Page 63 of Scoring Chance

“You can stop sucking each other off,” Griffin says.

I fumble my stick out of my hands, sending it bumping into the head of Hank, seated in front of me.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, Hank.”

Tanner lets out a laugh, but I detect the red lingering on his cheeks.

“You did great out there. Don’t let it get to your head. Next Sunday is a blank slate,” Bill says as he walks his bare ass into the showers.

“Hey.” I hold out my fist to Tanner once the other guys go back to getting undressed and heading into the shower. “We did good.”

He gives it a pound. “Dynamic duo pounces again.”

“Are we, uh…”

“Good? Yeah.” There’s a definitiveness to his nod. Tanner wouldn’t be able to lie about something like that. But it seems all it took was a little hockey to fix the weirdness.

He peels off his pads, tugging his shirt up and over his head.

I don’t mean to look. I really don’t.

But.

There’s a moment when the shirt sticks, and his torso flexes as he yanks it free. The stretch of his arms. The curve of his back. That thick scar above his hip from where he slipped fixing the roof years ago.

My mouth goes a little dry.

I am an admirer of the human body—Tanner’s especially.

I look away and continue undressing. I yank my sweaty undershirt off, then my pants. I love hockey, but am so ready not to smell like a gym sock anymore.

Then I look back.

Because he’s standing there in nothing but compression shorts, damp curls stuck to his neck, his skin flushed from the game, and my brain short circuits. Completely. Spectacularly.

Is he...?

Wait.

Is he looking at me too?

I catch him, just for a second, glancing over.

Not a long look. Not obvious.

But his eyes sweep over me—over my chest, my arms, down to the towel slung around my waist—and then dart away like they weren’t there at all.

Except they were.

And I know it.

My stomach flips.

I head to the showers, hoping the hot water can cool the thrum low in my gut.

But the whole time I’m under the spray, I’m wondering what would happen if I turned around, if he came in, if we forgot all this bullshit and did it again. Throwing Tanner against the shower wall, kissing the salty sweat off his neck, hearing that goddamn moan again.