Chapter 22
ROWAN
“I think we can all feel how special this team is this year,” Coach Peters said as they all sat in the video room after review.
They had been floating on some kind of magic dust all season, and as soon as they clinched their playoff spot, the rest of the season seemed to vanish.
At this point, there were only two kinds of games to play—games against teams who were fighting tooth and nail for a playoff spot, and games against teams whose fate had already been decided.
They suffered a loss to LA that stung since they were in the same division, but they were ending the season against Anaheim, whose game had been off the rails since the beginning of the season. Rowan saw a busy summer break for everyone involved there.
The Serpents were officially playing gently.
They had to keep up their energy for playoffs, and they were specifically told not to do anything that could risk injury.
Rowan was told not to get into a fight, which everyone got a laugh out of.
Since he and Theo had started thawing their shit out, the team had started joking with him, and folding him into the group more.
He didn’t think anyone had been unwelcoming on purpose, but it felt like everyone knew they could exhale now.
Even without giving it their all, they easily beat the Tigers 3–1, and to celebrate the end of the regular season, they went out for a late dinner. Vic wouldn’t let them go out and party. They could celebrate for real when they won.
Rowan had just completed his favorite regular season he had ever played. He felt untouchable on the ice, and he had his best friend back. Or, he had his best friend sitting next to him, as they carefully repaired their feelings for each other.
Rowan continued his campaign to make things between them better.
His Google search history was downright embarrassing at the moment, but he wanted to be Theo’s boyfriend, and he wanted to be good at it.
Even though he was twenty-six, Rowan had never been someone’s boyfriend, which meant he had googled “how to be a good boyfriend.” Even more embarrassingly, it was super helpful.
“This is better than that dinner I made you,” Rowan said, pointing to the steak on both their plates. Steak, potatoes, and broccoli were foods Rowan was grateful he never got sick of.
“Stop trotting out the things that make you feel bad,” Theo said. Rowan got the feeling that Theo was being so emotionally understanding because he felt some responsibility for the post-draft situation, too.
“Okay. Then this is totally unrelated to the dinner I made you,” Rowan said, and got a laugh from Theo that burst out of him in surprise. In the back of his mind, he remembered the goal he set for the year to make Theo look this joyful. He couldn’t believe he achieved it.
“I’m really enjoying wanting to talk to you again, you know.
” They were keeping their voices mostly low, keeping their conversation to themselves.
In a booth in a large restaurant, the din of noise surrounded them.
They had to be close to talk to each other, and it had Rowan thinking of Theo’s mouth. A lot.
“I am enjoying you enjoying…you get it,” Rowan said, losing the thread of thought as his mind sank into the idea of kissing Theo.
“Alright, that’s your last beer.” Theo took his glass and stole a sip, and when Rowan rescued it back from him, he put his lips right where Theo’s had been. He watched Theo watch him take a drink. Theo’s eyes fell to his throat as he swallowed.
When Drew suggested getting back to the hotel, Rowan was the first on board.
* * *
The boys filed back into their hotel rooms, each identical hockey-shaped boy going to put himself to sleep in the same identical hotel room as everyone else.
For this roadie, their hotel assignments had been shifted around a bit, so Theo’s and Rowan’s rooms were right next to each other.
Not only were they next to each other, they had the adjoining door.
Rowan noticed when they checked in that morning, but he didn’t bring it up to Theo.
He used the few minutes it took for him to put his pajamas on to strategize the best excuse to use to knock on the adjoining door.
It was late, and they should be resting up for the playoffs.
But the playoffs didn’t start for three days, and Rowan felt a momentum with Theo that he didn’t want to ruin with sleep.
He was just settling on a lie about needing to borrow toothpaste when a knock came from Theo’s side of the door.
Rowan took a breath, trying not to look too desperate before opening his own side up.
Theo’s bare chest was on display. He was end-of-the-season lean, but he still had definition, and his shoulders would always be broader than Rowan’s, no matter the level of muscle mass.
