Sebastian
SEBASTIAN
A ustin falls asleep after we order take-out, watch the game highlights (Boston lost to Philly 0-1, but Austin didn’t seem to care), play a little NHL 25 and go to bed like it’s a regular junior-high sleepover.
We don’t talk about the fact Austin just had his first sexual experience with a man, and I sure as fuck don’t gush about how incredible it was.
He’s wearing one of my t-shirts and a pair of sweatpants I like to sleep in and facing me in bed. Looking all innocent with those perpetual scowl - or is it stress? - lines smoothed out.
We have an early practise tomorrow ahead of our second game against UMass. And then what? Now he’s tried it, is he satisfied? Or does he want more? Was it as good for him as sex with his ex was? He was with her for years and he still seems to hold some sort of torch for her, so I can only imagine the sex was scorching. She was the only girl he was ever with and he didn’t immediately run out and get laid when they broke up. Maybe that says more about his personality than it does their sex life though - fucking boy scout.
The alarm wakes us both up at seven-thirty. I catch Austin’s confusion when he opens his eyes and realizes he doesn’t know where he is and look away before he remembers.
“Hey,” I hear behind me. His voice is sexily groggy, but I don’t let myself get used to it.
“Hey.”
I get up and yawn, wondering whether he’s watching me. How much he’s regretting last night.
“You wanna take a shower?”
“I’ll just shower at the rink, thanks.”
This awkward politeness… I almost miss him telling me to fuck off. At least that was real.
“I’ll just take a quick one.” I need to give him a chance to get dressed without worrying about me looking at him. Fuck this is weird. Weirder than fucking my professor? Not quite that weird.
When I come back in with a towel wrapped around my waist, Austin’s dressed and sitting on a freshly-made bed, scrolling through his phone. He glances up, registering my nakedness before looking at his phone again.
Thank fuck hockey is here to distract us from the awkwardness, though maybe a little space from each other would have been even better?
At least we don’t have any classes until Tuesday. That gives us time to regroup. Focus on the game on Monday.
I think Austin is going to ask me to travel separately to the rink, but he climbs in the passenger seat instead and doesn’t say a word as he hooks his phone up to my stereo and puts one of his country playlists on.
“I sent you this, by the way.”
“Thanks.”
He nods and keeps his eyes trained on his phone as I drive.
Some of the guys are hanging around outside the rink and see us pull up together. If Austin has something to be embarrassed about, he doesn’t show it. He slaps hands and backs and Gray and Jordan mumble greetings to me before launching into a dissection of the game last night. The tips of Austin’s ears are pink when Gray asks if he managed to see the game after leaving the bar, but save this little detail surely only I noticed, he doesn’t give anything away. Could the boy scout be a master liar after all?
When Smith shows up with a few of his freshman buddies, they say hi to everyone but me. I can see Austin’s wheels turning, weighing up how to handle the situation. Smith and his buddies go into the arena before he can decide on an action and I try to ignore the way my heart sinks.
As soon as we walk into the arena, Coach comes out of his office and calls me in. Everyone’s eyes flicker away like when a kid was being told off in class.
“Don’t worry Huntington, you’re not in trouble.”
“Course not Coach, I’ve been behaving myself.” I treat him - or subject him? - to one of my most charming smiles and he laughs awkwardly before clearing his throat to cover it up.
I close the door and take a seat. His desk looks slightly messier than usual and you can tell we’re getting deeper into the season now.
“I wanted to ask if you’d had a chance to look at the notice board recently?”
I vaguely remember someone mentioning a notice board on my first day, but I have no idea where it is.
“Um, no, sorry Coach, should I have?”
“It’s fine.” He takes a flyer from a stack of papers on the desk and slides it over to me. I note the Canuck’s logo in the corner, the title talking about internships. “I thought you might be interested in this.”
My heart speeds up a little before I even know what it is. Obviously he’s not suggesting I play for the Canucks, but even the thought of working any job involving hockey is a pipe dream, knowing my future is already planned out for me.
“I don’t know how serious you are about playing next year, and if that’s your goal, we can talk about options on that front, but I know you major in business with minors in finance and media, and your grades are good, that’s exactly the kind of student they’re looking for, along with an interest in hockey of course.”
“I’d love to play hockey professionally, but I don’t think that’s on the cards.”
I want him to tell me I’m wrong, but at the same time, I don’t want him to get my hopes up.
He sits back and folds his hands over his lean stomach. “We could probably get you a try-out with a minor league team, if that’s what you really wanted.”
Hope fizzles before quickly dying again. Is that what I really want? And a try-out isn’t a long-term contract. If the guys here think I’m spoilt and obnoxious, what are minor league hockey players going to think of me?
