3. Easton #2
I shook my head. There was little I could tell him without telling him everything.
What was eating me? I had hit on the teammate I lived with two months ago after two years of resisting his subtle hints, only for him to tell me they hadn’t been hints at all and that I was fucked.
Then, just when I thought I was cooked enough, the very first crush of my entire life and the most dangerous guy I’d ever met appeared on my doorstep, looking for a place to live.
“But why don’t you let him crash on your couch?
He can’t be that bad,” Elio would have asked—given that he simply accepted the fact that his captain was gay—and I knew he would ask that because he was the sweetest guy ever.
“Because he would lure me out,” I would want to tell him.
Jace would lure me out of the safety of my own little shell I built around myself.
He would do it just to tease me, to prove that he had always known my secret, and to gloat in my misery.
“Did you really think I was into you? You fucking loser.”
Kyle had said those words, but I could hear Jace speaking them to me if I were stupid enough to repeat my mistake.
I was done with flirtatious fuckers. I’d spent so long reminding myself that Jace had only ever wanted to taunt me that I had walked straight into the same mistake with Kyle. Not again.
These thoughts roamed through my mind as we headed to the rink.
We were there an hour early, changing and doing warm-ups before the coaches divided us into smaller groups for practice.
Some of the newcomers were slow to get their asses off the benches and slide into the action when we changed lineups, so we dedicated a solid chunk of time to that.
Finally, we were done. I had exhausted myself to the point that my muscles were numb, and I earned another round of criticism from the coach because I had been reckless.
I can’t catch a fucking break, I thought, seething with fury as I ripped the protections off my limbs and carried my towel into the shower. The scent of sweat and ice was thick in the locker room, and the heat of the shower was a blessing, untying the knots in my muscles.
I remained in the shower for long enough to believe most of my teammates had gone home.
As I slowly dragged myself through the empty locker room, thinking how I couldn’t keep hiding in the shower for two more years every time we finished practice, I noticed that my duffel wasn’t under the bench where I had left it.
My equipment was there, scattered along the bench, but the bag was gone.
My clothes. My shoes. My goddamn underwear.
A red vignette of fury surrounded my field of vision as I looked around.
No. I hadn’t just left them under another bench.
Someone had taken my stuff on purpose, and I didn’t have to think hard to know who.
Even before I could picture his face, Kyle appeared in the locker room.
He wore a tight, sleeveless T-shirt with low cuts for arms, partly revealing his rib cage, and a pair of gray sweatpants that purposefully emphasized the not-insignificant bulge.
He also wore a smirk that a well-balanced punch would wipe in a heartbeat.
“Lost something?” Kyle asked, his voice deeper than it had been a year ago. He was bulky and toned, his muscles seemingly swelling without an end.
Even though he was much more muscled, that didn’t stop me as I raced across the locker room and bent my arm between us. It pressed against Kyle’s chest as I slammed him against the wall. “Where are they?” I roared.
He huffed, air leaving his body on impact, and laughed. “I’m not kissing you. Stop begging.”
“Where the fuck are they, Kyle. I’m done messing around.” I leaned in hard, pinning him against the wall and staring into his murky blue eyes.
“Dude, you’re naked,” Kyle said with exaggerated disgust. “This is basically ra—”
“It’ll be murder if you don’t fucking tell me where you left my clothes,” I snapped before he could finish, slamming him harder against the wall. “I’m so fucking sick of you.”
“Sick? Of me? I don’t think that’s right,” Kyle said, struggling for air. He wasn’t as amused anymore. “Such a strong guy you are,” he sneered. “Big deal, Captain, but you like it up your ass. Don’t think they don’t know it.”
My vision narrowed, white heat blinding me as I grabbed Kyle’s slutty shirt and tore off a part of it while spinning him around and tossing him on the floor.
He landed on his shoulder, grunting, and I knelt on the small of his back as he tried to turn.
The pressure of my knee on his spine made him screech. “Get off. Get off me!”
I grabbed his arm and twisted it behind his back. “I’ll fucking break it, you piece of shit. Say that again, I dare you.”
“Let go,” he whimpered.
“Lick the floor, fucker,” I said, grabbing a fistful of his hair and pressing his face against the linoleum. “Lick it.”
“Fuck off.”
I twisted his hand a fraction of a degree further, and his eyes bulged.
He thrust his tongue out, and I relaxed my grip on his hair as he shivered and shook.
Kyle’s face was red with embarrassment and pain, but he pressed his pink tongue against the floor and exhaled in disgust, genuine this time.
I could see tears in his eyes, although I wouldn’t go so far as to believe I’d made him cry.
“There,” he huffed in pain.
“Where are they?”
“Parking lot,” he spat. “Dumpster.”
I let go of his arm and got up. My muscles tensed as I stood a few paces away from Kyle, preparing to defend myself if he got any ideas.
He remained on the floor for two heartbeats longer, then pushed himself up on shaky arms and trembling legs.
When Kyle got up, part of his T-shirt flapping down and revealing his swollen pec and big, brown nipple, he shot me a murderous look.
I knew I had made things worse—the knowledge was quick to seep into my consciousness as soon as the rage had passed.
The gravity of my mistake hadn’t even settled yet, but I knew a clusterfuck when I saw one.
I swallowed and kept my tone low. “Speak to me that way again, and this won’t be the worst of it.”
Kyle’s lips curled with hatred. I had embarrassed him more than he’d expected and far more than he’d embarrassed me by throwing my clothes in the trash.
“Mess with me,” I warned him, “or tell anyone about whatever you think happened between us, and I’ll show you what I’m capable of.”
“You’re a dead man,” Kyle said, spitting on the floor between us. The cold, unbending conviction in his tone chilled me, but I stood my ground.
“Get out of my sight.” My words released him from some psychic spell, and he spun away from me, hurrying out and repeating, more to himself, that I was a dead man walking.
I didn’t doubt it, but I’d survived worse conflicts than this. My father was a mean motherfucker at times, his love only ever tough, and I hadn’t broken under his pressure.
Tightening the towel around my waist, I walked down the empty hallway and to the parking lot by the rink. There were three dumpsters, and my duffel rested by their wheels.
I snatched it and carried it back into the locker room to change.
My clothes were intact, but the duffel was dusty at the bottom and smeared with something wet and dark on the sides.
I didn’t have the bandwidth to think about it.
I dressed and walked out, my footsteps heavy as I considered the size of my mistakes.