Chapter 6
Ash
The next morning finds me sitting in the hotel lobby with a coffee and a steadily worsening mood.
I keep telling myself I'm irritated because Hayes disappeared.
That's technically true, but it isn't the whole truth, and the part that bothers me most is the fact that I was looking forward to seeing him again. The realization is embarrassing enough that I take a long drink of coffee and pretend the bitterness is the reason my mouth twists.
After I came out of the bathroom last night, the room had been empty. One minute, Hayes had been sitting on the edge of the armchair, looking nervous and flushed and entirely too pretty for my peace of mind. The next, he'd vanished without so much as a text.
Most people don't understand how important aftercare is.
They hear words like kink and immediately focus on the exciting parts.
They imagine power dynamics, control, restraint, and everything that happens during a scene, but they rarely realize that what happens afterward matters just as much.
Sometimes, aftercare is food. Sometimes it's a shower.
Sometimes it's talking through emotions, or simply sitting quietly together until the world feels normal again.
It's making sure everybody is okay. Making sure nobody leaves feeling abandoned.
Despite what most people think, it isn't just for the submissive.
I need it too. I like checking in. I like knowing the other person is alright.
I like the quiet intimacy that comes after everything settles and the performance drops away, when there is nothing left except breathing, warmth, and honesty.
Instead, I got an empty hotel room.
The more I think about it, the more annoyed I become.
“Jesus.”
Dante drops into the chair across from me with the graceless confidence of a man who has never once wondered whether he is wanted somewhere. He has a coffee in one hand, sunglasses pushed onto his head, and the smug expression of someone already preparing to become a problem.
“You look like somebody kicked your dog.”
“I don't have a dog.”
“You look like somebody kicked your imaginary dog.”
I glare at him.
Dante grins, then his eyes narrow with sudden and deeply unfortunate interest. “Oh, is this about the guy in your room last night?”
“What?”
“Bro, you're not very inconspicuous when you have your twink moaning your name all night.”
I close my eyes immediately. “Dante, it's eight in the morning.”
“And it was fucking one am last night when I was hearing ‘Oh, Ash! Fuck!’ Come on, man.” A devilish smile curls on my best friend's mouth.
I glare at him. “You are an awful person.”
“I am a curious person.”
“You're a menace.”
“That too.” He leans back in his chair, looking far too pleased with himself. “So who was he?”
I decide very quickly that the truth is a terrible idea.
It is one thing for Dante to know I had someone in my room.
It is another thing entirely for him to know that someone was Kai Hayes, who is currently fragile in ways the team still doesn't fully understand and pretty in ways I am trying very hard not to think about.
“Just some guy.”
“Hot?”
I sigh. “Sure.”
“Needed to blow off some steam?”
“Something like that.”
Dante points at me with his coffee cup. “Be quieter next time.”
I throw a sugar packet at him. Unfortunately, that only encourages him.
By the time the bus pulls up outside, I'm ready to leave him at the hotel.
The team slowly filters into the lobby in uneven waves, players emerging from elevators with equipment bags, coffees, and the hollow-eyed exhaustion that comes from road trips, late games, and hotel mattresses that never feel as comfortable as they should.
A few guys look hungover. A few look half-dead.
Dante somehow looks energized, which feels like a personal insult.
Then Hayes appears. And suddenly, I forget whatever Dante is saying.
He's wearing a cream-colored fuzzy jacket that looks absurdly soft and completely impractical for a professional athlete. The thing is ridiculous. I love it immediately, which is a deeply concerning development and one I refuse to examine in public.
Hayes is checking something on his phone as he crosses the lobby. His hair is still slightly messy from sleep, and for one brief moment, I have the unreasonable urge to drag him back upstairs, put him in bed, and tell the rest of the team to go without us.
Instead, I remind myself that I'm annoyed with him. At least I try.
The second I reach him, most of that irritation dissolves. “Hayes.”
He looks up, panic showing up in his eyes as he spots me. “Morning.”
The smile he gives me is small, awkward, and completely unaware of the effect it's having on me.
I should probably get a grip.
Instead, I sling an arm around his shoulders. The gesture is casual enough to avoid attention from anyone not looking too closely, but the meaning behind it isn't casual at all.
“We're sitting together.”
His eyes widen slightly. “Ash—”
“No.”
