27. Nolan
NOLAN
I feel like a king. A king who fucked Ben Pope.
He’s still in my bed while I stand in the kitchen waiting for coffee, and every time I think about him waking up there, I grin at absolutely nothing. I should probably stop before he comes out and sees me looking this pleased with myself.
The coffee finishes dripping. I take down two mugs and pour his first, because I’ve learned that Ben wants coffee before food and doesn’t want anything sweet in it. He’s going to need it. We fell asleep late, and sometime after that he woke me up by pulling my hand onto his cock.
My body is tired in all the best places. Ben is probably going to feel last night every time he sits down today, and I’m a good enough person that I won’t bring it up during practice unless he annoys me.
I don’t know what today looks like after that. We didn’t talk when we finished. Ben pulled me down and held me until we fell asleep again, which was more than enough while it was happening. It still feels like enough with his coffee in my hand and his clothes mixed into mine in the bedroom.
I look at the clock on the stove and lose some of the grin.
We need to get moving if we’re going to shower, change, and make it to practice on time.
Ben has clothes here now, although we’ve never discussed that.
A shirt got left behind, then socks, then the pair of sweats I washed and put in my dresser instead of handing them back.
We can get ready here and drive in together. Guys on the team carpool all the time. Nobody will care, and if Bobby makes a joke, I’ll tell him Ben needed a ride.
Unless Ben decides arriving in the same car is too dangerous and does something deranged like call an Uber from my condo while I’m leaving for the exact same place.
I hear him in the hall before I see him. His steps are slower than usual, which makes the grin come back.
Ben walks into the kitchen completely naked.
I forget about the clock.
His hair is standing up on one side, and there’s a crease from my pillow across his cheek.
Faint bruises mark the insides of his thighs where I held him open.
He moves carefully for the first few steps, but he doesn’t look unhappy about it.
Mostly he looks loose and sleepy and thoroughly satisfied with himself.
Then he sees me staring. His cock gives an interested twitch.
I take my time looking anyway. His chest, the dark hair under his arms, the heavy curve of his dick as it starts to lift. Ben lets me. By the time his eyes come back to my face, he’s wearing the smallest version of his locker-room glare.
“Good morning,” I say.
“Morning.”
He crosses the kitchen and takes the mug from my hand. I expect him to drink it. Instead, he sets it behind me and backs me into the counter. I get one hand around the side of his neck before he kisses me.
His mouth is warm. He tastes like sleep, and the first pass of his tongue is lazy enough that I smile into it. Ben slides a hand under my T-shirt and rubs his palm over my stomach.
“Good morning,” I say again against his lips.
“You said that.”
“It got better.”
He kisses me before I can grin at him. His body presses closer, all that bare skin against my shirt and sweatpants, and his cock fills against my hip. I run my hand down his back and over his ass, squeezing until he makes a low sound and pushes into me harder.
My fingers find one of the bruises at the top of his thigh. I rub my thumb over it, and Ben shudders against my mouth. My cock starts getting hard.
Ben notices.
His hand drops into my sweatpants and closes around me.
I suck in a breath as he draws my cock through his fist, slow at first, then tighter when I thrust into his grip.
My pants slide lower on my hips. Ben’s naked cock presses against the back of his hand, and I reach between us to wrap my fingers around both.
He groans into my mouth, and I squeeze both our cocks harder.
We can make this quick. We don’t even need to leave the kitchen. If we hurry, we might still have time to shower together.
Ben knocks my hand aside and takes control again, pumping my cock while he kisses the corner of my mouth. His thumb rubs over the wet head. Fuck it. We can be ten minutes late.
“What the fuck?”
The voice comes from behind us at the same moment the front door opens.
Ben freezes with his hand around my cock.
His eyes go wide. He lets go of me so fast the waistband snaps against my skin, then turns and runs for the bedroom. He doesn’t grab a towel or try to cover himself. His bare feet slap against the floor until his ass disappears down the hall.
Bobby stands inside my open front door with his key still in the lock.
I yank up my sweatpants. My cock is already losing interest, but there is no possible way to pretend Bobby interrupted anything except Ben jerking me off in my kitchen. My shirt is shoved halfway up my chest, the coffee sits untouched behind me, and Ben just sprinted naked through my condo.
Bobby stares down the hall. “Was that Pope?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I pull the drawstring tight. “I gave you a key for emergencies.”
That gets his attention off the hall. He looks at the key in his hand like it might offer a better answer than the one he’s got.
“I was out of Monster,” he says. “You always have some.”
“That’s not an emergency.”
“Yeah, I’m getting that.”
I point at the door. “Get the fuck out, Bobby.”
He gets his key free and backs into the hallway. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”
The door closes behind him.
I stand there listening, half expecting him to open it again and ask if Ben was naked too, or if he imagined that part. The lock stays still.
I should tell him to keep his mouth shut.
