Page 42 of Knocked Sideways

He knew he shouldn’t be embarrassed. There was nothing wrong with hooking up in a club, and there was nothing wrong with not hooking up in a club.

No, the embarrassing part was what he did next. He went back to the hotel, changed into sweats and a still-new-feeling Blizzards T-shirt, and then found himself knocking on Jed’s door while he told himself it was a totally normal friends kind of thing to do.

“Hi,” he said when Jed opened it.

Jed didn’t say anything in reply. He was in an undershirt and sleep shorts and was plainly ready for bed. And he just as plainly had no idea why Remy was standing at his door.

“I didn’t last too long at the club.”

Jed still didn’t say anything, so Remy just went for it.

“Look, can I come in?”

Jed held the door open wider and then closed it behind Remy, who sat down on the edge of the bed and rubbed the tender spot on his neck. And yeah, from the way Jed was looking at him with narrowed eyes, the guy at the club had probably left a hickey.

Great.

“It’s late, Remy. What d’you need?” Jed’s tone wasn’t as sharp as the words, though.

“I just—” Remy bit his lip and willed Jed to read his mind. It didn’t work. Jed’s expression was as opaque as ever. “You were right, okay? I tried hooking up, and it’s too soon. The guy was hot and seemed really into me, and I didn’t want it, so I left. I thought if you were up, we could, I dunno, watch a game or something. Like we usually do.”

Jed’s expression didn’t change.

“Never mind,” Remy said as Jed’s silence grew longer. “It’s weird, I guess. I’ll go.”

He stood up and started to move toward the door, but Jed stopped him with a brief touch to his arm that Remy felt all the way down to his toes.

“It’s fine. I was just watching that show Bakesy was talking about.”

“Yeah?” Now he wasn’t sure he should stay, but Jed was already moving to the other side of the bed. What the hell. This was what he’d wanted, so he might as well enjoy it. “Thanks. That sounds good. He’s been bugging me about giving it a try.”

Before Jed could change his mind, Remy settled in against the headboard, giving Jed what he hoped was a “this is cool, we’re just buds hanging out” kind of smile. Jed gave him that half-smile quirk of the lips that was so unfairly sexy that Remy thought he should probably get right back up again. He didn’t, though. Jed put his laptop down between them and restarted the show, and Remy concentrated on his breathing until he felt himself start to relax for the first time that night.

The next thing he knew, he was waking up with a stiff neck and raging morning wood. His pillow smelled like Jed, and he turned into it with his eyes still closed and hit something huge and warm and a little bit hard and a little bit soft all at the same time, and he nuzzled into it while he palmed himself because it felt so good.

And then he was being jostled fully awake and the heat disappeared and something thunked on the ground and he realized he wasn’t alone. He cautiously opened his eyes. Jed was getting up from the floor, turned away from Remy and swearing under his breath. What the hell? Remy pulled his hand off his dick like it’d caught on fire and stared at Jed’s broad back, trying to figure out what had just happened.

The pieces came together slowly. The club. The way he hadn’t been able to go through with hooking up last night, and also hadn’t been able to stop himself from showing up at Jed’s door. The way he’d settled in on Jed’s bed like he belonged there, and the way Jed had let him.

Okay.

He’d fallen asleep.

It happened.

Morning wood happened, too. He wasn’t going to freak out about it. Even if it looked like he’d humped Jed in his sleep and freaked him out so much that Jed had actually ended up on the floor, trying to get away from him. It was maybe the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to Remy, but he was going to be cool about it. He absolutely wasn’t going to make it even more awkward when he opened his mouth.

“Sorry about last night. I must’ve been more tired than I thought. And, you know, I’m really sorry about just now. I was asleep. I wasn’t⁠—”

“It’s fine.” Jed turned toward him. “You crashed almost immediately. Didn’t seem worth waking you up.”

“Thanks. I’ll get out of here. In, uh, just a second.” Despite his freak-out, Remy wasn’t in any state to roll over yet. Especially not with Jed’s eyes having drifted down Remy’s torso, like he was thinking about what was hidden underneath Remy’s body, too.

A bit abruptly, as if he’d realized what he was doing, Jed jerked his eyes up.

“I’m gonna take a quick shower.” Without waiting for a response, Jed headed into the bathroom. And if he shut the door more firmly than was strictly necessary, Remy wasn’t going to give him a hard time about it. He was relieved to have a moment to calm himself the fuck down.

He forced himself to think about the game the night before and how he hadn’t gotten any points, which helped enough with the morning wood situation that he could get up and make it back to his own room without giving anyone an eyeful. So that’s what he did, hoping that no one from the team was in the hall wondering what the hell he was doing sneaking out of their goalie’s room.