Chapter 38 The Power Game
The Power Game
Fletcher woke up in Taylor’s arms after miraculously making it back to the bed after Taylor had bent him over the arm of the couch and fucked him mercilessly from behind.
“I’m sore,” Fletcher groaned as soon as Taylor woke up.
“We forgot to stretch before,” Taylor said groggily. “What time is it?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Fletcher answered.
He reached over for his phone on the nightstand and groaned when he read the time.
“It’s only seven. We have another hour before we need to be up.
” He rested his head against Taylor’s warm chest as he started to scroll through his Instagram, ignoring a plethora of messages from his entire family.
He pressed a kiss to Taylor’s bare chest.
Taylor grabbed his own phone and started scrolling too.
He wrapped an arm around Fletcher, as he lifted the other arm in the air.
Fletcher heard him snap a selfie of them and let out a sigh as the corner of his mouth curled up into a crooked smile.
Taylor ran his hands through Fletcher’s hair as he kissed the top of Fletcher’s head.
“Can I see it?” Fletcher asked, looking up at him. Taylor handed Fletcher his phone.
It was just a simple photo. Taylor looked at the camera with a shit-eating grin as Fletcher rested against his bare chest. His face was illuminated by his phone screen.
It looked like they were a normal, loving couple.
Fletcher loved it. It was probably the best photo he had ever been in.
Fletcher sent the photo to himself before giving Taylor his phone back.
“How are we going to tell people?” Fletcher asked softly.
“Let’s make a sex tape and leak it,” Taylor joked. “I’ll even be the bottom if you want.”
“We’d probably need supplies. Like handcuffs and some rope.”
“What kind of sex tape are we making?” Taylor asked accusingly.
Fletcher looked back up at him and kissed him on his chin, liking the way Taylor’s stubble felt on his lips. “A really good one.”
* * *
Last night had been a night of self-discovery for Taylor, to say the least. But probably also the best night he’d ever had. He had no notes. Everything kind of just made sense the way it had all unfolded.
He convinced Fletcher to go and get smoothies for breakfast, so they both quickly got ready and headed out the door. They found the nearest drive-thru smoothie place and took too long to figure out what they wanted, so they ended up parking and going inside anyway.
“I have an idea,” he told Fletcher as they got back into the car with smoothies in hand.
They both got strawberry-mango. “Let’s say fuck the kids and flake on your father.
” He bit back a laugh because he considered saying “your daddy” to Fletcher, but decided he’d save that word for the bedroom from now on—for obvious reasons.
“Tempting,” Fletcher said as he seriously considered it for a minute. “We can’t fuck the kids,” he said a few seconds later. “Don’t laugh,” he warned Taylor, knowing he was already about to. Taylor loved how much Fletcher understood his brain.
“Ugh. You’re right,” Taylor agreed. They were here for the kids. Not to appease Fletcher’s father. He just hoped Fletcher was on the same page about that. “I’m not wearing the shirt,” he told Fletcher as they reversed and pulled out of the parking lot.
“You don’t have to,” Fletcher assured him. “You could probably get away with murder considering the fact that they are all in love with you.”
“That’s kinda gay,” Taylor said sarcastically. “I’m not really into dudes.”
“Obviously,” Fletcher scoffed, playing along. “That would be abhorrent.”
“Repugnant,” Taylor added. “Sinful, even.”
A few minutes later, Fletcher parked at one of the empty spots in the athlete parking lot for the Manatees stadium.
It was considerably smaller than Seattle’s, considering the Manatees stadium was much smaller itself.
Even if they were a decent team, Taylor guessed the Jacksonville taxpayers would rather have their taxes allocated towards a bigger football stadium.
They grabbed their smoothies and skates from the back of Fletcher’s car before Fletcher guided Taylor through the back entrance. They found their way into a break room of sorts where Sean, Henri, and some other retired players were. Taylor noticed a handful of them were from neighboring teams.
“Good morning, boys,” Sean said cheerfully, clapping his hands together. “Today’s going to be a great day.”
Taylor and Fletcher smiled politely and nodded at him.
“Here’s some shirts for y’all,” Joe Clemson said in his thick panhandle accent as he handed Taylor and Fletcher orange and blue shirts. Unlike most players for the Manatees, Clemson had been a true Florida native who somehow learned he had an affinity for playing hockey.
