Chapter Fourteen

March

They didn't talk about it when Ryan got down on his knees to blow Eric in the shower in the morning, and they didn't talk about it when Ryan made him breakfast afterward. Ryan didn't want to push too much. He knew it was a big decision and Eric probably needed the space to think through it all on his own. Ryan had a lot of things to think about, too, but they were nebulous, unformed thoughts knocking around in his head like ghosts.

It was the rare Saturday where they didn't have a game or travel or any practices scheduled in the morning, the kind of day that felt like a holy grail. On a normal morning, Ryan assumed that they probably would've spent the day together. Maybe they would have gone out to lunch or walked around the Commons or another park. The spring weather wasn't warm, exactly, but the bitterness of the winter was starting to fade along with the new plants unfurling in the sunlight.

But it wasn't a normal day. He watched Eric eat his eggs and toast with his usual single-minded focus, and said, "So are you gonna take some time to go back to your apartment and figure this out?"

"Yes," Eric said. He sounded grateful, and he looked exhausted, the dark circles that he always had under his eyes standing out a little starker this morning. He wasn't wearing his glasses yet, and his chin was shadowed with the hint of the stubble that had already started growing in overnight. "I have to think some things through and make some plans and some phone calls, probably."

"Okay," Ryan said, trying not to let any hint of emotion bleed through into his voice. He didn't want Eric to feel like he couldn't take the job, just because Ryan would miss the hell out of him. Just because Ryan had, what? Fallen in love with him?

Oh, shit. Ryan had fallen in love with him.

Somehow, in between dealing with the team and his divorce and arguing and sleeping together and meeting their families, Ryan had fallen in love with Eric Aronson.

He wanted to laugh. It was so fucking ridiculous, the whole situation. Part of him wanted to cry, because he'd only realized it right as things were potentially ending. And he couldn't even tell Eric now, because he didn't want him to feel obligated to turn the job down, to stay in Boston with Ryan, when he had all of the opportunities in the world elsewhere.

Ryan swallowed hard; of course Eric noticed. He raised his eyebrows. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Ryan said, "yeah, I'm fine."

Eric was still looking at him with that searching, questioning look he had sometimes, the one that made players in full hockey gear wilt on the bench when they'd fucked up. Ryan had a different reaction, of course: getting half-hard, visible through the boxers. His body's stupid, automatic response broke the tension.

Instead of asking him another question, Eric laughed and said, "Oh, I see how it is."

Ryan lifted his chin, and said, "Well, what are you going to do about it?"

What Eric did about it was exactly what Ryan wanted, and by the time they were ready to say goodbye for the day, Ryan felt lazy and sated and, if not exactly better about the whole situation, then at least distracted. He was probably going to have to deep-clean the kitchen counter later, but it was worth it.

After Eric left, Ryan settled in for what he planned to be a quiet day, cleaning his apartment, going over tape and taking notes, and watching scouting reports from the staff for the next game they were playing, on the road in St. Louis. He was wiping down the counter again when his phone buzzed in his pocket, and he took it out to see who was calling. And then his stomach sank, because of course it was his fucking father.

Ryan should have just let it ring. He should have sent it straight to voice mail. He already felt like an exposed nerve, there was no way that any of it was going to go well.

"Ryan," his dad said as soon as he picked up, "we need to fucking talk about the way you've been handling things."

Ryan closed his eyes, rubbed his eyelid with his thumb. "Oh, we do, huh?"

"I'm not happy with you. At all. And neither is anyone else in the family. I know you have the day off. You will come for lunch."

He couldn't help it: he laughed, which was exactly the wrong thing to do. He could almost hear his father vibrating with rage on the other line. "Is that an order, Dad?"

"Yes," Mark Sullivan said, and hung up.

Ryan looked at his phone. He could do what he had always done, which was avoid the confrontation. What was his father really going to do if he just didn't show up? Rage impotently at home. Or probably find some kind of a way to show up later, either at practice or the games, and make everything awful again.

The thing Ryan was learning, the older he got, was that some problems could be solved with kindness. Some problems could be solved with patience. But the really thorny ones, the really deep, long-standing ones...running away from them forever wasn't going to fucking cut it. Especially because Eric wasn't always going to be there to fight his battles for him.

