CHAPTER TEN THE PRICE OF STAYING #2
“We still have both captains tomorrow, right?” he asked.
Tyler could not answer.
Brock did. “Yes.”
The rookie nodded and left.
The door clicked shut.
Tyler pulled his wet jersey over his head and threw it into the laundry cart. “You can promise him tomorrow.”
“That is what he asked.”
“Not what he meant.”
Brock removed his shoulder pads carefully. “I’m not discussing this while the room has ears.”
“Room is empty.”
“Cameras in the hall. Staff above us.”
“Always a reason not to say it.”
Tyler stripped away the remaining equipment with impatient force. He was furious at Brock, furious at the franchise, and most furious at the body that continued to respond whenever Brock revealed another inch of scarred skin.
Brock’s compression shirt rose. Dark chest hair, bruised ribs, and the hard plane of his abdomen appeared. Tyler’s arousal tightened visibly beneath the base layer.
Brock saw.
He removed his own hockey pants. The thin shorts beneath showed the same physical need.
For a moment, the empty locker room contained only two angry, half-naked men staring at proof that attraction had survived everything their honesty had not.
“You think this decides it,” Tyler said.
Brock looked down between them. “Decides what?”
“That because you still want my body, sending the rest of me away is acceptable.”
“I’m not sending you.”
“You are opening the door and refusing to ask me to stay.”
Brock crossed the room. “If I ask, you’ll sacrifice the contract.”
“Maybe I get to choose what is sacrifice.”
“Not when you’re choosing under pressure.”
“And you retiring under a salary cap is freedom?”
They stood close enough that heat passed between bare chests.
Neither touched.
That restraint was more violent than a shove.
Tyler sat at his stall wearing black base-layer leggings and no shirt. Sweat cooled across his chest. The thin fabric revealed his arousal, still present from every collision and every furious glance during the game.
Brock stood across the room removing tape from one wrist. He wore compression shorts and an open base-layer top. His physical reaction was equally obvious.
Anger did nothing to reduce desire.
It made it more dangerous.
“Take the offer,” Brock said.
Tyler looked up. “What?”
“New York. Take it.”
“Seven years in a city I didn’t ask for.”
“Largest salary in league history.”
“I know how numbers work.”
“Then understand this one. You have maybe six elite seasons left. That contract protects all of them.”
Tyler stood. “And you retire.”
“I coach.”
“You stop playing because a spreadsheet needs space.”
“I stop before my knee makes the decision for me.”
“Honest answer?”
Brock’s jaw tightened. “That is honest.”
“Then why did I hear it from Catherine?”
Tyler crossed the room.
Brock did not retreat.
They stopped inches apart, both half dressed, both visibly aroused beneath clinging fabric. The same physical language that had once made every disagreement simple now complicated every word.
“You told me no decisions alone,” Tyler said.
“I’m telling you now.”
“You’re telling me what I should do.”
“Because you’ll stay for the wrong reason.”
“You don’t know my reason.”
“I know you.”
Tyler planted one hand against Brock’s bare chest. “Do you?”
Brock caught the wrist. “You think choosing less proves loyalty. It proves you’re afraid to leave.”
“And retiring proves you’re what? Brave?”
“Realistic.”
“Coward.”
Brock’s grip tightened.
Tyler’s body answered the force. His arousal pressed harder against the base layer. Brock looked down, then back into his eyes.
“Still want me,” Brock said.
“That isn’t the argument.”
“Only thing you’re being honest about.”
Tyler shoved him.
Brock struck the lockers. Metal doors rattled—the exact sound of their first kiss.
For one suspended moment, memory overlaid the present. Brock bare-backed after their inaugural scrimmage. Tyler furious and fascinated. Two men using collision because language had failed.
Brock pulled Tyler against him.
Their mouths almost met.
A security door closed somewhere in the corridor.
They separated before anyone entered.
“Loft,” Tyler said.
Brock’s breathing remained hard. “This won’t solve it.”
“You never objected before.”
They drove home in separate vehicles.
Tyler arrived first. He removed his coat, opened the Captain’s Ledger, and found the blank entry from Northwoods followed by the unrecorded tie in Chicago. Two nights without a winner. Two warnings they had not understood.
Brock entered through the garage.
He closed the door quietly.
“Say it,” Tyler demanded.
“What?”
“That you want me to leave.”
“I want you to take the contract.”
“Same thing.”
“No.”
“Seven years in New York while you stand behind Milwaukee’s bench. Explain the difference.”
Brock took off his jacket and placed it over a chair with controlled precision. “The difference is that one is about your career and the other is about us.”
“There is no us three flights a week apart.”
