Save of the Game (16 page)

“And your father looked right at me and said, “Maura, tell the boy everything is okay.” And I almost did it, Ethan. I almost told you to go back to your room. To go check on your sisters. Something. But I thought about every woman in my family who’d told that lie, and how it wasn’t okay and it never would be. And I thought—” His mother started crying, but angrily dashed at the tears and kept talking. “I thought, ‘If I say it’s all right, then he’ll believe me. And what have I taught him? That his mother is weak, that she’s afraid?’ Your father hit me because
he
was weak. Because
he
was afraid. So I didn’t let him bully me. I fought back—just like I knew I wanted you to fight back. Or your sisters.”

Ethan stared hard at his hand, his tattooed knuckles clenched tight around the cigarette, and let her finish her story.

“So I stood up, and I said, ‘No. It’s not okay, Ethan.’ And then I told him to get the hell out of my house and leave me and my kids alone. And do you know what he did? He laughed and he said, ‘What are you going to do, Maura? You can’t do anything but have babies. Who’s going to take care of you and the kids?’ And you—” She laughed, even though her voice was thick with tears. “—you kicked him in the knee and said, ‘I will. Go away.’ And do you know why you did that?”

“Because my mom’s a badass?”

“Language,” she said, hitting him lightly on the arm. “But yes. You did it because I fought back. And I fought back, Ethan, because of you. You saved my life, and if you think I wouldn’t do whatever I could to save yours, you don’t know your own goddamn mother.”

Ethan looked at his mother for a long moment and took in her narrowed eyes and her chin tilted in defiance. It was like looking in a mirror.

All he said was “Language, Ma.” He reached out, pulled her closer, and buried his face in her shoulder. “I still wish you didn’t have to take his money.”

“Oh, Ethan,” his mother said, voice choked. “You’re as stubborn as I am. Don’t you understand that you mean more to me than anything? I can’t be ashamed of asking him for money, because I’m too proud of what it helped you to accomplish.” She pulled away, wiped her eyes, and leaned in to kiss his forehead. “Now do you know why I told you that story?”

Ethan did, but he mumbled something and stared at his shoes instead of owning up to it.

“Nice try. I told you because that boy in there, Ethan? He doesn’t feel sorry for you. He loves you, and he wants to do something to make you happy. Because of what you did for him.”

“I’m not this great of a person,” Ethan informed her, blushing hotly. “I’m really not.”

“You are. Don’t you say such a thing.” His mom leaned her head against his shoulder. “And stop smoking. I brought you into this world, and it was not so you could suck poison into your lungs to hurry your way out of it.” She turned her face up to look at him. He wondered how he’d never noticed they had the same eyes. “Now don’t you think there’s something you need to say to someone?”

“Yeah,” he said, and nodded. “There is.” Ethan put his arms around her and hugged her tightly. “Thanks, Ma. For everything.”

“Oh, stop,” she muttered, but hugged him back just as tightly. They sat like that for a long time, and finally she kissed him on the temple and went back inside. Ethan lit another cigarette and looked up when Riley came out to join him. He laughed because Riley trying to fold his tall frame out the window and onto the fire escape was sort of hilarious.

“Hi.” Riley gave him a cautious smile. “I bet you’re mad. I knew you would be.”

“Well, I was. But I shouldn’t be,” Ethan muttered, grabbed him, pulled him in, and kissed him. “Thanks. I’m sorry I acted like a dick.”

“It’s okay. I should have asked you, but I didn’t want you to say no.”

Ethan studied him and then knocked him with his shoulder. “So what if I did? You know, you can argue with me. You being quiet doesn’t mean you’re mad, and me being loud… well, that’s pretty much me all the time.” He grabbed Riley’s arm and pulled it around his shoulders. He was freezing. Jacksonville was thinning his blood.

Riley’s expression became way too serious. “I meant what I said, you know. I would give anything for what you have.”

“Well, you asked for it,” Ethan told him. “Ma’s gonna start sending you e-mails and asking if you’ve done your laundry or balanced your checkbook. I hope that doesn’t bother you.”

“Nope.” Riley gave him that small, happy smile that Ethan liked so much. “Will it bother you if I want to spend every holiday with your family?”

“Do I have to be there?”

Riley leaned in and bit him on the neck. “Yes. Sleeping on the floor wouldn’t be as much fun without you.”

