Chapter 31
JUNE
The storm had been building since afternoon.
By nine, the sky over Colorado Springs was a bruise. Purple-black clouds piled against the mountains, lightning forking through them in silence before the thunder caught up. The windows rattled in their frames. The power flickered twice, held, and flickered again.
I sat in the dark with a glass of wine I wasn't drinking and watched Red lift the Stanley Cup for the forty-seventh time.
The footage was everywhere, had been for two days. Red in his white jersey, soaked in champagne, hoisting thirty-five pounds of silver over his head while confetti rained down and twenty thousand people screamed his name. I couldn't stop watching.
On screen, Red's face split into a grin. The Cup caught the arena lights and blazed. Someone grabbed him from behind, and Red laughed, his whole body loose with joy in a way I'd never seen from him. Not with me.
I paused the video and studied the way his eyes crinkled, the gap between his front teeth that only showed when he smiled for real.
Wonton jumped onto the couch and pushed his head against my thigh. His purr was a low rumble, almost lost under the thunder.
"I know," I said. "I'm disgusting."
He didn't argue, just curled into a ball against my leg and closed his eyes.
I'd been training six hours a day since I left New Mexico. My body was a weapon I kept sharpening because I didn't know what else to do with my hands.
On screen, Red was frozen mid-lift. I hit play and watched him win again.
My phone buzzed on the coffee table. A second buzz. A third.
I picked it up because I had no self-control. Because seven months of silence had taught me nothing except how to miss someone while hating myself for it.
Three messages, all from the contact I'd renamed "Do Not Answer" back when I still thought that might help.
I'm in Colorado Springs.
I need to see you.
Please.
I stared at the screen until the words blurred. I typed: Why.
The response came in seconds.
Because I can’t live like this. Because I need you, Joel. Please.
You flew across the country, I typed.
Yeah. I did.
I closed my eyes. The wine sat untouched on the coffee table, the TV frozen on Red's triumphant face, and somewhere across town he was waiting for me to either let him in or shut him out for good.
He'd won. He'd gotten everything he wanted, except the one thing I'd taken from him when I left.
I opened my eyes and typed my address.
20 minutes.
Wonton disappeared into the bedroom the moment I stood up, like he could sense violence coming and wanted no part of it.
Twenty-three minutes later, someone knocked on my door.
I opened it.
Red stood in the hallway, completely soaked. Water dripped from his hair, his jacket, and the hem of his jeans.
"Hey," he said.
I let myself look at him. Really look, the way I hadn't been able to through a screen for seven months.
He was different, leaner in the face, his jaw sharper than I remembered.
The playoff beard was thick and dark, and it made him look older and harder.
But there were shadows under his eyes that hadn't been there in the Cup footage, and he was holding himself tight, bracing for a hit that hadn't landed yet.
"You're dripping on my floor," I said.
"Yeah." He didn't move to come in, just stood there dripping and waiting. "Can I—"
"Get inside before you flood the hallway."
He stepped past me, and I closed the door. The sound of it clicking shut was very loud in the quiet apartment.
My hands ached. I wanted to shove him back out the door and tell him he didn't get to show up like this, didn't get to win his Cup and then come crawling back to me like I'd been waiting for him.
I had been waiting for him. That was the worst part.
"You look like shit," I said instead.
It was a lie. He looked like something I wanted to take apart.
"Thanks." His mouth twitched, not quite a smile. "You look good."
"I always look good."
His eyes moved over my face, my shoulders, my hands. My gaze dropped to his right hand. There it was, thick and silver on his finger, catching the dim light from the kitchen. His Stanley Cup ring.
He'd worn it here.
"Joel," he said, and his voice cracked on my name.
I crossed the distance between us and kissed him.
It wasn't gentle. I didn't want gentle. My hands found his jaw, his wet hair, the back of his neck. He made a sound against my teeth, something broken and desperate, and his fingers fisted in my shirt hard enough to stretch the fabric.
He tasted like rain and airport coffee and exhaustion and want.
I pulled back just far enough to breathe. His eyes were closed, his chest heaving.
"Joel." He said my name like it wounded him.
"Shut up." I kissed him again, harder, and he opened for me like he'd been waiting for it. His hands slid up my chest, over my shoulders, and then his arms were around my neck and he was pressing into me, trying to climb inside.
He was still soaked. Water seeped through my shirt where his body met mine. I didn't care. I grabbed his hips and lifted.
