8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

It was third quarter in the game against USC, sun beating down on the team in the Coliseum, still hot in southern California even in the fall, when Wes brought the smiling up.

Dean told himself before the game that he’d smile more on the sidelines, even if they were losing—which they were not, not even close—and he was doing his best to remember, when Wes sidled over, already pulled from the game because they were up twenty-one points and said, “Why do you keep grimacing over here?”

“Grimacing? What ?” Dean couldn’t help his exclamation.

“Yeah.” Wes pushed back his sweat-damp hair. “Every time I looked over here, you were standing on the edge of the sideline, like you always do, and you were making fucking faces. I thought it was the way I was playing—”

“No,” Dean interrupted him. “No, you’re playing great.”

“I know,” Wes said, his smile bringing out his dimples. “I couldn’t figure it out, so I thought I’d ask you before you go back out there.”

Coach Stevens had pulled Wes, probably because he was a very visible part of the offense—the most visible player on the whole goddamn team—and the media would rip him apart if Wes got hurt while the Evergreens were up three scores. But Dean was still out there, playing every down of the defense, because Coach had learned last year that when Dean’s future was on the line, he didn’t take being benched very well.

Even if it was supposedly for his own good.

“I’m not grimacing . I’m fucking smiling,” Dean retorted.

Wes looked completely lost. “That’s not how you smile, you idiot. And why are you tryin’ to force yourself to smile?”

“Apparently I’m ‘wound too tight’ and a bunch of NFL scouts think I’m gonna bust up if I don’t magically become happy and relaxed. Ian suggested the smiling, but clearly that was a stupid move.”

“If you were actually smiling, sure, but you’re . . .I don’t know how to even describe what you were doing, man. But it didn’t look like you were very happy or relaxed.”

“Ugh,” Dean groaned.

“It’s just stupid noise. Those scouts always come up with the dumbest shit, you know that. It won’t matter on draft night.”

Dean knew all about the scouts and the way they liked to pick players apart. But he wasn’t willing to let his whole future ride on the assumption it wouldn’t matter. Maybe Wes didn’t know him as well as he thought—or as well as Dean had believed—if he didn’t understand that.

“But,” Wes continued before Dean could say any of that out loud, “I get why you’re worried. I wish I didn’t have as many sleepless nights as I do, worrying about where I’m gonna end up.” His gaze flicked towards the stands, where it was very likely Marcus was. “Where we’re gonna end up.”

“It’s not your responsibility what happens to Marcus,” Dean reminded him. It was easier to talk about Wes’ baggage than his own.

Wes made a face. Probably not all that different than the ones Dean had apparently been making, while he was trying to smile. “Yeah, easier said than done.” He slapped Dean on the shoulder. “Anyway, I get it. It’s tough.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed.

It occurred to him that this was why he and Wes were friends. Because they got it, both on this nearly impossible balancing act of a path they’d set for themselves.

On the field, the Evergreens’ kicker set up for a field goal, and Dean grabbed his helmet. In a few minutes, he’d be back on the field, where he belonged. Where nobody gave a shit if he smiled or not.

Where they only depended on him to be what he was best at: a human wrecking ball.

“Give ’em hell, alright?” Wes said, patting him again.

Dean nodded and jogged onto the field, entering the loose circle of defensive players huddling up before the first play after the kickoff.

Jordan, his partner on the other side, was subbed out. When Dean asked Nick, the safety who was calling the plays, he just shrugged. “Coach pulled him, probably. You shouldn’t be out here, either, Scott.”

“They’d never be able to drag Dean off the field,” Eaton, one of the corners, said with a snicker. “They’d have to fight him, first.”

“Exactly,” Dean said, not offended, because it wasn’t offensive to want to play. To need to play.

“One quarter left,” Nick said. He glanced over at Dean. “You still gonna keep rushing?”

“Like anyone’s gonna stop him,” Eaton said.

“Y’all could learn something from Dean,” Nick said firmly. “He doesn’t take a single fucking down off. He’s fightin’ for every single yard.”

Dean nodded. Because he did.

Every time he didn’t reach the quarterback or he didn’t stop the Trojans’ running game in its tracks felt like a loss.

And he didn’t take loss well.

Nick clapped, breaking up the huddle, and the players arrayed themselves in front of the line of scrimmage. Dean moved to the right, leaning down and digging his cleat and his fingertips into the turf.

The offensive lineman who’d been trying, unsuccessfully, to block Dean for the whole game, looked winded.

Even more, he looked halfway to complete defeat.

Well, halfway wasn’t enough for Dean.

They had changed their formation at halftime, moving to double team Dean in earnest, with the hope that this new plan might give their quarterback a precious few extra seconds to get the ball before Dean punched through the line.

It hadn’t worked. Dean was used to being double teamed.

He’d just shucked the first guy and dodged the second, moving with the speed and undeniable strength that he’d been blessed with, and that he’d worked so fucking hard to hone.

The whistle blew, and Dean attacked, pushing his legs as hard as they would go. This was their fifth game of the season, and while he was always conditioned, he’d never been in better shape than he was right now. He could push forever, if he needed to.

And he intended to.

He came around the edge, shucking the offensive tackle with a stiff arm to the shoulder and then faced the tight end who was supposed to be helping the tackle with his impossible assignment—Dean. But the tight end, while big, wasn’t as good at blocking as Dean was at destruction, and he gave him a quick step to the side and didn’t even have to touch him. He went down, and Dean ran past him, legs churning, lungs burning.