Ryan took a deep breath and went to get ready for that goddamn lunch.

For such an unassuming house, it was funny how deep-seated the feeling of dread in his stomach always was when he started walking up the sidewalk to the front stoop. It was like somehow the front face of the home personified everything he hated about going home, the way the shutters and door looked like a leering face. Some indie director could probably make an excellent horror film about that house, Ryan thought, as he rang the doorbell.

"You're in for it now," Chelsea said, when she answered. She looked the way she always did when Dad was in a mood: harried and worried and drawn. For the first time in a long time, Ryan wondered whether she regretted marrying Mark Sr. so young. Whether she ever thought about trying to leave. She'd been barely out of college when they got married, and the career in fashion design she'd been trying to pursue had abruptly ended.

Ryan exhaled, suddenly feeling very tired. "Yeah, I got that impression from the phone call."

"I tried to tell him how busy you are," she said, as he followed her through the hall to the kitchen, "but you know how he gets when he's in a mood."

"Yes, I do," Ryan agreed. "What's for lunch, Chels?"

"Subs from Olympic. I'm sorry. I tried to tell him you like that one specific grinder, but..."

"He's making a point. Don't worry, I won't be staying long."

"Oh, god. Ryan, please, don't..."

"I'm sorry, I just don't think that this is going to go very well. You know."

"Shit," Chelsea muttered.

"Sorry," Ryan said, again.

She sighed. "It's fine. I should have expected this when he was going on about inviting you. The two of you have always been oil and water."

Ryan had always thought this was an interesting way of saying that his father was an asshole and Ryan had done his best to avoid him, but he supposed that when you were living in a house like his father's, you had to tell yourself stories to make it tolerable. Ryan had certainly done enough of it before he had been able to escape to college.

Even though the lunch was already set up in the kitchen—Chelsea always made a point of arranging meals on the actual plates and setting a table, even if it was the kind of casual takeout that you could eat straight from the wrapper—Dad was still where he always was, holding court in the living room in his recliner. At least none of Ryan's brothers were over today; he wasn't sure whether he'd have the spine to say the things he had to say if they were all there watching him. As it was, his stomach was doing nervous little flip-flops, the same way it had before each of the drafts he'd attended and never been chosen.

"Ryan," Dad said, when he saw Ryan enter the room. "Sit down, boy. We're going to have a little talk about the way you've been treating your family."

"How have I been treating the family?" Ryan asked. Even now, it was easy to keep the emotion out of the words. His father wasn't interested in what Ryan had to say, he was only interested in the setup for the diatribe, which Ryan had clearly provided him.

And he went off .

It was the kind of rant that had spittle flecking his lips, face brilliant red like the thin capillaries running beneath the skin were in danger of bursting. Ryan let it wash over him like a tsunami, or an explosion. A shock wave.

Ryan barely even heard most of it, tuned in and out as Dad kept talking. "—and I put the fucking time and money into your training even though you were always a fucking runt, even though you had no chance at making it anywhere, I believed in you and pushed you to be better when no one else would—"

At this point in his life, Ryan wasn't even offended at the revisionist history: Dad hadn't ever actually supported him. He'd paid for the gear, sure. Driven Ryan to practices. Screamed at him whenever he hadn't backchecked hard enough or put the puck in the back of the net often enough. Ryan had learned the hard way how to be better than everyone else: it was partially to compensate for his size, but partially to get his dad off of his back. Dad would never see it that way. He would never have let Ryan quit, but he wanted the credit for the rest of it, too.

In past years, Ryan would have waited until Dad was finished ranting. He was half considering doing that, now, too, until his father's meandering train of thought had shifted from Ryan's failings to the way that the league itself was going down the shitter. He was working himself up more and more, and Ryan wiped his sleeve across his face to clear away the droplets of spit. Dad was standing now, looming over Ryan and ranting about Morin and Sato with the Constitution and Campbell and Walker with the Liberty, awful shit about how affirmative action was harming the quality of play and—

"Dad, you know the Cons won the Cup last season and Morin scored the game winner, right? You know Campbell almost single-handedly backstopped the Libs to two Cups, right?"

"Shut the fuck up ," Dad said, his voice loud enough now that Ryan could hear Chelsea drop something in the kitchen. "You know as well as I do that the league is headed in the wrong direction. It's on your fucking staff, too, with that goddamn Jew on the bench—"

"Hey," Ryan said, sharply. "Stop it."

