Page 58 of Puck the Coach's Son
“You have to go home.”
“I know.”
His hand on my ankle tightens a fraction.
“You have to walk into your father's apartment and pretend nothing has changed.”
“I know.”
“And I'm going to text you again.”
My breath stops.
“Okay,” I say.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
His hand flexes on my ankle.
“Good boy.”
I let him call me good boy when it isn't about my father.
10
MADDOX
Isleep like I haven't slept since I was maybe twenty-four. I sleep face-down in my own bed with the window cracked and the cold air coming across the back of my neck and my phone on silent on the floor where I dropped it. I sleep for ten hours. I wake up at nine on a Saturday morning feeling like a man who got away with a thing, and that's not true. I haven't got away with anything yet, but the body doesn't know that. The body just knows it came in a mouth last night and the mouth belonged to the one it wanted.
I'm morning-hard. Twenty-eight-and-came-last-night hard. My body has a memory now of what it's coming back for. I put a hand under the sheet. I stop. I don't finish in bed this morning. The next time I come, I'm coming on or in Theo Laurent, and the body can wait until Monday.
Monday is practice.
Monday is a locker room. Paul on the bench. A team around us. Eight stalls of men between the shower stalls and the door. A twenty-year-old with green eyes whose jaw I've had my cock in, who's going to walk into that rink with a secret living under hisskin. I get up. I'm smiling. I don't catch myself. There's nobody here to catch.
It’s a Saturday without a game, so I do nothing.
I lift. I eat. I watch a game on mute. I text Lila to tell her I'm out of town for a month, which is a lie she'll accept. I do the same to Cody. I don't text Miranda because Miranda is a woman who will read the silence as respect. I clean the jacket. I air out the loft. I don't go by Harbor Arms. I don't go by the rink. I don't drive past Paul's building. I tell myself this is discipline. I know it's something else.
Saturday night I text Theo:Monday. After practice. Stay on ice last for stretches. Follow my lead in the shower. M
He replies inside ninety seconds:Yes
That's the whole text.Yes.No punctuation. No hesitation.Yes.I look at the word for a minute. I put the phone face-down on the counter. I go to bed early. I sleep eight hours.
Sunday, the same.
Monday morning I'm at the rink by seven. Practice is at eight. I lace my skates in a locker room half-full of men I like well enough and a couple I don't. I don't look toward the door. I know the door is what my body is watching for. I'm not giving my body that yet.
I hear him come in.
I hear the door, I hear the greeting Phoenix gives him,Laurent, and the silent greeting Theo gives Phoenix, which I know is a small nod. I hear Theo's bag hit the bench at his stall. I don't look up. I tie my laces. I'm very good at tying my laces. Phoenix, across the room, clocks my non-looking and goes back to taping his stick.
I wait a full minute.
Then I look up.