Taylor gave Fletcher a look that screamed “seriously?” He watched Fletcher sling the shirt over his shoulder. Fletcher gave Taylor kind of a dismissive look, which told Taylor he didn’t really have a choice in the matter.
“Thanks,” Taylor said plainly as he took the shirt from Clemson.
Fletcher told him to follow him to the locker room where they dropped their gear bags down on the ground and changed into their shirts. Taylor pulled his shirt over his head, and Fletcher cleared his throat.
“What?”
“You’ve got a hickey,” Fletcher quietly pointed out. Taylor craned his neck down to see a deep, purple bruise above his collarbone.
“That’s not my fucking fault, asshole,” Taylor scoffed. He quickly threw on the shirt, hating how it smelled. He felt like he was betraying his team wearing these colors. “I’m going to burn this,” he told his boyfriend.
“Two weeks,” Fletcher promised. “Then you’ll never wear orange and blue again.”
“Thank fucking Jesus.”
* * *
Taylor actually had a little fun once they were out on the ice. He was grouped with middle schoolers, who laughed at every joke he told them. They were pretty impressive little players.
“I thought this was a beginners camp,” Taylor joked to them. “You guys are all naturals.”
He and two other defensemen worked on teaching the kids different defensive drills. One of the girls reminded him a lot of Marina. In other words, she was a bossy little diva.
“I don’t want to be here,” was the first thing she told him. She wore a lavender tracksuit and had white, fuzzy legwarmers. Very interesting outfit choice considering it was like. A hundred degrees outside. “My mom said I have to try it out because my little brothers wanted to do it.”
Taylor shrugged. “I kinda wanna go home too,” he told her honestly, trying to level with her. “I was brought here against my own will.”
Lizzie cracked a smile. “Aren’t you too old to be bossed around by your mom?”
His mind immediately thought of Gretchen. “Definitely not,” Taylor scoffed. “It never ends.”
“What do you even do?” She asked out of curiosity a little later. The kids were given free time to just skate. “Like, what are defensemen supposed to do?”
“I kind of just slam people up against the wall if they get too close to my teammates,” Taylor told her casually. A sandy blond forward to be exact. “But officially, we defend the goal, so the other team doesn’t get close enough to hit the puck in.”
“Oh, so you don’t really score then?”
Taylor laughed smugly. “You’re looking at one of the world’s best scorers.”
During their lunch break, Fletcher brought some kids over with him and sat at Taylor’s table with his group.
“Fletch Armstrong!” One of Taylor’s kids beamed. “I can’t believe you got traded!”
Fletcher let out a chuckle. “I know, kid. It was pretty rough when I had to leave.”
“Are you gonna try to come back?” Another kid asked.
Fletcher shrugged. “I don’t know. I really like my new team. Seattle’s a fun place to live.”
“Doesn’t it rain all the time?” Lizzie asked him.
He scoffed. “Like it doesn’t rain here every day in the summer.” He pointed to Taylor. “This is my favorite teammate. Taylor Piers,” Fletcher told his kids.
“The rookie of the year!” A little boy shouted. “I saw you on TV.”
“He’s on TikTok too,” another girl, Hailey, said. She and Lizzie were kind of friends.
Lizzie looked at Hailey and gave her a knowing look before both giggling.
“What’s so funny?” Taylor asked. He pulled his phone out from his back pocket and quickly downloaded TikTok. While Fletcher kept on talking to the other kids, Taylor made an account and searched “Taylor Piers hockey.”
He expected to see the normal clips of himself that he would see on Instagram, but the first video that popped up was some edited video of him shirtless during one of his post-game interviews.
It ran through different clips of him where he looked sweaty or would be extra defensive on the ice, and the song “Killshot” by Magdalena Bay played in the background.
He nudged Fletcher and handed him the phone, but Fletcher let out a little laugh. “Douglas sent that one to me like three weeks ago.”
“What the heck is this?” Taylor asked no one in particular.
“It’s an edit,” Lizzie told him. Taylor kept on scrolling through different ones.
“I’m not even playing hockey in most of these,” he said, sounding concerned. Lizzie and Hailey kept on giggling.
“Search my name,” Fletcher leaned over and told him.