Dad stared at him like he'd never seen him before. "What did you just say to me?"

"I said stop it . Shut up , Dad."

"Where the fuck do you get off talking to me like that?" Dad demanded.

Ryan stood up, too. His father still loomed over him, even when Ryan was standing. He was about Eric's height, well over six feet. And he was imposing with the bulk of a life spent playing sports and then letting the underlying muscle go to seed. Ryan was the same as he'd always been, short and barrel shaped. No matter how strong he'd been, when his father stood like this, he always felt like a small child again, cowering in his mother's shadow, as if she could somehow protect him from the wrath he knew was coming. But he wasn't a child anymore. He was a grown man, and he would stand his ground.

"Because I'm fucking tired, Dad. Because you're a horrible fucking person and I'm tired of listening to you. That's what I came here to tell you. I'm through with this goddamn family unless you can get your shit together. Unless you can learn, somehow, to stop being such assholes. I truly don't believe you've got it in you to figure it out, so until then, leave me the fuck alone. Don't come to practices. Don't come to games. If you try to talk to me, I'll have you escorted out. If you try to call me, I'm going to block your number. I'm fucking finished , Dad. I'm tired. I'm goddamn disgusted. And if you ever, ever talk about Eric like that again, I'll make sure you never set foot in the Spectrum again."

Mark stared at Ryan like he'd never seen him before. His face was mottled red and white, like he would have gone pale if he hadn't been so apoplectically flushed with rage beforehand. For a second, Ryan thought that Mark was going to hit him, or try to. He tensed for the blow that never came.

That was the thing: he always knew, growing up, it could have been worse. Some of his friends had dads that used a belt on them after bad games. Dad had never done that. He'd never laid a hand on Ryan. He'd just yelled. Or stopped speaking to Ryan entirely. But ultimately, it had always been the guilt of knowing it could have been worse that kept him coming back.

It wasn't until now, until he was middle-aged himself, responsible for kids as young as he'd been once, that he was starting to realize just how truly vile his father had been.

How fucking sad his childhood had been.

"So that's it?" Mark snapped. "You're choosing that—that fucking Aronson over your own goddamn family."

"Yes," Ryan said. He felt, weirdly, calm. As calm as he'd ever felt before a big game. As calm as he'd been before Dallas retired his jersey or being inducted into the Hall of Fame. "And he's a better man than you could ever dream of being."

Mark lurched forward, and for another brief second, Ryan thought he was going to throw a punch, or try to push him back in the chair, or something insane. He didn't. He stood there, frozen and tense, panting with anger the same way a dog that had run too far and too fast would pant. Ryan could see his tongue through his open mouth, red and obscene.

"If you take one step out of this room, I'm going to disown you, boy," Mark growled.

"Good," Ryan said, simply. "I always stayed away from home, from you. I wasn't here for Mom when she got sick because I was fucking scared of you. But I'm not scared of you anymore. You can yell, you can disown me, you can do whatever you fucking want. But I'm telling you, right now, that this is a choice I am making. And you? You can go fuck yourself."

And he turned and left.

He could hear his father screaming at him as he left, but it was just background noise, like any kind of television static.

"I'm sorry, Chelsea," Ryan said, as she trailed after him toward the door. "He's really going to be in a mood tonight."

"It's fine," she said, smiling tightly. There wasn't any humor behind the expression. "It was a long time coming, really. I'm...sorry, too, Ryan. About the way things went. You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes," Ryan said. "You know I don't blame you for any of it. Take care of yourself, okay? If you ever...you know. You've got my number."

Chelsea looked at him, her wide blue eyes as blank as a frozen-over lake. She was a beautiful woman still, even though living with his father had carved deep lines into her forehead and mouth that she'd tried to smooth out with Botox and fillers. "Don't worry about me," she said, and shrugged. "I'm used to it."

"You don't have to be, though."

Chelsea laughed then, and leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. "You were always an idealist, you know. Go, Ryan. I'm sure you've got a million better places to be than Southie."