“True,” Ethan said. He smiled and leaned in to kiss Riley and wished they could do something else. “But you know… maybe you should at least text your family and tell them Merry Christmas. Yeah?”

Riley had his stubborn look on again. “I’d rather just make out,” he groused, but he sighed. “I’ll text my sister. Happy?”

“Yup,” Ethan said and climbed in his lap.

“I said you two should talk, not end up in a Cinemax movie,” his mother called from the house.

Riley turned bright red, but Ethan had absolutely no sympathy for him. He wanted two sisters and a bossy mom? That’s what it was like.

“Hey,” Ethan said as they went back into the house. “You know when we go to that game tomorrow and you watch the Devils get their ass kicked by my team?”

“You mean, the game tomorrow where your team loses?”

“Whatever. The Devils suck. But after that maybe you could use your millions to get us a hotel room? I got one more Christmas present for you.”

Riley helped him in through the window. “Oh yeah?” he asked, looking intrigued. “What is it?”

Ethan leaned up and bit his ear gently. “Me,” he said and then pulled back with a very, very smug grin.

RILEY HAD
been nervous plenty of times—the first time he started in goal, his first shoot-out, the conference finals last year when they lost to the Renegades. He knew that nervous, aggressive feeling in his stomach. Like butterflies, but less cute. Angry moths maybe.

It wasn’t quite the same as being nervous about having sex with Ethan. Mostly because when he was in goal, Riley at least knew what he was doing. Theoretically.

“You’re—”

“Hunter, if you ask me one more time if I’m sure about this, I’m gonna punch you,” Ethan said from across the room. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked mad.

Riley sat on the bed, his hands pressed flat against the mattress on either side of him. He tried some breathing exercises. They didn’t work. “Then why are you all the way over there? Come over here. We can make out. We’re good at that.”

“
Just
make out? What is this? August?” Ethan’s chin lifted. “You want me, come get me. I’ve seen the porn you like. Don’t pretend you’re not into that.”

Riley put his face in his hands. “
Problem solved
. Who was I kidding?” He got up, walked across the room, grabbed Ethan’s arm, and pulled him toward the bed. “I want you to want it,” he said because, while he did like pinning Ethan to the bed and climbing on him, it wasn’t quite the same if Ethan wasn’t into it. “That’s kind of important.”

“Then make me, idiot,” Ethan said, and pushed his hips up so Riley could feel he was hard. He rolled his eyes. “You know how easy I am. Come
on
.”

Riley leaned down and kissed him, and he thought about saying something like “I’m going to fuck you so hard,” but he wasn’t sure he could say it without breaking into nervous giggles. And that was definitely not sexy.

Riley decided to distract Ethan with a blow job, because that had worked since the very first. He also liked the way Ethan moaned and writhed around on their king-size bed—the way he thrust his hips up and choked Riley and gasped an apology, even though he didn’t stop doing it.

When Riley reached down to stroke two fingers over him, Ethan tensed immediately, and Riley wasn’t sure what to do. Even if he didn’t like it, Ethan wouldn’t stop him—just on principle—and Riley couldn’t let him do that. “Ethan.”

Ethan pushed up on his elbows and looked down at Riley. “Yeah?”

Riley gently brushed over him again with his fingers. “Is this… um? Weird?”

“You’re gonna put your fingers in my ass, dude,” Ethan said. “Of course it’s weird. That’s why you should still be distracting me by sucking my cock. See? This really isn’t that hard, boyfriend.”

Riley pressed his face against Ethan’s stomach. “Maybe we should wait.”

“Maybe you should shut up,” Ethan chirped. “What happened to taking care of me? I need you to fuck me. So get to it.”

Ethan didn’t sound worried or unhappy, so Riley took a deep breath and went back to sucking Ethan’s cock. Then he tentatively pressed his fingers against Ethan and eased one inside.

It
was
weird, and doing it made Riley blush. But he took Ethan’s cock in his mouth again and deep-throated him. Those Internet videos he watched on sucking cock were turning out to be very helpful, indeed. It took him a few tries to get the hang of relaxing his jaw, but the noise Ethan made was totally worth the brief discomfort. While Ethan made happy, incoherent sounds, Riley gently began moving his finger in and out, glancing up to see if Ethan liked it.