“Or if you were interested in staying on at college for a grad degree, I’d be happy to keep you on the team. You’d have a lot of younger players to compete with of course, some top prospects straight out of high-school we’ve got our eye on, but you’d be a welcome addition.”
“I could have worked harder,” I admit. “But when I knew professional hockey wasn’t an option for me, I coasted for a few years, until I got a spot on the Yale team.”
“Why wasn’t it an option? You were a promising junior from what I can see.”
“My dad didn’t want me to play beyond high-school. He only let me play at Yale because I promised to prioritize my studies and take the classes he wanted me to take.”
I had a few scouts interested when I was a junior, a few agents begging to take me on, but my dad wouldn’t entertain any of them. He thought he knew better. That he was above those hungry hockey dads who’d sell a testicle to get their kid an agent. My place here was purely tactical. A good ruse for anyone who might wonder why I’d leave Yale. A better hockey team was the best he could come up with on short notice.
“It’s your life you know.” Coach uncrosses his hands and leans forward. “It’s not my place to question your father’s authority, but you’re an adult now , if you want to follow a different path, you can.”
I look down at the flyer, want and hope gnawing at me like termites.
“Maybe just take that with you and have a look at the application process. They’re accepting graduates, so you don’t have to go anywhere until after graduation, and it’s only an eight week internship, so think about it. It might be an option.”
“Thank you Coach, I will.”
I fold the flyer and stuff it into my bag before joining the rest of the guys in the locker room.
I’m buzzing with nervous, excited energy when we hit the ice. Even when Coach hits us with endurance drills, I don’t complain, not even internally. Actually, I welcome working off some of this adrenaline.
By the end of practise, I’m more relaxed, but the knowledge of that flyer in my bag remains in the back of my mind even as we all head out to grab something to eat.
I zone out at the bagel place while the guys all talk on, leaving me out as usual.
When we leave, Austin tugs me back by the elbow and asks if I’m alright.
“Yeah, why?”
“Nothing, you’re just quiet. I tried to involve you a couple of times and you were just staring into space.”
“Oh.” I consider not telling him. No point in getting my hopes up about something that can’t happen. But the look on his face tells me he’s worried he’s the source of my uncharacteristically quiet mood.
“Coach wanted to talk to me about an internship opportunity, it’s on my mind, that’s all.”
His eyebrows shoot up and he looks genuinely pleased for me. That’s weird, right? My stomach gets all warm and fluttery and I push it down.
Someone being genuinely happy for me and getting a job in hockey? Yeah right.
“What kind of internship? Where?”
Gray breaks away from the group and asks if he can get a ride to the library and I’m grateful for the distraction.
He sits in the back seat and I have to watch Austin bounce his knee in sweatpants while he flips through his phone and looks at the playlist I sent him with a discreet smile on his face. Fuck he’s hot.
At least Gray is talking incessantly about hockey and something else I’m tuned out to, so I can be even the slightest bit distracted from thinking about what Austin looks like naked. His face when he comes…
I drop Gray at the library and expect Austin to jump out with him, making some excuse up about having to study, but he stays put.
We’ve eaten, showered at the rink, finished practise, what more could I suggest to stay near him?
“Wanna hang out and play on the PS5 or something?”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
How badly do I want to reach over the gearstick and put my hand on his leg? Pretty badly. At least it’s taking my mind off that internship. Until Austin brings it up.
“I haven’t read the flyer properly yet, but Coach said it’d be good for me because of my major in business and my finance and media stuff.”
“So it’s like, behind the scenes?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it for a particular team or just the NHL or AHL or-”
“It’s for the Canucks,” I say.
Does his face drop a little? Is he disappointed at the thought of me moving to Vancouver while he’s in Boston? No way.
“The Canucks, that’s cool.”
“Yeah, I mean, it’s not the Rangers, or the Devils-”
We laugh.
“But, you know, it’s the NHL.”
“Yeah, I mean, do you wanna do it?”
“I’d love to,” I admit, allowing myself a second of honesty for once.
“So do it then.”
“My dad-”
“Fuck your dad, sorry.”
“Don’t be, I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment, it’s just… complicated.”
“I know, but what’s he gonna do if you don’t go and work for his company? Send you a bill for like, what a hundred grand?”
“Try more like three hundred, and that’s just tuition.”
He whistles. I’m guessing he got a full ride being a hockey prodigy at a hockey school.
“But no, he’s not going to bill me.”
I can feel him waiting for an answer, but I’m suddenly ashamed to admit that I don’t want him to take away my credit card and my car. That I’m not ready to pay my own rent and live somewhere ‘affordable.’ That I don’t know who I am without money. When I said this shit before, he probably thought I was just being evasive, but I get the feeling he’ll believe me this time, and I’m kind of enjoying him looking at me like I’m something more than the rich asshole he always took me for. Even if it won’t last.