The feeling Ryan had when he shut the door behind him was like nothing he'd ever felt in years. A combination of fear—the finality of the way he had ended things with his father—and relief—the finality of the way he had ended things with his father. Somehow, it felt like he should have been shaking, but his footsteps were steady and his back straight as he walked back toward his car. It had been an awful confrontation, but he felt surer about himself, about things in general, than he had in years.

Instead of heading back to his apartment, he drove farther south, toward Roslindale. He hadn't been down that way in ages, mostly because he had no reason to. The only reason to visit was the Mt. Calvary Cemetery, where his mother was buried, and he hadn't been to visit her grave in years. He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said that he hadn't come home because he'd been afraid of his father. And he'd avoided his mother's grave out of guilt for decades afterward. But if he was facing up to his fears, he had to face up to her, too.

The Mt. Calvary Cemetery was one of the few large Catholic cemeteries that were still active in the Boston area, and it wasn't anything particularly special. There were trees lining the fences and the roads that wound through the extensive grounds, but once you got inside, it was mostly just rows and rows of graves lining the flat ground, browning in the spring thaw. A stone chapel, door locked against intruders. Some larger, ostentatious stones.

Katherine Sullivan's grave wasn't anything like that. It was a simple, small headstone that listed her birth and death dates. It said, BELOVED DAUGHTER, SISTER, WIFE, AND MOTHER .

Ryan still remembered, like it was yesterday, standing by the graveside and listening to the way that the dirt sounded when it fell on top of the coffin. He had helped the cemetery workers shovel some of it in. It was the finality of the noise that had stuck with him, back then, the hollow patter of rocks and dirt on wood. He hadn't gone back since, and it looked like no one else had, either. The cost of the plot had included perpetual care, so the grass was weeded and mowed the same as any of the other graves.

But no one had left her flowers. No one had left anything.

As he'd walked, Ryan had his hands shoved in his coat pockets, and he felt his knuckle bump up against something flat and hard. He pulled it out, frowning, until he realized it was the pebble he'd picked up on the grounds of Eric's old synagogue in Montreal. It was round and flat and white, and he thought about Eric picking up pebbles in every city they stopped in, about Eric on his knees talking to his father at the gravesite.

Ryan took a deep breath and rested the pebble on top of his mother's stone. He crouched down to grave level, ran his hand over the top of the headstone. "Hi, Mom." It sounded stupid at first, to talk to a grave. Eric had done it as naturally as he did anything else, but he'd been doing it for years. Ryan's tongue felt awkward and ill at ease, but he forced himself to keep going anyway. "I'm really... I'm sorry I haven't been to visit you in a long time. I'm sorry I wasn't here for you before you died. I didn't know how sick you were. And that's not an excuse. I hope you understand why I stayed away then...and then after that, I just felt so fucking guilty. And that's also not an excuse."

His brothers had always looked more like their dad: big and burly and intimidating, blue-eyed and black-haired. Ryan had been the only one who resembled Katherine. They were both small, had the same warm brown eyes and stubborn cleft chins, the same smile, the same thick brown hair. Sometimes, Ryan wondered whether that was the reason his father had hated him so much, especially after she'd gotten sick. He remembered being called a sissy, a mama's boy, all kinds of ridiculous shit. In retrospect, it was so fucking stupid that his father—the man who had married her —viewed that as an insult. Because Ryan had loved her, so stupidly much.

"Uh. I'm back home now, maybe for good, if I sign this extension. I'm coaching the Beacons. I know you thought Shannon was right and that I should give up on hockey, but I've made a pretty good career out of it. I've had some really good memories. I met some really great people. Uh, and about that. Shannon divorced me, and I'm probably more okay with that than you ever would've guessed. We weren't right for each other, even if we both realized it too late. And I met someone else, and he's really...pretty fucking amazing. His name is Eric. I think you'd like him. Maybe. I hope. He's a good man, even if he pretends that he's not. He might be moving away soon, and things might be changing, and I don't know how to feel about any of it.

"But it's partially because of him that I got the courage to tell Dad to fuck off. And I did do that, did you know? Told Dad to his face to shut the fuck up and fuck off and I... I wasn't sure what to expect. I might not ever be able to go home again. But I'm okay with that. It's going to be pretty lonely here, if Eric ends up taking this job, but it was lonely before that, even when I did go home. You know I never really fit in there. For whatever reason. And I'm starting to accept that...maybe it's better for me that I didn't.