Bobby talks too much when he’s excited, but he’s not an asshole.
He knows the difference between something funny and something that isn’t his to spread around the locker room.
Chasing him into the hall will also make this look more like a disaster than it already does.
Something hits the floor in my bedroom.
Ben.
I leave the coffee where it is and head down the hall.
He’s found his shirt. It’s inside out, and he has his head through the neck while one arm fights the wrong opening. His pants are on the bed. He grabs them as soon as he sees me, gets one foot in, and nearly goes down when the fabric catches.
I step toward him to get his arm free. Ben jerks away before I can touch the shirt.
I’ve seen Ben flattened into the boards and come up calmer than this. His eyes keep jumping toward the open bedroom door as though Bobby might be standing there next.
“It’s fine,” I say. “We’re okay.”
“He fucking saw us.” Ben gets his other leg into his pants but can’t find the waistband under the shirt. “How did he even get in? Why was he here?”
“I gave him a key.”
Ben jerks the shirt down. One shoulder seam sits halfway across his chest. “You gave Bobby a key?”
“For emergencies. He ran out of Monster.”
“He’s going to tell everyone.” He drags his pants up and leaves them open. “Holy shit. They saw the mark on you, and now he sees me here like that? They’re going to know.”
“Bobby’s not going to tell anyone.”
“You don’t know that.”
I do, or I think I do. It doesn’t matter while Ben is looking around the room like he needs another way out. “Calm down,” I say.
His head snaps toward me. “Don’t fucking tell me to calm down.”
I should take it back. Ben is scared, and Bobby appearing in my kitchen with no warning would make anyone lose their shit.
But three minutes ago Ben had his hand around my cock. Last night he let me hold him open and fuck him while he looked me in the eyes. Now he’s trying to get away from me so fast he can’t put on a shirt.
It hurts too much to be patient.
“Would it be the end of the world?” I ask.
Ben stops fighting with his zipper. “What?”
“If Bobby knew.”
I know it’s the wrong thing as soon as his face changes. His panic closes into something harder. “I’m straight.”
My mouth goes dry.
I stand there in an old T-shirt and sweatpants with his come probably still dried somewhere on my skin. There are bruises on his thighs from my hands. My bed behind him smells like both of us.
“No one says you have to be gay to hook up with a guy,” I say. My voice sounds normal, which is a fucking miracle. “You don’t have to call yourself anything.”
“I’m straight.” He gets the zipper up and waves one hand between us. “This is some weird exception. I’m trying to figure my shit out.”
Some weird exception.
I’ve waited while he worked through curious, then friends, then exclusive as long as nobody said what any of it looked like.
I told myself that was fine because he kept choosing me.
Last night he came to Marlowe’s and then home with me, and this morning I woke up thinking we might walk into practice together.
I don’t care whether he calls himself bi, queer, or nothing. He can take all the time he needs to work that out, but I’m not going to be the special dick he lets himself suck while he insists he’s straight or a way for him to keep everything else exactly the same.
The line about a straight guy getting fucked stupid is right there. I could say it and watch it hurt him. I don’t want to win that badly.
I pull a clean shirt from my dresser and strip off the one I’m wearing.
“Nolan?”
I drag the clean shirt over my head. “Then figure it out somewhere else.”
Ben goes still. “What?”
“I’m not doing this with you anymore.”
“Because Bobby walked in?”
Of course that’s what he thinks happened. Bobby walked in, Ben panicked, and I’m punishing him for being scared. It would be easier if that were true.
I grab jeans from the chair and step into them. “I never asked you to say shit to the team.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Leaving.”
Ben stares at me. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out.
I pull up my jeans and fasten them. My hands only shake once, when the button slips away from my thumb.
“Nolan, come on.”
The name almost gets me. I wanted him to use it. I wanted a lot of things I was trying not to ask him for.
“I mean it.” I sit long enough to shove my feet into socks, then get up and take my shoes from beside the bed.
Ben watches me tie them. “You’re serious.”
“Yeah.” I tighten the second knot and stand.
“Because I said I’m straight?”
“No. Because you called this some weird exception.” My voice nearly goes on the last word. “I’m not doing that.”
His face tightens. “That’s not what I meant.”
“Okay.” I get my practice bag from the closet. “Figure out what you meant.”
He steps into my path when I head for the door. His shirt is still inside out. I can see the flat seams and the tag at the back of his neck, where I had my mouth while he was coming last night. Now he can’t look at me without looking scared.
“Can we just talk about this after practice?” he asks.
If I stay, I’ll let him touch me. He’ll kiss me, and I’ll take whatever answer lets him come home with me again. Then I’ll spend another week pretending I’m not waiting for him to want the same thing I do.
I move around him.
“You better call an Uber,” I say. “You’ll be late to practice.”
“Nolan.”
I pick up my keys and leave him standing in my bedroom.
He says my name again as I close the front door.