“People survive distance.”
“Do you want distance?”
Brock did not answer quickly enough.
Tyler opened the ledger to its first page and read the rules they had written before opening night. Goals earned commands. Assists earned requests. Penalties required surrender. Every line assumed there would be another game, another night, another chance to collect.
“What happens to this in New York?” he asked.
Brock looked at the old book. “It comes with you.”
“Without you, it is paper.”
“Start another.”
The suggestion struck like a deliberate wound.
Tyler closed the cover. “With whom?”
Brock’s face tightened.
“Say his name,” Tyler demanded. “The imaginary man I’m supposed to replace you with. Is he younger? Faster? Does he have working knees and a seven-year guarantee?”
“Don’t.”
“You already imagined him.”
“I imagined you winning.”
“Without you.”
Brock’s hands closed at his sides. “You knew me one day before you said it wouldn’t happen again.”
“And you’ve spent every day since proving me wrong.”
“That doesn’t mean forever.”
There it was—not honesty, but its shadow.
Tyler crossed the remaining distance before Brock could hide it again.
Tyler crossed the kitchen and caught the front of his shirt. Brock’s back met the brick wall. Their bodies aligned from chest to thigh. Both remained aroused from the locker room, the drive, the fury that had followed them home.
“Use honest words,” Tyler said.
Brock gripped his waist. “You first.”
Tyler kissed him.
The kiss was anger without translation. Brock answered with equal force, turned them, and pinned Tyler against the brick. Tyler pulled the shirt over Brock’s head. Brock tore open Tyler’s collar. Buttons struck the floor.
They moved toward the gym because the pattern lived in muscle memory. The glass door closed behind them. Tyler drove Brock onto the mat. Brock rolled above him. Their clothes came away in impatient pieces until compression fabric was the only barrier left.
Every physical reaction remained visible.
Tyler straddled Brock’s hips and forced both wrists down.
“Surrender,” he said.
“No penalty.”
“Command.”
“No point.”
Tyler pushed his body harder against Brock’s. “Do you need one?”
Brock’s control broke. He reversed them and held Tyler beneath the full breadth of his body. Their arousal pressed together, undeniable and unsatisfied.
“This what you want?” Brock asked.
“More.”
Brock kissed his throat. Tyler pulled him closer. The rough encounter accelerated with familiar efficiency: force, response, reversal, the promise that bodies could settle what words could not.
Then Brock said against Tyler’s skin, “You should go.”
Tyler froze.
Brock continued moving for one second before feeling the withdrawal.
He stopped immediately.
Tyler lay beneath him, breathing hard. Every part of his body still wanted the man above him. His arousal remained obvious. Brock’s pressed just as hard against his hip.
Desire had not disappeared.
The illusion had.
Tyler put one hand against Brock’s shoulder. “Move.”
Brock shifted away and sat beside him.
Cold air entered the space between their bodies.
“Frost?” Brock asked.
“Yes.”
The word ended everything.
They remained on the mat, half naked and physically unfulfilled, while their breathing slowed.
The mirrored wall returned an image neither wanted: Tyler’s torn shirt hanging open, Brock’s body still positioned toward him, both men visibly wanting the encounter they had stopped. Months earlier, that image would have been enough. Desire had once seemed like the most honest thing between them.
Now it looked incomplete.
“Look at me,” Tyler said.
Brock did.
“I am still aroused,” Tyler continued. “I still want your weight, your hands, every rough thing we know how to do. None of that answers whether you believe I can choose you without regretting it.”
Brock swallowed.
“You want proof?” he asked.
“I want words.”
“Words don’t protect your career.”
“Neither does silence protect me.”
Brock looked away.
Tyler resisted the familiar urge to grip his face and force attention back. Physical control would create eye contact without creating truth.
“This is the first time you’ve made surrender look like strength,” Brock said quietly.
“Stopping is not surrender.”
“For us, maybe it is.”
“Then surrender with me.”
Brock’s eyes returned, full of fear he still refused to name.
“I can’t,” he said.
The refusal hurt because it was honest.
Tyler nodded once. “Then I sleep somewhere else.”
“We do this every time,” Tyler said.
“Do what?”
“Turn anger into something our bodies know how to win.”
Brock looked toward the mirrored wall. “Usually works.”
“No. Usually delays the loss.”
Tyler stood and pulled on his torn shirt. Brock remained seated, arousal still visible beneath the compression shorts, hands open on his thighs.
“I’m not continuing until you tell me why you want me gone,” Tyler said.
“I told you. Contract.”
“That is the reason I should go. Not the reason you want it.”
“Same thing.”