"So, uh, that's all the things I wanted to tell you. I have a really good thing with the team and with Eric. And I'm not sure how long it's all going to last. But I'm so fucking happy that I've had it, even for this short time. And I'm sorry I haven't been to visit more often. I promise I'm going to be better from now on. I miss you so much."

He touched his fingers against the stone he'd placed on top of her grave, took a deep breath. "I love you, Mom."

Strangely, he felt better as he walked back to the car. Eric had the right idea, about the regular visits, about leaving the pebbles. He wondered what Eric was doing now. Whether he'd accepted the job. Whether he was putting in his two weeks' notice with Joe Conroy. Ryan could feel his shoulders hunch forward, defensively. He felt exhausted, like he'd been bag skating himself for hours.

It was time to go home.

Eric couldn't remember the last time he'd been so eager to talk to anyone as he was taking the stairs of Ryan's apartment two at a time. He'd piggybacked into the building on the heels of a girl who lived on the first floor and who'd obviously recognized him, which was an issue for another day. Right now, he had to talk to Ryan. Immediately. The apartment door was shut when Eric got there, and as he pounded his fist against it, he realized he probably should have called first to make sure that Ryan was home.

Ryan opened the door almost immediately anyway, his whiskey-brown eyes concerned. "Eric? What the hell are you doing?"

"Sorry, sorry, I was in such a hurry to talk to you about this, I didn't think to text."

"Actually, there's something I wanted to talk to you about, too."

They stood staring at each other in the doorway for a second. Ryan looked so fucking good to him, just then, in his ratty sweatshirt and joggers and his eyes red-rimmed, that it was difficult not to just grab him and push him back toward the bedroom.

Instead of doing any of that, Eric said, "You go first."

Ryan said, "Do you want to come in, though?"

It was strange how tentative it felt, crossing the threshold. He had no idea what to expect, coming from Ryan. Ryan held out his hand, and Eric took it. Ryan's fingers were cold, and Eric wondered where he'd been and what he'd been doing. But he didn't ask. Let Ryan drag him back toward the IKEA couch they'd bought out of sheer necessity and that Ryan had spent several hours putting together with only an Allen key and sheer stubbornness.

"Look," Ryan said, when they were sitting. "I love you. I'm not saying that because I want to hold you back or anything. I want you to have this job if you want it, because I love you. Like, I'm really kind of insanely in love with you, actually."

Eric could feel his heart pounding in his ears, the same way it always had when he was playing, when someone had said something shitty to him and he was so fucking furious about it that he felt at any minute that his head was going to explode. Except instead of fury, it was with an emotion that he couldn't entirely describe. Relief and happiness and sheer fucking disbelief. "You're in love with me ?"

"Is that a problem?" Ryan demanded, like he was ready to fight about it, and Eric felt momentarily overwhelmed with all of the stupid shit that was going on in his head.

"No. No, kind of the opposite, actually," Eric said, his breath a little shaky. Ryan's hands were still in his, trembling a little. "So what I wanted to tell you was that I love you. And that's probably half of why I turned the job down."

"...you what?"

"I turned the job down. Partially because of you."

"Eric, no, that's not what I wanted you—really, if you want the job, I need you to take it. I'll be okay without you here. Don't give up this opportunity just for me."

Eric's chest was going to burst again, looking at Ryan's worried face and ridiculously earnest expression. This was how he always was, always had been: wearing his heart on his sleeve even while prepared for someone to stomp on it. "No, but that's exactly it. I want to stay because of you. There's the whole Railers thing. I'm not going to compromise my morals to get ahead in life, I've already decided that. But I want to stay here with you . We're building something special here together. And I don't want to give that up, not yet."

"Eric..." Ryan said, and his face was almost comical, how quickly the expressions cycled through it, confusion and acceptance and joy. He was smiling, now, so fucking wide that Eric could've easily stuck all five of his fingers in there. Not that he was going to do it, of course. Not yet. "You're really turning it down? For me?"

"For us." Ryan's fingers were gripping Eric's hands, so hard it hurt. "Like I said. I really think...not this season, not next season, maybe not even the season after that. But this is what kind of environment I want to coach in. These are the players I'm happy to know. I just want to build something special together. I know we can."

