CHAPTER FIVE ROAD MUSCLE #2
Tyler generated the first chance. He stole the puck at center, crossed the blue line, and shot through a defender’s legs. The goaltender caught it with the edge of his glove.
Brock controlled the next shift. He broke up a two-on-one, carried the puck through neutral ice, and forced a faceoff with a shot from the right point.
“Looking offensive,” Tyler told him on the bench.
“Planning ahead.”
Detroit scored first late in the opening period. Milwaukee answered in the second when Tyler drew two defenders and passed to the trailing center.
Assist.
Tyler skated past Brock during the celebration and raised one finger.
Brock nodded.
One request banked.
The score remained tied through regulation.
Keeping it tied required Brock to spend his body like currency.
With nine minutes left, Detroit’s winger beat Milwaukee’s defense on the outside and cut toward the open side of the net. The goaltender committed early. Brock crossed the crease and dropped to one knee. The shot struck his ribs hard enough to carry him backward into the post.
The puck fell beneath him.
Brock covered it with one glove until the whistle.
Detroit’s winger jabbed at the hand after the play. Brock rose instantly. Tyler arrived from the circle and caught the opposing player by the shoulder before retaliation earned another ledger penalty.
“Walk away,” Tyler said.
Brock stared past him.
“Captain’s order.”
That reached him. Brock released the player and skated toward the bench.
Tyler followed. “Ribs?”
“Fine.”
“That answer has never once been true.”
The trainer pressed along Brock’s side. Pain flashed across his face before he concealed it.
“Bruised,” the trainer said. “Maybe cracked. I want you out.”
Brock looked at the overtime clock waiting above center ice. “After.”
Tyler should have argued. Instead, he recognized the same choice he made every time exhaustion became less important than the next shift.
“Then don’t waste what you saved,” he said.
Brock’s gaze met his. “Wasn’t planning to.”
In the final minute, Tyler nearly ended it. He took a cross-ice pass, shifted to his forehand, and found the upper corner open. The Detroit goaltender stretched backward and caught the puck against his shoulder.
The horn sounded with the score still level.
On the bench before overtime, Keller drew three options. Tyler watched Brock breathe carefully around the bruised ribs.
“You can sit,” Tyler said.
“You can stop stretching in hotel rooms.”
“Neither likely, then.”
Brock’s smile was brief and fierce. “Give me the puck.”
In overtime, three skaters faced three. Open ice turned every mistake into danger.
Keller sent Tyler over the boards with Brock and the rookie center. Tyler circled in possession while Brock moved toward the net.
Detroit switched coverage. Their fastest forward followed Tyler high. The defenseman stayed between Brock and the crease.
Tyler reversed direction.
Brock read it immediately. Instead of continuing toward the net, he drifted backward into open space above the circles.
Tyler pulled the defender with him and passed behind his own body.
The puck traveled directly into Brock’s path.
Brock leaned into the shot.
The slap shot cracked through the arena. It struck the inside of the left post and buried itself in the net.
For half a second, no one moved.
Then the Frost bench emptied.
Brock stood with both arms raised while Tyler reached him first. He jumped into Brock’s chest. Brock caught him, lifted him, and turned beneath the weight as their teammates collided around them.
“Game winner,” Brock said into Tyler’s ear.
“Everything until sunrise.”
“I told you I’d earn it.”
Tyler’s entire body reacted despite the freezing air and layers of equipment.
The celebration concealed it.
The postgame locker room did not.
Tyler stripped to his compression base layer and stayed seated at his stall while reporters interviewed Brock across the room.
The defenseman wore only black leggings and the wolf chain over his bare chest. Sweat shone through his body hair.
His arousal was visibly outlined beneath the fabric as he answered questions about the goal.
Tyler watched openly.
Brock caught him.
“Hayes made the play,” he told the reporters without looking away. “I just finished.”
The words sounded professional to everyone else.
Tyler knew better.
They showered separately. Then came formal postgame clothing, media obligations, and the bus back to the hotel. Brock wore the dark suit and the expression of a man controlling every second until privacy.
Tyler sat beside him.
Their knees touched once around a turn.
Brock placed one hand on Tyler’s thigh and left it there.
The challenge had ended with the final horn.
Tyler looked down at the broad hand, then at Brock. “Collecting on the bus?”
“Reminder.”
“Of?”
“Who scored.”
The hand remained through every red light.
At the hotel, teammates crowded the elevators. Tyler and Brock waited for the next one rather than enter. The doors closed on Keller’s suspicious face.
When the empty car arrived, Brock guided Tyler inside with a palm at his back.
He pressed the button for twelve.
The doors shut.