Taylor quickly searched “Fletcher Armstrong hockey.” Fletcher laughed as Taylor played the first video.
“That one is one of my favorites,” he snorted.
“I need to ask Marina about these,” Taylor said, sounding horrified. Well, he did kind of like the ones of Fletcher. Especially the ones of Fletcher’s shirtless interviews. He just liked shirtless Fletcher in general.
* * *
The camp ended at three, which gave Taylor and Fletcher the rest of the day to themselves. They went to the locker room to take off their skates and clean them when Sean walked in. “How’d it go, son?” he asked Fletcher. Fletcher didn’t look up from his skate as he dried the blade off.
“It was fun. Like always,” he said plainly.
“How about you, Piers,” Sean looked over to Taylor. “How was it working with Clemson and Grainge?”
“It was great. The hockey fan in me couldn’t believe I was working with two of the greats,” Taylor answered.
“Not as great as you or me,” Sean chirped, attempting to joke around.
And maybe Taylor would’ve laughed at it if he didn’t despise this fucker.
He went to sleep last night imagining he was leaning right into Sean’s face and telling him all about how he gets to fuck his perfect son whenever he fucking wanted.
And then he thought about how hot it was when Fletcher pinned him to the wall and fucked him from behind.
“Of course not, sir,” Taylor told him with a fake smile.
Sean looked back at Fletcher. “Your mother is upset that you never said goodbye before you left. She kept telling all her friends how nice it was to have her son back home, but you hardly even spoke to her.”
Fletcher shrugged. “I was tired. I’ll be here for two weeks. If she wants to see me then she knows where I’ll be staying.”
“And you’ll be heading back to Seattle when the two weeks are up?” he asked. He said it like the two weeks were a prison sentence.
“I have no reason to stay here, right?”
Sean cleared his throat and looked over to Taylor. “Would you mind giving us a minute alone, Piers?”
Taylor nodded hesitantly. “I’ll wait for you outside,” he said a little softer than he should have to his boyfriend. He patted Fletcher once on the shoulder before getting up and leaving the locker room.
Taylor waited outside for ten minutes, trying to run through the possible scenarios of what was happening with Fletcher and his father.
Honestly, he could have said anything to Fletcher.
The longer he waited, the more worried Taylor got.
Fletcher was in there talking to the one person Taylor didn’t want him to be talking to alone.
What if he really did know? What if he was in there threatening to out Fletcher?
What if he was trying to intimidate him about his contract?
What if he was just in there telling Fletcher that he was a worthless disappointment?
Taylor hated how powerless he felt knowing Fletcher was in there with his father, and there was nothing he could do to help him. He fucking hated it.
After a few more minutes of spiraling and contemplating whether he should go in to save Fletcher, he and Sean finally walked out. Taylor looked at Fletcher with a worried look on his face, but Fletcher wore a mask of indifference as he stepped outside.
“I’ll see you two tomorrow, then,” Sean said, sparing a fake smile.
Fletcher looked at him and shook his head. “Yes, sir.” Taylor hated how he could hear the defeat in Fletcher’s voice. Fletcher just started walking to the car.
“Good work today, Piers,” Sean told him again. Taylor gave him a polite smile as he followed behind Fletcher.
“What did he say to you?” Taylor asked him as soon as Fletcher pulled out of the lot.
“A whole lot of nothing,” Fletcher answered, sounding guarded. “He told me that he wanted to reiterate how important it was for me to present myself honorably or some shit. Basically, he gave me a slap on the wrist and told him to stop embarrassing him.”
Taylor frowned. He wasn’t entirely sure if Fletcher was hiding more from him, but he gave Fletcher the benefit of the doubt and held his tongue. “Are you okay?”
Fletcher looked over to him with an upset look on his face and he tried to muster up a smile. But Taylor knew he was upset. “Are you hungry? We could go somewhere to get a late lunch.”
“We ate lunch three hours ago,” Taylor reminded him. “But if you’re hungry then let’s stop.”
“I’m not. Let’s go back to my place for a bit and I’ll buy you a steak for dinner, princess,” Fletcher joked.
“It’s a date,” Taylor smiled at him. Fletcher grabbed his hand and kissed it softly before resting their hands on his lap.
“I love you, Taylor. So much,” he told him, squeezing Taylor’s hand.
“I love you, Fletch.”