"I don't really know what to say," Ryan admitted, "except that I'm just really fucking happy. I thought I was going to lose you."

"You can't get rid of me that easily."

And then, before he could even think about it further, they were kissing. He wasn't sure whether he had leaned forward first or whether Ryan had, but it didn't matter. There was Ryan's mouth, familiar and warm and giving under his. There were Ryan's eyes, already closed, his eyelashes thick against his cheek. There were Ryan's hands, slipping up to take either side of Eric's face in his hold. There was Ryan's tongue, insistent and hot and wet against Eric's.

When they finally pulled away for air, Ryan said, "I told my dad to fuck off. It didn't go that great. But I did it."

Eric, who had been trying to figure out how he was going to maneuver Ryan back toward the bedroom, laughed. It wasn't what he'd been expecting, but it was just...they'd both grown so much, just from knowing each other.

"Look at you, baby," he drawled, "first you're waiving guys, then you're standing up to your dad? What got into you?"

"I just had, I don't know. Enough. There's a time and a place for it," Ryan said. He'd shifted closer on the couch, so he was practically sitting in Eric's lap. It was easy to gather him in for another kiss. "And anyway, there's something else I'd like to get into me."

"Smooth, Sullivan. Really smooth."

"Thanks, I thought so," Ryan said, his hand slipping underneath Eric's shirt to touch his abs, the hair trailing down them, to rest on his hip underneath the waistband of his sweats. "I'm serious, though. It's been a long fucking day and I want to—I don't know."

"You?" Eric asked. He was teasing, both the words and the fact that he wasn't giving Ryan what he wanted, which was for Eric to touch him. He could feel Ryan practically vibrating waiting for the inevitable. "Ryan Sullivan, not knowing what he wants?"

Ryan flushed, which was both funny considering everything they'd done together since they hooked up the first time, and completely adorable. "I know what I want, I just don't know how to say it."

"Try," Eric said. He wasn't really teasing anymore. It was mostly because he couldn't hide the emotion in his voice, as embarrassing as that was. "If you want something, tell me."

"It's stupid, but I can't stop thinking about it, really. You know, we never actually ever talked about what this was. With us," Ryan said. He looked up at Eric, face serious, searching. "I know you're staying. And that's all I can ask for. But I want—more. Maybe it's a little fast, maybe it's not, but I've never been the kind of guy to not be sure of things. And I'm sure of this. I'm sure of you ."

Still sitting in Eric's lap, Eric could feel Ryan's whole body tense, like he was expecting anything except the only thing Eric could do at this point in the cycle of knowing and falling in love with Ryan Sullivan, which was agree to give him anything he wanted.

"Are you asking me to be your boyfriend or something?" he managed, mostly because his mouth felt too dry, and his default reaction to these sorts of things was to make a joke of it.

"We're too old for that shit, Eric. But my something. Partner. I don't know."

"Partner?" Eric tested it out. It still sounded awkward and strange, but Ryan in his arms felt familiar and easy, and that was the important thing. "I'm giving you a hard time—yes, I know, I'm going to give you a really hard time in a minute—but if that's what you want, if that's what would make you happy? You can call me whatever you want. And I'll be there."

Ryan smiled suddenly, so broad and proud that Eric could see the flash of his teeth. This time, he did shove his fingers in there, choking back a laugh at the way Ryan's eyes flew open in shock, then lidded when he realized what Eric had done. Groaned when Ryan's hot tongue slid around the pads of his first two fingers, a parody of the way Ryan would have sucked his dick. Even that sent a jolt of pleasure right down his spine, all of his nerves tingling in awareness, like they were specially attuned to the tiniest movements Ryan made.

"You want to take this to the bedroom?" Eric asked, because he really didn't want to try fucking on Ryan's terrible IKEA couch.

"Mhm," Ryan said, the sound buzzing around Eric's fingers. He pulled away far enough so that he could actually talk again, shifted himself so he was sitting on the couch again and Eric could move freely. "And that's not the only thing I want."

"A hard time?"

"Holy shit, he pays attention," Ryan said, laughing. Despite the laugh, his eyes were huge, pupils dilated, and he licked his lips when he looked down and saw the outline of Eric's erection beneath the sweats. "A hard time. Fuck me until I can't remember my own name. You know the drill."