He wanted to put his hands on the full curve of Theo’s pecs.
“Do you want to hang out?” Theo asked, his dirty-blond hair tousled, round fuzzy cheeks looking adorably chipmunky.
Rowan was still fascinated by all the ways Theo had changed, but his beard was one of the more obvious things.
It was almost a little red on the sides.
Theo would stop trimming it and let it grow through playoffs now, and part of Rowan wanted to win the Cup just to see how long it could get.
“Duh,” Rowan said, trying to keep his cool as Theo invited himself in and climbed directly into his bed.
After Rowan being sick and Theo being injured, there wasn’t a lot of bed-hangout awkwardness left over.
Rowan climbed into the other side of the bed, and instead of Theo flipping the TV on like Rowan was expecting, he slid further into bed on his back, folding his hands behind his head as he looked up at the ceiling.
Rowan slid down and followed suit, but he was only on his back for a moment before he turned to face Theo.
“Remember when we would spend nights like this making out until we were in physical pain?” Theo asked the ceiling.
“Uhh,” Rowan panicked. Obviously, he remembered.
“Sorry if that’s awkward.”
“No, of course I remember.”
Theo tipped his face toward Rowan. “I’ve been thinking about those days a lot lately.”
“What about them?”
“About how yes, hockey was my entire world. But actually, you were my entire world.”
“You were mine,” Rowan whispered back.
“I used to think that intensity of feeling was something very teenage. After we…whatever, broke up for lack of a better term, I did try. I spent eight years trying to find someone who could hold a candle to that feeling, and I couldn’t muster up anything past sexual interest.”
“You’ve dated a lot?” Rowan almost certainly didn’t want to hear about Theo’s dating history, but he couldn’t help himself. If the information was on the tip of Theo’s tongue, he was going to ask for it.
Theo’s smirk let him know he’d caught on to Rowan’s interest. He wasn’t being coy, and Theo had always read him better than anyone else.
“Not a lot. I usually have some kind of regular hookup girl.”
“Girl?” He knew Theo had been seeing a girl, but he didn’t know he’d been seeing only girls.
“Still bi,” Theo teased. Somehow Rowan had half forgotten that. He must have remembered Theo’s queerness the same way he knew his own to be. Solidly male-attracted. “Easier to date girls when you play hockey.”
“I know,” Rowan said dryly.
“Girls just feel less dangerous.”
“And guys?” Rowan wanted Theo to tell him he was the only guy he’d ever been with. He knew that was unfair.
“I only saw guys when I was mad at myself. Like, punishing myself. Every time I was with a guy, it felt like, I don’t know. That feeling when you press on a bruise. You know it’s going to hurt, but you do it anyway. I was always reminded of how not-you they were.”
Theo finally looked at Rowan. Rowan could tell how seriously Theo was taking this conversation by the set of his eyebrows alone. They usually had a lovely high arch Rowan used to love running a fingertip over. Now, they were furrowed straight across his forehead.
“Like staying in Vic’s house. It hurt every day to see how you looked at me, but I couldn’t leave. I had to feel the pain.”
“Ro—” Theo started. He took a deep breath, then turned his eyes back at the ceiling. “Did you ever date?”
“No.”
“Did you ever, like…fuck around with people?”
Rowan felt a weird spike of embarrassment. “No.”
Theo paused, but he didn’t press Rowan to explain himself. “Just the weird thing with Becker?”
It was Rowan’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, just my weird thing with Becker.”
“And you didn’t even fuck him?”
“T, no. Felix is straight. Just affectionate.”
“And that was it? Just your platonic romantic friendship?”
“Everyone is different.”
“No, I know, I’m not trying to be a dick. Just. I missed eight years of your life, dude. I want to fill in the gaps.”
“No one other than Felix.” Even Felix was quite the stretch in this scenario.
He loved Felix. And for the years they were in Texas together, they had a little codependent situation going on, even if they both knew it was a dead end.