“I was actually—”
My arm tightens, not enough to hurt, just enough to make my point. “Do not argue with me.”
The words come out calm, firm, and immediate.
Something flashes across his face before he falls silent, and the response sends a ridiculous amount of warmth through me.
The truth is that Hayes listens. Not because he's weak.
Not because he's passive. He simply listens when I speak, and every time he does, it feels like striking gold.
He hasn't seriously refused me yet, and that fact occupies far more space in my head than it should.
I guide him toward the back of the bus. This is actually the first time we've sat together. Normally, he finds a seat by himself and spends the trip reading, tucked into a corner like he can disappear if he makes himself quiet enough.
Not today.
Today, he's beside me.
We settle into the last row. Hayes takes the window seat, and I sit beside him while the rest of the team climbs aboard around us.
Someone complains about the smell of somebody else's breakfast sandwich.
Dante starts arguing with Thomas about whether pancakes are superior to waffles.
The driver closes the luggage compartment beneath the bus with a heavy metallic slam.
The second the bus starts moving, I turn toward Hayes. “What happened last night?”
His face immediately turns pink.
The sight almost makes me smile.
“I thought we were done.”
“I told you to stay.”
“Oh.”
I stare at him.
He looks away.
“I'm sorry,” he says quietly.
The apology is sincere enough that my irritation evaporates almost immediately, which is unfortunate because I had prepared an entire speech.
“If you ever pull that again,” I tell him, keeping my voice low enough that nobody else can hear, “you'll have hell to pay next time.”
His eyes widen. “Next time?”
The question is hopeful enough to make my chest tighten.
I shrug, mostly because I don't trust my face. “If you want there to be a next time.”
The blush deepens.
God help me.
The man is adorable.
Hayes turns toward the window as if the hotel parking lot were suddenly the most fascinating view in North America. I let him suffer for another minute before reaching into my backpack and dropping something into his lap.
Hayes looks down. His eyebrows pull together. “What is this?”
A familiar pullover sits folded across his knees.
For a second, he only stares at it. Then realization dawns. “Oh my God.”
I lean back in my seat. “You left it.”
He looks genuinely horrified. Heat crawls up his neck and disappears beneath the collar of that ridiculous jacket. “I was wondering where that went.”
“Apparently not very hard.”
Hayes groans, and I enjoy every second of it.
The shirt isn't folded particularly well. I shoved it into my bag sometime around two in the morning after finding it abandoned on the floor beside the bed. I probably should have texted him.
Hayes lifts the shirt, and something slips out from inside it. A book lands in his lap.
His eyes widen. He unfolds the shirt completely and looks down at the cover.
A Tale of Two Cities
For the first time since sitting down, he forgets to be embarrassed. His entire focus shifts to the book, and I watch the moment happen across his face: surprise first, then confusion, then the slow realization that I didn't just return the shirt he left behind.
“You bought me a book?”
The question comes out softer than I expected.
I shrug. “You finished the last one.”
Hayes looks between me and the book, then back to me.
I spent twenty minutes in the bookstore next to the hotel finding the thing. Not because I've suddenly developed an interest in literature. Not because I know anything about Dickens beyond the fact that his name sounds like something Dante would make a joke about if given the opportunity.
I bought it because I knew he'd need another one. Because apparently I've become the sort of person who buys books for pretty hockey players and then pretends it means nothing.
Hayes runs his thumb over the cover.
For a moment, he doesn't say anything. The silence between us changes. It becomes less teasing and more careful, as though neither of us knows what to do with this tiny piece of kindness now that it is sitting openly in his lap.
“You didn't have to do that,” he says.
“I didn't want you to be bored on the drive back.”
His gaze lifts. “Thank you.”
The words are simple, but they land somewhere uncomfortable.
He tucks the gray shirt into his bag, but the book stays in his hands.
The first half hour of the bus ride passes quietly.
Hayes is already several pages in by the time we leave the hotel parking lot.
The rest of the team is either sleeping, scrolling through phones, or arguing across the aisle.
Dante has somehow started a debate about breakfast food with three different people and appears to be losing despite changing his opinion twice.
Meanwhile, Hayes is reading.
I watch him turn one page, then another.
Eventually, I get curious. “So?”
He glances up. “So what?”
“Is it any good?”