"Pretty tall order," Eric said, sliding off of the couch and holding out his hand. Ryan took it, so Eric pulled him to his feet. "Hope you're not disappointed if I can only get you to temporary paralysis, eh?"

"I'll withhold criticism until afterward," Ryan said, lifting his chin.

In Ryan's shitty little bedroom, with its low ceilings and dark windows and cramped furniture, Eric watched hungrily while Ryan stripped off his shirt and then shucked his pants and boxers, eyes hot and intent. It was kind of insane, how perfect he looked naked, like he could step back on the ice tomorrow and still hold his own against guys half his age. Short but solid. The gray hair spread across his chest, down his arms and thick thighs. And lower. Heavy balls and his thick cock, curving upward, hard just thinking about what Eric was going to do to him.

Goddamn, it was ridiculous that Eric got to see him like this, that no one else did anymore.

Eric followed suit, hastily wriggling out of his shirt and pants while Ryan pulled the blankets back on the bed. Somehow, his apartment always felt ten degrees colder than it did outside, at least until they warmed themselves up another way, and Eric was happy enough to pull them back up once the bed was shifting under the weight of both of their bodies.

It got desperate and messy very quickly, Ryan moaning when Eric dug his teeth into his shoulder; Ryan's hands scrabbling along his back; Ryan's mouth opening eagerly under Eric's; Ryan's dick leaking in Eric's hand; Ryan's breath panting raggedly in Eric's ear while Eric tried to keep it together long enough to say something coherent. He wasn't succeeding at all. His chest felt like it was going to burst right open and the words coming out of his mouth were an unorganized mess, a stream-of-consciousness narration about how good Ryan felt under him and also, unfortunately, how excited he was to continue coaching with him.

"Wait, what?" Ryan gasped. His mouth was hanging open, his eyes unfocused, and his hips were still making aborted little thrusts into Eric's fist. "Coaching? That's what you're going with?"

"Pretty sure you're into it," Eric mumbled into his neck. "I was looking into new papers about neuroplasticity yesterday..."

Ryan groaned again then, his eyes slipping shut. "Jesus, you know just what to say to me."

"I thought we could maybe switch up the positioning for the drills for the F1 facing a defensive-zone swarm—"

"Stop," Ryan said, his voice trembling on a laugh. "I think if you keep going like that I might actually come while you're doing it and I—I have to actually lead those drills at practice, Eric, please —"

"You'll have to figure out another way to shut me up, then," Eric said, his weight supported on his hands, his body bracketing Ryan in.

"Suck my dick, then."

"That's what you want?"

"Yes," Ryan breathed.

Eric obliged, pushing the blankets back again so he wouldn't get stuck underneath them. Ryan shivered in the chilly air of his bedroom, nipples tight and hard, and Eric couldn't resist pinching and twisting one of them before he shifted down Ryan's body. The little squawk of surprise and shock was absolutely worth it. So were Ryan's hands, twisting in Eric's curls, when he had gotten far enough down that Ryan could reach. Ryan's fingers, gripping tight, when Eric ran his tongue up the length of his cock, not quite taking it in his mouth.

"Come on ," Ryan mumbled, impatient and demanding, hands trying to shove Eric's head down.

"When I'm ready," Eric said pleasantly, rewarded by the answering groan of frustration. But Ryan knew by now that he couldn't win these things, and he'd have to be patient, no matter how much he hated it. Eric could feel his fingers flexing, open and closed, as he tried desperately to hold himself back.

He'd already put his glasses on the little side table, so when he took Ryan in his mouth, he pressed his forehead up against Ryan's stomach to feel his abs flexing as he tried not to thrust up too far. It was funny: he'd had sex with a fair amount of men and women over the years, and it had never been like this. He'd never felt the stupid swoop in his stomach, waiting to see the reactions he could drag out of Ryan, with his tongue and with his mouth. It had never been this satisfying to reduce anyone to a groaning mess, to feel anyone's thighs clenched around his ears.

Maybe that's what falling in love got you.

He certainly wasn't complaining.

