Chapter 37
Aaron
Sasha Vorontsovsky is lying in our bed — our bed now, since he showed up with a duffel bag and his hockey sticks and hung his suits in my closet like it was already decided — and the world won’t stop calling.
One week since graduation. One week since I stood at a podium and detonated my life on a live mic.
Outside, Maple Street sounds like an evacuation — moving vans idling, tailgates slamming, the constant thud of boxes being loaded into trucks.
Every house on this block is a rental full of seniors who are done, gone, moving on.
I can hear someone’s parents directing traffic in the driveway next door. A girl is yelling about a missing lamp.
The whole street is leaving. We’re still here.
“Henderson texted again,” I say.
“Which one is Henderson?”
“D-line. Sophomore. Sat next to me in the film room all season.” I stare at my phone. “He’s in the group chat saying he didn’t sign up to play for, and I quote, ‘the gay team again.’”
“Again. He said again?”
“He’s referring to the Wyatt and Austin era. Apparently one openly queer captain was the limit and two is an epidemic.”
“Two co-captains. Both very handsome. Both very good at hockey. This is the thing that upsets him?” Sasha rolls onto his side.
His hair is wrecked from the pillow and he’s shirtless and there’s a crease on his cheek from the sheet.
“Henderson is a career minus-seven. He should be thanking us for making his team relevant.”
“He’s not thanking us.”
“What else did he say?”
I scroll. “Something about how the rivalry was the best thing the program had going and we ruined it for — I’m going to paraphrase — personal reasons.”
“Personal reasons.” Sasha grins. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“That’s what Henderson’s calling it.”
“Henderson can’t skate backwards without falling. His opinion is not important to me.” He stretches, arms above his head, and the sheet slides to his waist. “Who else?”
I scroll more. The group chat has been a slow-motion disaster for days.
Most of the guys are fine — Cooper sent a thumbs up emoji and hasn’t said another word, which is the most Cooper thing possible.
Robertson posted a photo of the two of us from the championship game with a caption that just said legends.
Nakamura DM’d me separately: knew it, happy for you, don’t let the idiots get to you.
But there are others. Henderson. A junior defenseman who left the chat entirely. Two guys who haven’t said anything at all, which is its own kind of statement.
“Martinez posted a Bible verse,” I say.
“Which one?”
“Does it matter?”
“I want to know if it’s the one about shellfish or the one about mixed fabrics. Because Martinez wore a polyester-cotton blend jersey all season and nobody said a word.”
I almost laugh. Almost.
My phone buzzes. Another email from Diego.
I’ve gotten nine today. He’s in full triage mode — tracking which sponsors have pulled, which are “nervous” (Diego’s word, meaning they haven’t pulled but they’ve stopped returning calls), and which are holding.
The sports drink deal is dead. The athletic wear company sent a polite corporate paragraph that said everything without saying anything.
A shaving cream brand I shot a solo campaign for in February ghosted Diego’s last three calls.
“Diego says the outdoor gear company is still in,” I say. “And the watch brand. And he’s got two new inquiries from brands that — and I’m quoting him here — ‘specifically want the couple angle.’”
“Of course they do. We’re extremely marketable. Have you seen us?”
“Diego also says to stop reading comment sections.”
“Diego is right.”
“I’m not reading comment sections.”
“You are reading comment sections. I can tell because you get a specific look on your face. Like you’ve smelled something terrible but you can’t stop sniffing.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“And accurate.”
My phone buzzes again. I open social media. I shouldn’t open social media. I know I shouldn’t. But my thumb does it anyway, the same way it’s been doing it for a week.
The first three results are fine. Supportive. Someone made a fan edit of the graduation speech set to music, which is weird but kind. The fourth result is not fine. I read two lines and my breath catches.
“Aaron.” Sasha’s voice is closer now. He’s shifted across the bed. “Give me the phone.”
“I’m just—”
“You’re doomscrolling.” He looks pleased with himself. “You see? My English is so good now I even know the stupid Internet slang by heart.”
“Congratulations. Give me the phone back.”
“No. Give me the phone.”
“One more—”
His hand closes over mine. Warm, deliberate. He pries the phone out of my grip with the patient efficiency of someone who’s done this before — because he has, every morning this week, the same negotiation, the same result.
He turns it face-down on the nightstand. Then he turns his own face-down. The room goes quiet. No buzzing. No notifications. Just the dormer windows and the May sunlight and the sound of Robertson’s coffee machine two floors below.
“Don’t give them your attention,” he says. His hand is still on mine. His thumb traces a line across my knuckles. “Give it to me.”