“He’ll stop talking to you?”
“If only.”
He gives me the side-eye, the one he uses to tell me to take something seriously.
“I think you should apply at least. You can always turn it down later if you change your mind or find something else.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
We play a few games of NHL 25, and it’s like nothing ever happened. Maybe that’s for the best, I tell myself. It would have been awkward otherwise. And maybe my stupid crush will go away if we’re just friends for a while?
But when I get up to get a can of coke from the fridge, he pulls me back by my sweater and crushes his mouth against mine and, who the fuck was I trying to kid?
His hands are warm when he slides them under the sweater and roams greedily over my skin.
“Is this okay?”
“Yeah.” I grab him by the back of the neck and pull him back into the kiss before he can start asking for written consent and telling me how much of a bad idea this is.
We slide back on the couch so he’s between my legs, grinding his cock against mine through the thin fabric of our sweatpants. When we try and take our clothes off, we almost slide off the couch and the laughter breaks the tension.
“Let’s get on the bed.”
We peel our outer layers off on our way, falling back onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, kisses and grunts.
When I slide our boxer briefs down and press my skin against his, Austin sighs against my neck and clamps his arms around me, holding me tightly for a few seconds before loosening his grip.
This is so different to the kind of sex I’ve had with other men. Closer to the fumbling, naive experiences of my teenage years in Swiss boarding schools with that treacherous bastard Frederick the Swede, a German boy I was briefly in love with, and a French guy named Jean-Luc I cried for a week over when he moved back to Paris with his parents. I hadn’t realized how cold and detached it had become since then. Even with Greg. Outside of the attention he showered me with, the praise and false adoration, what he really wanted was to get laid. And the second the bedroom door closed, or the trousers came down, the facade melted away and we were nothing more than two bodies, pounding away.
Austin kisses me, slow and deep, sliding his cock along mine, nibbling my bottom lip, sighing against my ear. You can tell he’s used to straight missionary sex and I can’t believe how into it I am.
I guide him onto his back and kiss down his neck and chest, paying extra attention to his nipples. He arches his back and sighs as he buries his hands in my hair.
Lower, brushing my lips against his belly button, the V-shape of his hips and that path leading into his pubes. Ignoring his cock, I brush my lips against his inner thigh and he lets out a little growl. Using my tongue, I make my way to his balls. He gasps and tightens his grip in my hair. I lick a path to the base of his cock and flick my tongue.
“ Fuck Seb. ”
Kneading his thighs, I just lick, teasing him with the promise of sucking. Flicking my tongue around his leaking head. A big vein throbs under my tongue, and I slide my hand between my legs to alleviate some of the ache in my balls. The sound of Austin’s ragged breath with the NHL music muted on the TV is killing me. I’m waiting for him to tell me to get on with it, but he doesn’t. His hips rut gently and I take his cock in my mouth.
“ Ahhgghhha .”
I try not to smile around him at that noise.
The blankets rustle and I hope his toes are curling. I hope he’s gripping the sheets with the hand that isn’t gently pulling my hair.
“ Fuck… Seb… yeah… ohhh… arghhh… mmm….”
I hadn’t expected my grown-up boy scout to be so vocal, but it’s a pleasant surprise.
“ No, fuck, I’m gonna- ” He tugs on my hair and I come up, my lips swollen. He looks at me with glassy, half-lidded eyes. “You’ve gotta stop doing that, I’m gonna come in your mouth.”
“So do it.”
He frowns. “I can’t.”
“Why not? I’m giving you permission. I’ll jerk myself off while you do it, it’ll be hot.”
“Fuck.” He swallows like he’s mulling over the moral ramifications. “Okay.”
He lets his head fall back on the pillow. His cock throbbing and hot in my hand before I wrap my lips back around it.
Jerking myself off while I suck Austin is kind of a fantasy I’ve had for a while. Except we were always in the locker room and I was half-dressed in my Yale Blue jersey and he in his white and maroon away game one after we trounce them 5-0 and he takes his frustration out on me by fucking my mouth.
“ Oh fuck, I’m close, ” he whispers. I work double time on my own cock while keeping up the tempo on his. He starts to throb in my mouth and the dribbles of pre-cum explode into spurts until he’s painting the back of my throat.
I swallow the last drops while finishing myself off, stars exploding behind my eyes as I come over my chest.
Everything is still while we catch our breath. I come up onto the pillow next to his and chance a peek in his direction. When he looks at me, his hair is all fucked up and his cheeks are pink.
“Fuck,” he laughs.
“How’s your bisexual awakening going?”
“Stop calling it that.” He punches my arm, but it’s so feeble I have to laugh at him.