Neither was Ryan, head thrown back against the pillows, teeth digging into his lip, eyes screwed shut. He was mumbling incoherent encouragement and exhortation, his heels digging into Eric's spine. "Jesus," he gasped, "fuck, your mouth is insane, Eric, please—"

By the time that Eric had slicked up his fingers and gotten them worked inside of Ryan's body, clenched hot and tight around them, he couldn't even keep it together enough to tease. He felt like he had been infected with Ryan's earnestness, his honesty. All he could do was look down at him, the vulnerability of his flushed cheeks and glassy eyes, his ragged breathing and the way he kept saying, "Come on, come on, come on, please ," in the cadence of a prayer, and know that it was reflected in his own face.

"How do you want to do this?" Eric managed.

"I don't care," Ryan panted, "I just wanna be able to kiss you when I come."

Eric's heart did another one of those stupid lurches. "Okay," he said, "get up here."

The way they fit together was familiar, but never anything he could take for granted. Ryan, in his lap, stubbly cheek against Eric's as he lowered himself down. It was too much and not enough, and it was Eric's turn to hold himself back, to do his best not to rush. It didn't take long: Ryan was so worked up from all of it, from the stupid shit Eric had been whispering in his ear, that it was almost easy.

"God," Ryan managed. His voice was strained, stretched almost as tight as he felt around Eric. "I love your cock."

Eric thought for a second about the first time he'd met Ryan as a colleague and not a player, his first instinctive reaction had been goddamnit, he's hot and the sort of furious hatred born of jealousy and frustration. And now, all he could think was goddamnit, he's hot , as he watched Ryan letting himself get adjusted to the way Eric felt inside of him, pressed his fingers down on Ryan's lower lip to watch the way it made his eyes go hot and dark.

"You damn sure take it like you love it," Eric muttered, and Ryan laughed, the sound more than a little breathless.

"I love it. I love you."

"Fuck. Fuck. "

It didn't take them that long after it. It wasn't skilled or elegant or anything except desperate, Ryan on top of him, sloppily catching his mouth in a kiss whenever he could reach. The shitty little bed slammed into the wall with the force of it, Ryan's hands braced on the headboard, leaving Eric free to explore his body with his hands. A touch he couldn't describe as anything except reverent, tracing the muscular lines of his back and his hip and his thighs and his ass. And finally, stroking his dick, urging him on.

Ryan did kiss him when he came, tongue fucking Eric's mouth and his hands grasping desperately at his shoulders, like that could pull him deeper, closer.

Eric watched him in the aftermath, eyes closed and face flushed, the sweat beading his forehead. He was trembling on the edge, too, but... "Can I keep going?"

"Whatever...whatever you want," Ryan said, on a long, satisfied sigh, and then a yelp when Eric, in one movement, pushed him down on the bed and fell on top of him, still deep inside. His eyes flew open when Eric thrust again, and he shook underneath him, the aftershocks of the orgasm, the overstimulation of Eric fucking him through it, ignoring the sticky mess smeared on his stomach. His dick, still hard and wet, twitched again where it was trapped between them. "Oh, Jesus, Eric. Eric— "

That was what did it, eventually, the desperation, the pleasure edging on pain in his voice, throaty and wrecked. Eric couldn't look at him when he came, couldn't look at anything. His head was buried somewhere in Ryan's neck, eyes closed, Ryan's fingers digging into the meat of his shoulder.

It took him a while to open his eyes. When he did, it took him another while before he finally gathered up the coordination to pull out and roll off of Ryan's limp body. Ryan, who stretched again and said, "I need to get up but Jesus Christ, I don't wanna move." Ryan, who turned his face to push it against Eric's shoulder like a cat. "Carry me."

Eric snorted and said, "No, can't move," because he couldn't put together the coherent thought to say anything more than that.

"Mm," Ryan agreed. "I fucked it right out of you."

By the time they did get out of bed and cleaned up, Eric had no idea how late it was. He was bone-tired in a way that he wasn't usually these days, but it was good. As soon as Ryan came back to bed, they could pass out, and that would be that.

When Ryan did get back in bed, he immediately rolled over and wormed his way under Eric's arm. "I told you."

"You told me what?" Eric asked, sleepily.

"You're a good man. I knew you'd do the right thing. I always trusted you to."

Eric thought about it for a long moment. "I wanted to earn that trust."

"You did, Eric," Ryan murmured into his shoulder. "And now...sleep."

Eric slept, a better sleep than he'd had in years.