“It’s not bad or anything,” Ethan reassured him. It was the least sexy thing he could have said.

“Good. I’m glad it’s tolerable.” Riley felt Ethan’s laugh as it vibrated through him. He pressed a kiss to the inside of Ethan’s thigh and added another finger.

He remembered something he learned and crooked his fingers slightly, so when he pulled them out, they brushed over something that made Ethan’s back snap up off the bed and make a noise that sounded like a howl.

Riley tried not to feel too smug about that and failed utterly.

With the help of some lube, Riley progressed to three fingers, and he stopped sucking him off just so he could watch Ethan react to what he was doing. Ethan writhed on the bed and cursed a lot. If there was anything weird about that, it was lost in how hot Ethan looked while Riley fucked him with his fingers.

Ethan’s eyes were all blurry as he blinked up at Riley, his face flushed as he gasped for breath. “Fuck me, Hunter. Come
on
.”

Riley might have made him wait for it, just for being so bossy, but he really wanted to know how all that tight heat would feel around his cock. So he bit Ethan on the thigh again and reached for the lube, still fucking him with his fingers while he slicked himself up.

It wasn’t the most graceful first time, and they had to stop and make some adjustments once or twice, but Riley was nothing if not patient. It felt amazing when he finally got inside Ethan, who was on his back with his legs pushed up to his chest, staring up at Riley with wide, hot eyes, and gripping Riley’s shoulders tightly.

It was obviously uncomfortable for Ethan at first, but he growled, “Don’t you dare stop. This is going to be great.” And all the trust Ethan was putting in him to make it good made Riley feel like he could do anything. It gave him the sense of control he felt in goal. He settled into a rhythm like he did when he had a perfect game and it was all instinct and movement. He watched and anticipated and trusted his body to do what it needed.

Maybe it was a little less graceful as it got harder and faster. Ethan moaned, and the headboard knocked against the wall as Riley found a rhythm and hit whatever that spot was that his fingers had found earlier. He managed to get one hand on Ethan’s cock and keep himself braced with his other hand. Ethan came with a shout, and his muscles gripped Riley’s cock so tightly that Riley lost his balance, collapsed on Ethan, and came—all at the same time.

Afterward, Ethan, sprawled naked in all his sweaty, sticky, tattooed glory, grinned lazily up at Riley and said, “I have good ideas.”

Riley snorted and hit Ethan on the arm. “We should shower.”

“Wait. Why?” Ethan put one arm behind his back and reached down to lazily stroke his cock with the other. “We have this room all night, Riles. You’re only going to fuck me once? Lame.”

“What if you’re sore, though?”

Ethan leveled a stare at him. “You remember our last four games? I got in a fight in every single one of them. This was like that but with an orgasm. Who cares if I’m sore?”

“I do,” Riley said, reaching out to run his fingers over Ethan’s mouth and jaw, down to his chest, and over his tattoos.

Ethan caught his hand with his own and laced their fingers together. He looked startlingly vulnerable. More so than Riley had ever seen. “It’s easier for me to say ‘I love you’ than to let you take care of me. You know that. Right?”

“Yeah.” Riley did know that. Ethan wasn’t exactly subtle. “I figured that out from the millions of hints you’ve given me.”

“If you say ‘problem solved,’ you asshole, I will punch you in the dick.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Riley said, but they both knew that was a lie.

ETHAN LEANED
against the boards, waiting his turn for their next drill and listening while Sloany and Becker debated who was hotter—Kesha or schoolgirl-era Britney Spears.

“Britney had on a schoolgirl skirt,” Becker said. “And she had a snake. That snake was badass.”

Ryan scoffed. “Dude, she didn’t have them both in the same video. You can’t bring a snake to school.”

“My vote is Kesha. Because of the hot pants. And the roller skates. And those, Becker,
were
in the same video. At least, I’m pretty sure they were.” Ryan nudged Ethan with his elbow. “What about you, Kennedy? Who’s hotter, Kesha in the hot pants, or Britney in the skirt?”

Ethan might be in love with—and happily enjoying getting fucked by—a guy, but no way was he unable to appreciate and ruminate over the very important question being posed by his teammates. “Well, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong about that video, Sloany, but I’m still gonna go with Kesha. The roller skates make me think about her playing hockey, and that’d be hot as fuck.”