Page 36 of Hard Check
“It’s a raffle. You have better odds here than if you bought a lottery ticket.”
“It’s rigged. That guy already has two packs in front of him. How is that fair?”
“That’s Harold Kaminski. He’s eighty-two. He’s not cheating.”
“He looks shifty.”
Dawson took a drink to cover the laugh building in his throat. Leo was playing up the outrage, at least partly, turning it up because he’d figured out it got a reaction. But underneath it was something real: Leo was having a good time. Not enduring it. Not filing it away as another quirky small-town story to tell someone later.
When a woman two spots down won a package of bratwurst and screamed like she’d hit the lottery, Leo threw his head back and laughed. Loud enough that the couple next to them looked over. He didn’t notice, or didn’t care.
A few rounds later, the caller read Leo’s number.
Leo stared at the paddle, stared at the caller, and then turned to Dawson, looking like he’d been told he won the Calder. “Wait. I won?”
“Go grab your meat.”
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t that sort of bar,” Leo teased.
Dawson’s face grew hot. He swallowed hard, fighting the urge to look around again. His paranoia was really killing the vibe tonight. He gave Leo a playful shove. “Go, before they think you left and give Harold your prize.”
He made his way to the table with the crowd clapping. They handed him a ribeye package, and he held it up like a trophy. Dawson stood against the wall with his beer and watched, and the ache behind his sternum wasn’t new. He’d felt it watching Gunnar and Wes. Felt it on drives home from Milwaukee. But this was different because Leo was right there, five feet away, grinning at him over a package of ribeyes, and the ache wasn’t about wanting something he couldn’t have. It was about wanting something he might.
They stayed for another hour. Neither of them won anything else, which Leo claimed was proof the contest was rigged. The crowd thinned as the prizes ran out, and by nine, the bar had settled back into its normal weeknight hum. Leo was telling a story about his first road trip in the minors, something about a bus, a gas station, and a goalie who’d tried to cook ramen in a hotel coffee maker. Dawson was listening, close enough to hear him over the bar noise but careful to not give anyone the wrong—or right, he should say—impression.
“I should get you home,” Dawson said when the story wound down.
Leo looked at him. Something passed across his face, quick and unguarded, before he tucked it away. “Yeah. Okay.”
They walked to the truck in the cold. Leo carried the ribeyes like they were a prized possession and neither of them said anything until Dawson unlocked the doors. They climbed in, pulled their doors shut, and then it was just the two of them in the dark.
Dawson turned the key. The engine caught, headlights flooding the street. He went to put it in drive, and Leo said, “Wait.”
Dawson’s hand stopped. He turned to look at Leo in the dim glow of the dashboard.
Leo’s eyes were dark, and he was right there, inches away. “You owe me a do-over,” he said. “Remember?”
Dawson didn’t answer. He leaned across the console and kissed him.
Leo’s hand went into his hair. The angle was wrong, the console dug into Dawson’s hip, and he didn’t care. Leo kissed him back with intent, open-mouthed and certain, his other hand gripping the front of Dawson’s jacket and pulling him in. Everything outside the cab stopped mattering. Nothing left but Leo’s mouth, Leo’s hand in his hair, and the sound Leo made when Dawson’s thumb found the hinge of his jaw.
He pushed deeper. Leo pulled him in. Leo made a frustrated, needy sound against his mouth. Dawson almost laughed, which broke the kiss for half a second before Leo pulled him back. Leo bit his lower lip, sending a jolt straight to his dick. Dawson’s hand tightened on his jaw and his chest cracked wide. Want, but bigger. Permission, maybe. The feeling of doing something his body had always known how to do and his mind had rarely allowed.
Leo’s hand slid under his jacket, palm flat against his ribs, and the heat of it through his shirt made Dawson’s breath catch. Leo pressed in, fingers spreading, and Dawson wanted to let him. He wanted to let all of it happen, here in his truck on a side street in Port Haven, with the engine running and the windows fogging.
Then something cold cut through. They were two blocks from The Penalty Box. On Main Street. In his truck, which half the town could identify from a quarter mile away, with the windows fogging over from their lust.
He pulled back. Not far. Just enough to break the contact, his forehead against Leo’s, both of them breathing hard. Leo’s hand stayed on his ribs, steady.
“I can’t,” Dawson said. His voice was rough. “Not yet.”
Leo didn’t move. Didn’t pull away, didn’t push. His thumb traced a slow arc against Dawson’s ribs, and then he exhaled and let his hand drop. “Okay.”
“It’s not about not wanting to.”
“I know.” Leo sat back in his seat. His hair was wrecked, his mouth was red, and he looked like something Dawson wanted to take apart piece by piece. The thought sent heat through him so hard he had to grip the steering wheel.
“You know,” Leo said, looking out the windshield, “most guys who pull away also scoot back to their side of the car. You haven’t moved.”
