Chapter Sixteen
Martin Reiser [off-screen]: What do you have to say about recent allegations made by Jax Grant stating his trade was due to his sexuality?
Tyson Fuller: Um, I don’t know anything about that.
Martin Reiser: Any comment on Kilian Howard?
Tyson Fuller: No.
Top comments:
seelionssaylions: Philadelphia MAGApies, am I right?
flymagpiesfly: @seelionssaylions—ooh, what a shock, a league full of barely educated millionaires is socially conservative. Whoda thunk.
grant16rules: Well, I’m officially a Sea Lions fan now. Can’t believe the Magpies did Jax so dirty and won’t own up to it now.
(From prematch interview with Tyson Fuller, Captain of the Philadelphia Magpies, Philadelphia @ Washington, 12/27/2025)
Damir was going to go insane.
Kilian’s mother was lovely. Midway through Christmas Day, his father stopped glaring at Damir once Damir cooked a decent semblance of a Christmas dinner, featuring mashed sweet potatoes and grilled, seasoned turkey breasts.
But their presence meant Kilian had changed his bedsheets and let them sleep in his room, which meant he had to stay in Damir’s room since Ketchup was due to return before Kilian’s parents left.
So, Damir spent two nights in a row wrapped around Kilian, who had delicate lace panties in multiple different shades.
He wore them casually around the bedroom, and Damir couldn’t even fuck Kilian about it.
Damir had myriad reasons to practice such restraint.
Firstly, Kilian was too loud. Secondly, Damir really needed to refrain from fucking him again without at least talking about limits.
Thirdly, Kilian wanted them to “keep it professional,” and Damir now knew that was his way of letting Damir down gently, given he’d known his former team captain lived with one of his alternates.
Damir was a moody asshole, not a masochist. If Kilian didn’t want him, didn’t at least want the vague future potential Damir had seen in what they had together, then Damir couldn’t do it again. He had that much self-preservation.
Unfortunately, he lacked the self-preservation to keep from touching Kilian while sleeping.
Damir woke on December 26th with his left arm draped over Kilian’s side and his dick a brand of iron pushing against the lace-clad swell of Kilian’s ass.
His nose was buried in the back of Kilian’s neck, breathing in the expensive scent of his shampoo as the alarm buzzed on the bedside table.
Damir groaned, rolling his hips forward.
Kilian sighed and arched into the touch.
“We have to go to morning skate,” Damir said into his skin, his voice gravelly with sleep and lust.
“I wish I could blow you instead.”
That made two of them. But Kilian had said they would stop after the break, and Damir couldn’t let himself get too tempted.
“Christmas break’s over,” Damir reminded him gruffly and slid out of bed.
Kilian’s parents tagged along to the practice rink, intending to check out a few stores in the area.
“You never know,” Kilian’s mom said brightly as she fastened her seatbelt in the back of Damir’s SUV.
Kilian was driving again, but everyone else had been kind enough to allow Damir to sit up front.
He was too tall for the back seat, even in a car this size.
“Someone may be looking for a new wool deliverer, and maybe getting it from a local star hockey player’s family is a selling point. ”
She wore a blue blazer with a white turtleneck under it, the materials all soft and homespun. Damir found the final look much more elegant than he’d pictured when Kilian said his mother ran a farm.
That left Damir, Kilian, and a jetlagged Ketchup—who couldn’t shut up about how good a driver Kilian was—attending skate practice.
Ketchup had a point. Kilian hadn’t stalled out once. Damir was only a little jealous.
If he hadn’t been paying such close attention, Damir wouldn’t have noticed how measured Kilian’s breathing became as they followed the corridors to the locker room. He let their arms brush together in the hope it would provide some comfort.
Even Ketchup couldn’t miss the expression on Kilian’s face right before they opened the door. “You’ll be fine, dude,” he said through a yawn. “Your statement was the bomb.”
He patted Kilian on the shoulder, propelling him through the door and into the room.
Everyone fell silent as they entered.
Not an auspicious start.
Damir drew himself up to his full height, wondering if he could keep the A if he called out the whole team for being dicks. No one had said anything before Kilian’s statement. Why couldn’t they keep up the trend?
Beside him, Kilian took another deep, steady breath and brushed his knuckles against Damir’s so fleetingly he barely felt it.
“Hi guys. I’m guessing you all read…the thing, or heard about it or whatever.