But while being apart from Felix sucked, it didn’t tear him apart like being away from Theo had.
“No one? Like, no boyfriends.”
“No…anyone. No anything. Don’t make fun of me.”
“Wait. I’m sorry, no one has touched your dick in eight years?” He finally felt like he had Theo’s full attention on him. He rolled onto his side, head propped on a hand.
“I’ve touched it plenty.”
“No one’s made you come since we were teenagers? Was I the last person who touched your dick?”
“I told you not to make fun of me.” Rowan couldn’t help the instinct he was feeling to curl up into his shell like a turtle.
“I don’t mean it like that,” Theo said. He had slowly shifted closer, looking at Rowan like he thought Rowan was one strong gust of wind away from dissipating.
Theo put a hand on Rowan’s wrist. Rowan had a thousand memories of them lying exactly like this, just inches closer, their lips embarrassingly red and chapped from kissing.
“What do you think would have happened if we didn’t have hockey?” Rowan whispered.
“We would have gone to college. The same one, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
“And we would have pretended to be just friends so we could share a dorm room.”
“What if we broke up while living together?”
“We never would have.” Theo was so certain that Rowan couldn’t help it anymore. He inched closer, touching the tips of his fingers to Theo’s cheek before he leaned in the rest of the way to kiss him.
The initial press of lips was sweet, soft, chaste. But as soon as they had that one moment of revisiting their innocence, Theo’s arm wrapped around Rowan’s back to pull him close, and when their lips met again, it was full of passion.
Rowan had forgotten what kissing felt like.
What a sad prospect. But it was like getting back on the ice after he hadn’t skated in a while.
He didn’t have to worry about balance. He didn’t have to worry about his stride.
It was all muscle memory. The tip of his tongue found the gap in Theo’s teeth, and Theo had to struggle not to smile.
A dim awareness that Theo must have gotten better at this after eight years of kissing other people hung over him.
He wondered if Theo thought he was bad at it, and then his thoughts got caught in a tangle.
“Hey, was that okay?” Theo asked, pulling back when Rowan’s lips stopped engaging.
“Yeah. Like, holy shit, yeah. I just. You know when you start thinking and you can’t stop?”
“What were you thinking about?”
“Am I bad at this now?”
“At kissing? No, Ro, you’re not bad at kissing.”
“Is this okay? Can we keep doing this?” Rowan felt like he was holding a grenade when he was around Theo, and he didn’t know if the pin had been pulled or not. Was he safe, or was an explosion imminent?
Theo gave him a smile and pushed Rowan onto his back. “I’d really like to keep doing this.”
“You don’t hate me anymore?”
“I never hated you. I was heartbroken, and embarrassed, and frustrated. I never stopped loving you.”
Rowan wasn’t sure if that was an actual admission of love.
If he said “I love you too,” would that be awkward?
“Ditto,” is what he went with, and Theo shifted his weight onto Rowan’s body.
Rowan was holding on to him like he was going to be pulled out to sea if Rowan didn’t have a tight enough grip, his fingertips biting into Theo’s skin.
“How do you feel about breaking that dry spell? Remind your dick what another human being feels like?”
Rowan was getting hard in his pajamas, and there was no hiding it from Theo with the way their bodies were pressed up against one another.
“Yeah. I want that. I want you,” Rowan said. It was the truest thing he could think to say. “I haven’t stopped thinking about this since that night after my hatty.”
“Fuck, I was so horny for you that I was dizzy for it that night. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“It felt so good. Shut up.”
“Felt bad to not get to hold you after. Kiss you.”
Theo could be so fucking soft. And it wasn’t like Rowan didn’t want those things. He just was bad at asking for them, like Theo could.
“You can kiss me now,” Rowan said.
He had been to the playoffs once in his eight years in the league, and in that moment, on the precipice of the postseason, not a single one of his brain cells was thinking about his hockey career. All he could think about was Theo.