25. Nolan
NOLAN
Ben is right beside me at Marlowe’s.
Micah shoved several tables together along the back wall for Tessa’s birthday.
Most of the chairs were still empty when we arrived, and Ben pulled one over next to mine anyway.
Now people are squeezing around the tables with drinks, leaving his thigh pressed to mine and his shoulder warm against my arm.
I keep looking at him to make sure this is still happening.
He came to Tessa’s birthday party. He knew where it was, who would be here, and what kind of bar Marlowe’s is before he walked through the door. When two men kissed beside us while they waited for drinks, Ben moved his chair so one of them could get past and kept listening to Micah’s story.
It feels a little like he’s making up for the thing with Grayson last week.
Things have been good since we cleared that up. Better than good.
We’ve spent nearly every night in one of our beds, including both nights of the last road trip. I had to get out of Ben’s room early the second morning because Sindre was three doors down and kept appearing in the hall at terrible times.
I was dressed with my shoes in one hand when Ben opened the door for me. The hall looked empty. Then the lock on Sindre’s room clicked.
Ben caught me around the waist and pulled me back inside. The door shut without latching, and I ended up against it with his body covering mine while we listened to Sindre walk past. Neither of us breathed until the elevator chimed at the end of the hall.
I reached behind me for the handle. “I have to go.”
Ben looked down at the front of my pants. Getting dragged backward had pushed my jeans against my cock, which was already hard from waking up with his hand between my legs.
“Yeah,” he said.
Then he dropped to his knees.
I had one shoulder against the door and my shoes still in my hand while he opened my jeans and pulled my cock out. The first wet drag of his tongue nearly made me bang my head against the wood. Ben held my hip with one hand and took me down until my thighs tightened around his shoulders.
Somebody spoke in the hallway. His mouth didn’t slow. I bit the side of my hand and stared at the lock over my shoulder while Ben sucked me harder, his eyes fixed on my face. The chance of somebody trying that handle had him worked up enough that he moaned with my cock in his mouth.
I came before the elevator returned. Ben swallowed, tucked me back into my jeans, and stood with a hard-on tenting his sweatpants like he hadn’t just made me late.
“I hate you,” I whispered.
He opened the door and checked the hall. “You need to go.”
I made it to the elevator on legs that didn’t work right. Ben was still watching through the crack in his door when it closed.
Tonight, he’s drinking a beer beside me while Micah tries to convince him that foosball requires strategy.
This is different. Ben isn’t squeezing Marlowe’s in before he takes me home. He showed up for Tessa, let her hug him, and handed her a gift bag he chose himself. He has spent most of the night listening to people who don’t care how many faceoffs he won last game.
For once, I don’t have to leave Marlowe’s to have him beside me.
“I need another drink,” Tessa says.
The bottle in front of her is still a quarter full. She wants one before Micah remembers the foosball table and disappears, so I get up.
“I have it,” Ben says, starting to move.
“It’s her birthday. I’m buying.” I pick up the empties. “You can go lose to Micah.”
Ben looks toward the table in the corner. “I’m not losing to Micah.”
That’s all it takes. Micah gets up and tells Ben to prove it. Ben follows him without asking whether I’m coming, which shouldn’t make me as happy as it does. The last time he was here, he barely left my side.
I carry the bottles to the bar and order another round. By the time I get back, Micah is bent over the foosball table arguing that a spin should count, and Ben has both hands flat on the edge while he tells him it doesn’t.
Tessa has moved to the far end of the tables, away from the worst of the traffic. I set her beer down and take the empty chair beside her.
“Thank you.” She lifts the bottle but looks past me toward the game. “Micah likes him.”
“Micah likes anybody who plays that thing with him.”
“He’s cheating,” Tessa says.
Ben blocks a shot and sends the ball hard into Micah’s goal. Micah complains. Ben resets the men for the next serve without giving him the point back. “Yeah, Pope’s going to hate that.”
“He came with you?” Tessa asks.
“Yeah.”
Tessa watches Ben line up the next shot. “Are you two leaving together?”
I take a drink. “We’re in one car.”
She looks at me then. I know I didn’t answer her.
Ben looks over from the foosball table. He finds me immediately, like he needed to check I was still here. Micah scores while Ben is distracted and celebrates loudly enough that people at the bar turn around.
Tessa watches my face. “Nol.”
I want to tell her.
The need comes up so hard it hurts. Ben has been sleeping beside me nearly every night.
The man she watched walk stiffly into Marlowe’s for the first time now gets on his knees when the possibility of being caught makes him hard.
