Page 130 of First Shift

I threaded my fingers through the short, messy curls at the back of his head. “Hey,” I murmured, my voice low so as not to disturb his grandma downstairs, though I didn’t think she had the best hearing. “Did you lock the door?”

He didn’t move for three long seconds, then he let out a groan. “No, but my mom won’t be home until seven, and Grandma isn’t going to come up here.”

“Mikey.” I jostled him, trying to shift his weight off me. “Go lock the door please.”

“You’re being paranoid,” he muttered, sliding off me and hauling himself off the bed with a grunt. He made his way toward the door, silvery light filtering in through the sheer curtains on his window. “Brr,” he trilled, rubbing his hands up and down his arms. “I forgot how cold it gets in here.”

He flicked the lock on the knob, then rushed back to bed, sliding under the quilt. He rolled onto his side, propping his head up on his hand and looking down at me.

“Tonight really has been one of the best nights of my life,” he whispered, trace the thumb of his free hand along my jaw. “Getting my first NHL goal. Bringing you here to meet my family. My friends loving you.”

I didn’t have a bad life, per se. Some people would probably even say I had a very good life. But I’d been dealt a few hard knocks these past few years, and it had made me guarded and overly cynical about things like friendship, family, and love—to the point where I’d managed to convince myself I didn’t need the first and probably wasn’t ever going to get the last.

But tonight, Mikey had given me all three, and he’d done it without asking for anything in return.

He was probably the best thing that’d ever happened to me.

“You know family and friends are complicated for me,” I said, swallowing down the lump blocking my throat. “I’ve never really been exposed to a family like yours, where the love is so … evident. I know you have some hangups about the money stuff—and I get that—but god, Mikey. Your mom and grandma love you so much. It just, like, oozes right out of them.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “No matter what shit was going on, I’ve never once doubted that.”

“I love your grandma. I kind of wish she was my grandma.”

The second the words were out of my mouth, I realized how they could be construed, and while my first instinct was to walk it back, I didn’t want to.

I swallowed again, pushing my fears aside, forcing myself to be brave. “I want your family to be my family, Mikey.”

“Yeah?” A soft, sleepy smile tugged at the corner of his lips.

“Yes.” I cupped the back of his neck and pulled him close, pressing my mouth to his. His tongue slid inside, twining with mine in a slow, lazy rhythm.

Eventually, Mikey drew back to trail barely-there kisses along my jawline, moving up to the sensitive spot right beneath my ear, his body warm against my cold skin. He worshiped every inch of my face—a feather-light press to my cheekbone, the bridge of my nose, the corner of my eye, and back down to the center of my chin.

Our dicks were hard, but neither of us made a move to strip out of our boxers. Before Mikey, kissing had always felt like a wet, clumsy thing I had to get through before the fucking. But with him, I couldn’t get enough of it.

When we finally came up for air, Mikey whispered, “I want that, too, Cal.”

It took me a beat to catch up. When I did, I opened my mouth to ask if he was sure, but he pressed his finger against my lips, shushing me. “I know you don’t want to come out—and I get that and respect it—but I want to be with you, like, forever. I don’t ever want anyone but you.”

A sudden bolt of clarity arced through me, a sense of rightness unlike anything I’d ever experienced before.

I wanted to marry him.

I’d spent my whole life terrified of what coming out would cost me. Walking into the Marauders locker room that first day, the idea of loving a man—of marrying that man—would have felt like career suicide.

But playing alongside two guys who’d done the big scary thing and had not only survived but were thriving had shown me it was possible.

I wasn’t so naive as to think it’d be all sunshine and rainbows. My dad would have a fucking aneurysm—the media would have a lot to say about his legacy and how I was tarnishing it—and the league would probably find a way to punish the Marauders for showing the world a different kind of NHL was possible, but if loving Mikey cost me everything, I’d pay the price a thousand times over.

I rolled him onto his back, the small bed creaking under our combined weight, and pinned him to the mattress, devouring his mouth and pouring every drop of love I had in me directly into him.

“I want you so bad,” I told him, rolling my hips against him, seeking friction. “Please fuck me.”

Mikey groaned, and pulled my mouth back down to his for a hard, possessive kiss. When he broke away with a gasp, his eyes found mine. “Can we⁠—”

“Anything,” I promised without needing to hear anything more. I’d slice open my chest and carve out my beating heart if that’s what he wanted from me.

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat as he swallowed, and I leaned down, dragging my tongue up to where his pulse thrummed wildly. I bit down, sealing my mouth around the skin there, sucking hard enough to guarantee a mark would show come morning.