Red gasped against my mouth, but he didn't hesitate, just wrapped his legs around me and held on. His thighs locked against my sides, his arms tight around my shoulders, and I took his weight like it was nothing because it was.
I walked us backward until his spine hit the wall, pinning him there with my body. The impact knocked a grunt out of him, and I swallowed it, kept kissing him, one hand braced against the wall and the other gripping his thigh hard enough to bruise.
His beard scraped against my chin and my cheeks. That was new. I'd never kissed him with a beard before. I bit his lower lip, and he groaned, his hips rolling against my stomach.
"Fuck," he breathed. "Fuck, Joel, I—"
"I said shut up."
I didn't want his words. I didn't want explanations or apologies, or whatever speech he'd rehearsed on the plane. I wanted his body, his breath, the way he shook when I pressed him harder into the wall.
His hands found my hair and pulled. The sting of it shot straight down my spine, and I groaned against his shoulder, biting down where his shirt collar would cover it.
"You can't just show up here," I said into his skin. "You can't just—"
"I'm sorry."
"Don't apologize. I'm the one who—" But seven months later, I still couldn't finish that sentence.
I pulled back to look at him. His eyes were dark, his mouth swollen, his wet hair a mess from my hands. He looked wrecked.
"I'm the one who left," I said. "But I'm still angry and I don't know what to do with it."
"Yeah. I know the feeling."
I kissed him again, rougher, and carried him toward the bedroom.
I dropped him on the bed and stepped back.
He reached for me and I caught his wrist, pressing it down against the mattress. "No."
"Joel—"
"Take off your clothes."
He hesitated only briefly before he took off his shirt first, peeling the wet fabric over his head, then jeans, then boxers, shoving them all off the edge of the bed. His cock was already hard, and looking at him hurt in a way I wasn't prepared for.
Instead of touching him, I pulled the chair from my desk and positioned it at the foot of the bed, sat down, and crossed one leg over the other.
If I touched him now, I'd fall apart. I needed the distance.
"Touch yourself."
His breath caught. "What?"
"You heard me. You flew across the country to see me. So show me what you wanted."
His hand moved to his cock, then stopped. "I'm not going to—"
"Yes, you are. You've been texting me for seven months. Drunk at 2 AM, telling me you couldn't stop thinking about me. Now I'm here and I'm watching and you're going to show me exactly what you thought about."
His jaw tightened. But his hand wrapped around his cock and he started stroking, and the soft, desperate sound that came out of him hit me like a fist to the sternum.
"Slower."
He slowed down. His fist moved up the length of him, the head of his cock disappearing into his grip and emerging again, slick and flushed. My own cock was straining against my jeans, throbbing every time his thumb dragged over his slit.
"Is this what you thought about? When you were texting me at 2 AM? When you were drunk and telling me you couldn't breathe without me?"
His hand stuttered. His eyes were wet when they met mine.
"Keep going."
He kept going. His hips were starting to roll, fucking up into his own fist.
"You said you missed me. You said you didn't know how to do this without me." My voice cracked on the last word, and I hated it. "But you did it anyway, didn't you? Went back to your team and your playoffs and you did just fine."
"That's not—" His voice broke. "That's not true. I wasn't fine. I was never fine."
"You looked pretty happy on TV. Lifting that Cup. Smiling for the cameras."
"I was thinking about you." His hand slowed but didn't stop. "The whole time. When they handed it to me, I—" He broke off, his hips jerking. "I was thinking about you."
"Faster. And spread your legs. I want to see everything."
He spread his thighs wider, his hand moving faster on his cock. His balls were drawing up, his stomach slick with pre-cum. I pressed the heel of my palm against my own erection, just enough pressure to take the edge off, and his eyes tracked the movement.
"You won a Cup without me."
"It didn't mean anything."
"Bullshit."
"It didn't." His head dropped back against the pillow, his hand still moving. "I won and all I could think—" A moan cut through his words. "You weren't there. I couldn't call you."
"Stop."
His hand froze. A sound came out of him, desperate and broken.
"Joel. Please."
"Please what?"
"Please let me come."
"Not yet."
The ring had been catching the light this whole time, silver and diamonds flashing every time his fist moved.
"That ring." I clenched my jaw and then forced it to release. "You wore your championship to my apartment and now it's wrapped around your cock."
"Joel—"