I look at him. Those eyes. That jaw. The freckles across his nose that I’ve memorized by now — I could draw them from memory, the exact scatter pattern, the way they shift when he smiles. He’s looking at me the way he does when he’s decided something and the discussion is just a formality.
“I still haven’t sat down to really talk with my parents since that dinner,” I say. “Where I told them. They’ve been — polite. But we haven’t actually talked about it.”
“Don’t worry.” He traces a line down my arm. “When they’ve had some time to adjust, I’ll charm them. You know I will.”
He grins. Full grin, the one that shows his teeth, the one that makes the corners of his eyes crinkle. And then the grin shifts into something else — slower, warmer, the look he gets right before he stops being funny and starts being dangerous.
“Aaron Kelly.” His voice drops. Just a half-register, but I feel it in my stomach. “Stop thinking about Henderson.”
“I’m not thinking about—”
He kisses me.
Not soft. Not tentative. He leans across the space between us and takes my mouth like he’s been thinking about it the whole time we’ve been talking, which — knowing Sasha — he probably has.
His hand slides from mine to the back of my neck, fingers spreading into my hair, and he pulls me in and the group chat and Diego’s emails and Henderson’s minus-seven career all go somewhere I can’t reach.
My breath hitches. His lips are warm and he tastes like the coffee he drank an hour ago and he’s kissing me the way he does everything — with his full attention, nothing held back.
His tongue drags across my lower lip. I open for him and he deepens it and my hand comes up to his jaw and I feel it working under my palm.
“There,” he murmurs against my lips. “That’s better.”
“You can’t just kiss me every time I get stressed.”
“Watch me.”
He pushes me back into the pillows. His weight settles over me — chest to chest, hips to hips, his thigh pressing between mine — and the warmth of his bare skin against my t-shirt makes every nerve ending in my body sit up.
His mouth moves to my jaw. Slow. Deliberate.
Then lower — the hinge of my jaw, the line of my throat, the spot below my ear that he discovered in a hotel room in New York and has been ruthlessly exploiting ever since.
My back arches. My hands find his shoulders — bare, warm, the muscle shifting under my palms as he braces himself above me. His stubble drags against my neck and the scratch of it makes my skin prickle and my fingers dig into him.
He bites the curve where my neck meets my shoulder. Gently, then not gently. My hips jerk up against his and the sound I make is not something I’d ever want anyone to hear.
“Sasha—”
“Mm.” His lips drag lower, across my collarbone, nosing the collar of my shirt aside. His breath is hot on my skin. “You were saying something about Henderson?”
“I don’t — what—”
“That’s what I thought.”
His hands slide under my shirt. Palms flat on my stomach, fingers spread, pushing the fabric up as he goes.
His mouth follows his hands — a kiss pressed to my ribs, his tongue tracing the line of muscle above my hip.
My abs clench under his lips and he smiles against my skin. I can feel the shape of it.
“I’m more interesting than your phone,” he says against my stomach. “Admit it.”
“You’re insufferable.”
His teeth graze my hip bone. My hand goes to his hair — winding through it, gripping, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away because my body has completely stopped consulting my brain about decisions.
“Admit it, Aaron Kelly.”
“Fine.” My voice is wrecked. “You’re more interesting than my phone.”
“And Henderson?”
“Who the fuck is Henderson?”
He laughs against my skin. The vibration travels through my whole body. Then he’s moving back up — mouth on my ribs, my chest, my throat — dragging my shirt up as he goes until I pull it off myself because he’s taking too long and I need his skin on mine.
The contact hits like a current. His chest against my chest. His weight pressing me into the mattress. His hips rolling against mine, slow and intentional, and the friction is making it very hard to remember why I was upset about anything ten minutes ago.
I pull him up to my mouth. Kiss him hard enough to feel his breath catch, his composure slip, that steady Sasha confidence crack just enough to let something raw through.
His hand grips my hip. My leg wraps around his.
I pull him closer and he grinds down and the sound he makes against my throat — low, rough, surprised by his own want — is worth every sponsor who ever realigned their brand strategy — because apparently that is the term for corporate queer panic.
“Stay here,” he says. His forehead is against mine. His breathing is ragged and his eyes are dark and close. “Stay right here with me. Not in the group chat. Not in the comment section. Here.”
I kiss him. Softer this time. My hand on his face, thumb against his cheekbone, his stubble rough under my fingers.
“I’m here.”
Outside, another moving van rumbles down Maple Street. Someone’s dad is honking a horn. It feels like half of Hartley is packing up and leaving.
Sasha’s mouth is on mine. His hands are in my hair. His heart is against my chest. I’m not thinking about a single thing except this.
This is what I blew up my life for. I’d do it again tomorrow.