against him, my hips pushing forward, and Mads makes that sound again—the rough, hungry one.
His hand slides lower, cupping my bare ass, and I’m so far gone I don’t care that we’re still by the door, that the hallway is three feet away, that anyone walking past could hear every sound I’m making.
I reach between us, greedy and half out of my mind, getting my palm over the hard shape of him through his jeans.