Brock stood behind Tyler, close enough that their suit jackets brushed, but he did not do more. Cameras watched from the ceiling. Tyler saw them reflected in the brass and understood the restraint.
“Still professional,” Tyler murmured.
Brock’s mouth approached his ear without touching it. “For eleven more floors.”
Inside the suite, Tyler locked the door.
Brock took the Captain’s Ledger from his suitcase and placed it on the desk. They had carried the ridiculous book across state lines because neither trusted the other’s memory.
He recorded the result.
LAWSON: GAME-WINNING GOAL.
HAYES: ASSIST.
“Until sunrise,” Brock said.
Tyler looked at the clock. Eleven forty-three.
“Six hours and fifty-four minutes.”
“Counting already?”
“I like knowing the terms.”
Brock approached.
Tyler expected the force that usually followed a win. Instead, Brock stopped one step away.
“Stand still,” he commanded.
Tyler obeyed.
Brock began with the knot of Tyler’s tie. He loosened it carefully and drew the silk from beneath the collar without letting it touch the floor. The jacket came next, eased from one shoulder and then the other. Brock folded it over the chair.
“You can wrinkle it,” Tyler said.
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“Still.”
Tyler stopped speaking.
Brock opened his shirt one button at a time. Every brush of his knuckles against Tyler’s chest felt magnified by the hours of restraint. When the fabric parted, Brock pushed it from Tyler’s shoulders and folded that too.
Shoes. Belt. Trousers.
The formal athlete disappeared piece by piece until Tyler stood in black briefs beneath the hotel lights.
Brock looked at him with open hunger, but he did not rush.
“What?” Tyler asked.
“You.”
“You’ve seen me.”
“Not like this.”
“I’m wearing less most mornings.”
Brock touched the faint crease Tyler’s belt had left around his waist. “You spend your life walking into rooms already assembled. Hair, clothes, smile, answer. I wanted to take it off slowly enough to see what stayed.”
The words reached deeper than Tyler’s skin.
He covered the reaction with defiance. “Satisfied?”
“Not close.”
Brock removed his own jacket. Tyler lifted a hand to help.
“Still,” Brock reminded him.
Tyler let the hand fall.
Watching became its own surrender. Brock undressed without performance, broad body revealed beneath hotel light: scars, bruises, dark hair, the hard physical response Tyler had provoked since the previous afternoon.
He stood powerful and imperfect, older than the men selected for underwear campaigns and more desirable than any of them.
When Brock finally touched him, it was with both hands at Tyler’s face.
The first kiss was slow.
Tyler tried to intensify it. Brock kept the pace, holding him in place without force. Mouth, breath, and patience replaced the frantic contests that usually carried them into bed.
“You won,” Tyler said against him. “Use it.”
“I am.”
Brock’s hands traveled over Tyler with careful certainty. He paused at tired muscles, the bruise on one hip, the mark left by a stick near Tyler’s ribs. Each point of attention made Tyler feel more exposed than nakedness.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Tyler said.
“Command?”
“Request.”
“Denied. Costs a point.”
Tyler laughed once, but the sound broke near the end.
Brock caught it. “Talk to me.”
“About what?”
“Whatever you’re trying not to say.”
Tyler looked toward the dark river beyond the windows. “People want the finished version.”
“Meaning?”
“The goals. The suits. The campaign photographs. The answer that fits in a headline.” He swallowed. “Men want the famous athlete. They think exhaustion is access. Like if they wait until I’m tired enough, they get something nobody else bought.”
Brock’s hands remained steady at his waist. “And me?”
Tyler forced himself to meet Brock’s eyes. “I want you to want both.”
The confession hung between them.
“The man everybody watches,” Tyler continued, quieter, “and the one who can’t make himself move after a game. The captain and the person under it. I don’t know how to be one without performing the other.”
He had not intended to say more. Brock waited without rescuing him from the silence.
“My last boyfriend collected moments,” Tyler said. “Private photographs. Stories about what I was like after losses. He called it intimacy. Then a magazine offered money, and suddenly every quiet thing had a price.”
Brock’s face hardened. “He sold them?”
“Tried. My lawyers stopped most of it. The point is, he liked access more than he liked me.” Tyler forced a shrug. “After that, famous athlete became easier. Nobody can betray a performance.”
Brock’s thumb moved once across Tyler’s hip. “I’m not asking for evidence.”
“I know.”
“And nothing you give me leaves the room.”
Tyler looked at the ledger on the desk. Their secret rules, scores, and desires had crossed state lines inside Brock’s locked suitcase.
“Not even that?” he asked.
“Especially not that.”
“You could hurt me with it.”