Chapter 23
Mattias
The flight attendant’s announcement wakes me, informing us that we will be landing in Stockholm soon. It hasn’t sunk in until now that I’ll be back in Sweden, even if only for a few days. I haven’t been back in three years, but somehow, it feels like no time has passed at all.
Probably because I know nothing has changed.
Last time I asked, Micke said our mother was still drinking.
I expected as much. She hasn’t taken a day off since our father passed.
It’s like she planted herself on that red leather sofa twenty years ago, and has dug herself too far down in it to get back up.
In every memory I have of home, she’s there, tucked against the armrest and wrapped in her lambswool blanket with a bottle of akvavit on the end table and a thousand-meter stare in her eyes.
My mother hates hockey. I know it reminds her of our father, both because he loved it and because he was taking me to practice when he died. I don’t go home because my entire existence is a glaring reminder of everything she drinks to forget.
It took years of seeing a grief counselor for me to come to understand that our father’s death was not my fault.
I’m alright now—as alright as I can be. I don’t even blame the lorry driver anymore.
The roads were icy, the visibility was bad, and it was an accident—a horrible, fucked up accident.
I hate that in a country with so few traffic deaths, my father had to be one of them, but life isn’t fair and you can’t change the past.
I’m not telling Micke that I’ll be in Sweden.
Our family functions better with an ocean between us, and there’s no reason to cause either of them extra stress, because I know Micke would try to convince her to come to the match.
The closest I get to my mother these days is my name on the wire transfers I send her.
I wince as the team rolls up their window shades. I’ve got a headache, the kind I get when I sleep less than I should. I shouldn’t have lingered back there with Hearst.
She looked devastated, though. She’d tried to hide it, but it was obvious she’d been crying.
Some traitorous part of me still wants to know what upset her so badly, but I resist the urge to look back, instead taking a sip of my scalding hot coffee and not caring that it burns my throat on the way down.
I was right. Stockholm hasn’t changed. Even from the shuttle window, I can tell it’s the same old stuck-up town, brimming with assholes in suits who have no shame bombarding you about the latest app they’re developing, or bragging about their newest investments—in a polite, humble, Swedish way of course.
I’m more used to that sort of thing after living in LA, but at least LA doesn’t try to pretend it’s a kind place.
Passing the Stockholm harbor, I hear H?kk?nen and Pulkkinen in the back of the bus bitching about how our accommodations don’t have a sauna, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be up to Finnish standards.
My mouth ticks upwards. Maybe it’s good that some things stay the same.
At the hotel, I’ve barely managed to shower away the travel grime and open my luggage before I hear an aggressive knock at the door.
I pause the Wranglers recaps I’m watching on my laptop and eject the Monarchs flash drive where I keep all my clips, then pull on a clean pair of trousers.
It’s only eight in the morning. Coach better have coffee for me if he’s already going to barrage me about the schedule—
But it’s not Coach.
It’s Hearst.
A camera hangs from a strap around her neck.
She looks like she’d been about to say something, but her surprised gaze falls over my shirtless body, lingering a moment too long on my abdomen.
Caught. I watch her eyes trail up my torso, then linger another moment on the clavicle fracture scar from the accident before returning to my face—and fyfan, is she blushing?
Fuck, it’s going to make me hard. Baseball, fermented herring, Poirier’s soiled hockey pads. My grip tightens on the doorframe.
“Can I help you?” I say brusquely.
“I tried to nap, but I can’t sleep and I feel like shit. I figured some fresh air might help. Any chance you’d want to show me around?” Hearst looks oddly sheepish. She sounds sheepish, too.
These are dangerous waters.
“I—” I start, but fall flat. She looks so hopeful. I look anywhere besides her naively eager face. Finding an interesting stain on the ceiling I say, “Where’s your crew?”
The thought of her companions tempers my blood rush a bit.
“They’re napping, and I don’t want to go out alone in a city I’ve never been to. Please?” she says, with all the saccharine sweetness of a girl who’s never been told no in her life.
I should say no. I have recaps to watch. A suitcase to unpack. Lint to roll off my clothes.
“Fine,” I say instead.
Fuck me.
“Yes! Thank you. I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Give me a few,” I say after her. She gives me a thumbs up over her shoulder and disappears around the corner. I dig my palms into my eyes.
As soon as she’s gone, I shut the door and push my trousers down to my ankles. Back against the wall, I slide to the ground, legs sprawled out in front of me as I take myself in my hand. My eyes nearly roll back in their sockets as my fingers close around my length, it’s such a relief.
I think of those full, impertinent lips, slightly parted as she took in the sight of me.
I wonder if she liked what she saw when she opened the door.
If her mouth went as dry as mine. Fully hard now, pre-come beads at my tip, and I swipe my thumb over it, dragging it over myself with a groan.
As I start to move my hand up and down, I wonder what kind of sounds Hearst makes when she’s being fucked the way she likes.
If she’d look up at me like that as I dipped a finger into her, all large eyes and feverish cheeks and shallow little breaths.
I wonder if she’d gasp as I added a second finger, or what she’d say with that mouth of hers if I sucked her wetness off my fingers, tasting her, swallowing her down.
I pump myself hard and fast, knowing I’m not going to last long. I dare to let myself imagine what her mouth might look like wrapped around my cock, the sigh she might let out as she takes me into the warmth of it, and I’m undone. I come with a shuddering breath.
My head falls back against the door.
Suddenly I’m wrung out, with no desire to traipse around Stockholm, but the little witch is waiting for me downstairs. As my desire fades, it’s replaced by shame. She’s my boss’s daughter. A business partner. She trusts me to show her around.
Meanwhile, I’m thinking about fucking her. It’s completely unprofessional and a violation of trust.
She’s off-limits. When did I become so inept at heeding my own advice? Worse, I suspect one round with my hand isn’t going to be enough to keep this unfortunate attraction at bay.
It’ll have to do for now.