Somewhere in the last week, I realized I want him as my boyfriend and have no fucking idea what I’m supposed to do with that.
I can’t say any of it without telling her something about Ben he isn’t ready for anyone else to know.
I hated this when I was younger. Every guy I touched became a fact I had to keep away from hockey. I learned how to leave separately and tell stories with the important part missing. Even after I stopped lying, I left enough unsaid that nobody could quote me if I didn’t want them to.
I’m out. Sort of. I never deny I’m bi, but I don’t make announcements. My teammates know whatever they know. People online can find pictures of me at Pride and decide for themselves. It’s all plausible deniability, and I’ve lived with it long enough that most days I don’t care.
Tessa has nothing to do with hockey. She’s my friend, and sitting across from her with the truth stuck behind my teeth feels too much like being twenty again.
Hiding fucking sucks.
“Is there something you want to tell me?” she asks.
The answer is pressing against the inside of my mouth. “I can’t.”
Tessa’s eyes move over my face. She doesn’t ask why.
“Okay,” she says.
That nearly gets me. I drink more beer until it passes.
“Where’s the cake?” I ask.
Tessa lets me change the subject. “Micah forgot candles.”
“Of course he did.”
Tessa points toward the bar. “He says the bartender has some.”
The front door opens before I can volunteer to go find out. Adriel comes in carrying a small paper bag with tissue sticking out of the top. She spots Tessa and crosses the bar, leaning over the table to kiss her cheek.
“Happy birthday. Sorry I’m late.”
“You’re not late.” Tessa takes the bag. “Micah forgot the candles, so my birthday hasn’t technically started.”
“I brought matches.”
“See? This is why I like you.”
Micah and Ben reach the table while Adriel is taking off her coat. Micah is flushed from the game and looks much too pleased with himself. Ben catches my eye and tips his head once. I can’t tell who won, although Micah’s expression makes me suspect he cheated successfully.
“Adriel,” Micah says, before anyone else can speak. “This is Ben. Nolan’s boyfriend.”
Ben goes rigid beside him.
The word hits me in the chest, but I don’t look at Ben. Micah did this. He dropped the word into a conversation with somebody Ben has never met and left him to get out of it.
“Uh.” Ben looks at Adriel. “I’m Nolan’s friend. Ben.”
It still hurts. Less than it would have a week ago, because he is my friend. He’s also standing in Marlowe’s at Tessa’s birthday after spending most of the last week in my bed.
I want to smack Micah more than I want to do anything to Ben.
“Ignore him,” I tell Adriel. “He gets worse on birthdays.”
Tessa says Micah’s name in the same tone she uses when he’s about to change a correct trivia answer. His grin fades as he looks from Ben to me.
Adriel gives all of us one quick glance, then holds out her hand to Ben. “Nice to meet you, Ben.”
“You too.”
He pulls an empty chair next to mine, but his knee doesn’t find me under the table.
More people arrive. They pull over the remaining chairs and crowd around the ends of the tables.
The bartender produces candles from somewhere, and we sing while Tessa covers her face with both hands.
Adriel cuts the cake with a butter knife.
Micah apologizes to me once when Ben is talking to somebody else, and I tell him we’ll deal with it later.
The party keeps going. Tessa laughs. Ben answers when people talk to him and finishes the piece of cake I hand him, but the ease is gone. Every time somebody new comes to the table, I feel him prepare for another introduction.
He stays anyway.
By the time we leave, rain has started tapping against the front windows. Ben follows me out without asking whether we’re still going to the same place.
The car is cold enough that the windshield fogs when we get in. I turn the defroster on high and pull away from the curb. Ben sits with one hand wrapped around the strap over his chest, looking through the passenger window while the wipers clear the glass.
The bar is out of sight before he says, “About what Micah said—”
“Don’t.”
Ben turns toward me.
“You don’t have to apologize,” I say. “Micah shouldn’t have done that.”
He faces forward again and doesn’t try to finish.
At the next light, I stop behind a bus and watch rain move down the red glass of its taillights. Ben hasn’t said where he wants me to take him. His condo is the other direction, but I’m already in the lane that goes toward mine.
“Do you still want to come over?”
“Do you still want me to?”
The light changes. The car behind me waits half a second before the driver leans on the horn.
I start moving.
I want Ben in my bed tonight and in my kitchen tomorrow morning, opening cabinets he knows are empty. Before Micah spoke, that was where the night was going.
The answer is yes. Saying it feels too close to asking him for something else, so I keep driving.
Ben looks at me. “Yeah. I still want to come over.”
I take the next turn toward my condo.