We don’t know each other well yet, but I’ve really liked playing here so far, and I hope we can keep the momentum going.
I promise I won’t make things weird in the locker room. None of you are my type anyway.”
A small ripple of laughter spread.
Damir scowled.
“Not your type?” Lissy was bare-chested and dismayed, although he wore compression leggings for once. He stepped into the middle of the room and struck a few poses highlighting his well-defined shoulders and pecs under all that hair. “Are you sure?”
Kilian gave him an exaggerated once-over and then wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, dude. Sweaty hockey gear does not do it for me.”
Petterson looked up from his corner. “It doesn’t? But my wife always says…” He stopped short of finishing the sentence, but it was too late. Matheson next to him burst into loud guffaws.
“Bro, keep your weird married kinks to yourself,” Fulls agreed. “Fucking ew.”
“What a helpful segue. Thank you, Fulls,” Lissy said. “We have a mandatory team meeting with PR after practice. Nothing bad, just a few dos and don’ts, and some tips from Brianna.” Lissy’s loud, booming voice carried throughout the entire room. He’d accepted not being Kilian’s type very easily.
Damir, who was also big, somewhat hairy, and frequently wore sweaty hockey gear, hadn’t fully recovered from the blow.
Practice went well despite the threat of an extra meeting.
With the ice broken, the guys joked around, asking Kilian if he was sure he’d never had a crush on a hockey guy, how they ought to refer to male puck bunnies, and what gay dating apps were like.
Kilian, a far better sport than Damir would have been in his skates, reminded them all gently that he’d had a vested interest in no one finding out about his sexuality until last week, which had kept him off of dating apps and away from jersey chasers.
“Jersey chasers is too boring,” Ketchup opined, skating in lazy circles while Kilian did stickhandling drills. “I vote puck bucks.”
“I vote you actually put in some effort so the third line can quit sucking so much.”
Three guys within hearing distance yelled some variation of “Ooh, burn!”
Deciding Kilian would be fine, Damir dedicated himself to his own routine of stretches before the coaches announced the practice lines and they got to work.
After practice, they gathered for a predictable lecture about the Firecrackers standing behind Kilian and expecting their players to, if not do the same, at least not openly contradict them.
Brianna followed this up with a few choice words about not saying or doing anything in front of a running camera that they didn’t want to have to explain to their parents or children, which made Kilian go from pale to very red when more than one head turned to look at him.
“So, don’t go clubbing in Boystown unless you want to end up getting papped the way Howie did,” Ketchup translated. Kilian pushed him off his chair, an easy feat since he was incapable of sitting in one with all four legs on the floor like a normal person.
There was a brief video review session at the tail end because they had a game the following day, but by then, no one paid much attention.
With the excitement about Kilian, catching up on their Christmas breaks, and the upcoming road trip to California over New Year’s, the team had too many things to chat about besides tomorrow’s game.
It would come back to bite them. The Minnesota Fury were unlikely to be a cup contender, but they also weren’t to be ignored.
Damir took a few notes on their defensive game, noting they had won their last three games based on what he would charitably call “goals that could be reviewed for interference.”
On the way out, he waylaid Rocky to impart what he’d observed for their own top defensive pair. Kilian waved a quick goodbye before sprinting out to meet his mother for something Damir didn’t quite catch.
Unfortunately, this meant he had to drive Ketchup and Kilian’s father to his apartment alone.
The barrage of unasked-for hockey tips laid on both of them by the latter did nothing to phase Ketchup.
Damir, on the other hand, developed an ache in his jaw from clenching his teeth and excused himself to his room for a nap before he had to go to the mosque.
But as soon as Damir lay down, the memory of Kilian eyeing up a room full of hockey players and declaring them all not his type assaulted him, leaving him bruised and battered.
With a growl, Damir rolled over and punched his pillow. It smelled of Kilian’s hair care products, which made Damir’s heart clench. And it didn’t help his embarrassment at behaving like a teenager with his first crush.
Hard to believe that of the two of them, Kilian was the one able to compartmentalize sex and feelings.
Damir had grossly underestimated him a year ago when they first hooked up.
He’d continued right on underestimating him the next few times they met, flattered by Kilian’s blatant interest. Somewhere along the way, he’d fooled himself into believing he could have more from Kilian than Kilian wanted to give.
It served him right for taking what he did get for granted.