The quarterback’s panic was blatant even behind his helmet.

Dean only had a split second to decide—and while he almost never did this, because he didn’t usually have to, he went for the ball instead of the player himself.

Marshaling his strength, he punched the ball with every ounce of it, and it popped right out.

Scooping it up, he tucked the ball away and dodging another lineman, took off for the Evergreens’ end zone.

It was a good seventy yards away, and he wasn’t sure he was going to make it. Good shape be damned, he didn’t usually need to run for more than ten yards. His legs weren’t conditioned to do long bursts—only short ones. But that didn’t matter.

Like being born poor or unwanted had ever mattered.

Dean pushed all that bullshit to the side, dug deep and drove himself with every ounce of energy he had left in his system. Dodged one receiver, evaded another, and yet he could feel the group behind him, forcing him to move faster.

The crowd screaming in his ears faded away, and he had only one thought, crystallizing in his brain.

If you get a sack fumble touchdown, nobody’s gonna say shit about your smile on the sideline.

Ten yards and all that shit they normally care about means less than nothing.

He knew it was true, and that was why when he heard the footsteps behind him, he tried to find one last burst, but it just wasn’t there.

A hand shot out and a body followed, and Dean went down, six yards from the end zone.

A sack fumble, yes, but not a touchdown.

He lay there on the turf, black spots dancing across his vision, and didn’t think he’d have it in him to even get up.

If he’d scored, sure, he’d probably be dancing around in the end zone, exhaustion be damned, but right now, six yards short felt like a million fucking miles.

A hand appeared over him, then a face. It was Eaton. “Shit, man, I never seen a big man run like that,” he said, as Dean gripped his hand and prayed he wouldn’t embarrass himself by puking all over the fucking field once he got upright.

He didn’t.

But as he carefully jogged back to the sideline, so many back slaps and congratulations tossed his way, Dean only thought, what would they be saying if I’d made it?

“Shit, man,” Wes said as Dean collapsed on the bench. So much for his normal spot, away from the team, all the way at the end of the sideline. He’d never be able to hold himself upright without his knees wobbling.

Someone thrust a water bottle into his hands, and he shot Gatorade down his throat, then the PT produced an oxygen mask and he took several deep, long breaths of it before pushing it away.

“Sorry I didn’t make it in,” Dean said, because that was all he could think about.

A roar went up, and then silence, and he had a feeling the Evergreens’ offense had just punched the ball in for seven points.

Sure, he’d made that possible. But those seven points weren’t his seven points. Not his touchdown, on his stat line.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Wes exclaimed. He knelt in front of Dean, hand warm and reassuring on his knee. “Fuck, that was unbelievable. I didn’t know you could run like that.”

Dean’s laugh was rusty. He squeezed more liquid down his gravelly throat. “I didn’t know I could either.”

“Shit, seriously. You don’t gotta do it all yourself, you know?”

So everyone kept saying, but in the end, when everything went down, who was left? It was only Dean. Only ever Dean.

Maybe he shouldn’t have dedicated himself so entirely to a team sport. But then, football was what he was good at.

Brody knew it would be late before Dean came home.

Too late.

But he stayed up anyway, ESPN still playing on the TV, but the sound turned down low, as Sportscenter showed Dean’s unbelievable fumble return over and over again.

He hadn’t really meant to turn the Evergreens’ football game on, but his hand had picked up the remote anyway and navigated to the channel before he’d been able to totally talk himself out of it.

He’d watched the whole game while working on a lab report for his microbiology class, but by the time the third quarter rolled around and the Evergreens were up twenty-one points, he’d sort of tuned the game out.

Then the announcers had gotten very, very excited—shouting, nearly—and Brody had nearly fallen off the couch when he realized why.

Dean had the ball and he was running, faster than Brody had ever imagined a guy of his size could run, towards the Evergreens’ end zone.

He hadn’t gotten there, but the effort had been undeniable, and Brody had felt a thrill of both pride—he knew this guy, he watched him stumble out of the bedroom, sleepy-eyed, his hair sticking up on one side, with pillow creases across his face—and something else he was not entirely comfortable identifying.

Especially when Dean pulled his helmet off on the sideline, hair shiny with sweat, and Brody couldn’t help but think of what his neck, just as damp, might taste like if he leaned in and licked.

You aren’t licking him. Now or anytime , Brody reminded himself firmly. Dean had finally mostly relaxed, when Brody had returned them to the friend zone they’d just started to explore pre-drunken experiment.

He’d never said they wouldn’t be doing it again, not explicitly, but he didn’t need to. His awkwardness and avoidance right after had made that clear enough, and Brody had decided that there was no point in pushing him into something he clearly wasn’t comfortable with.

Would it be easier if, every once in awhile, he didn’t catch Dean staring at him like he could barely believe he existed? Yes, it sure would.

But Brody had dragged them across that line the first time, and fuck if he was going to do it again.

If Dean wanted it, he was going to have to say so. Maybe even lean in, one of these nights, and press his mouth—

“Goddamnit,” Brody said with a sharp exhale, glancing down at his hardening cock.

The cock that, before the experiment, had seemed perfectly content with whatever crumbs Brody decided to throw it.

No longer.

He was just debating going into his bedroom to take care of it when Brody heard a key in the door lock turn, and he froze.

A second later, Dean filled the doorway and Brody had only a minute to yank a pillow over his crotch and try to look like he hadn’t just been contemplating coming his brains out thinking of the guy in front of him.

Smooth, you idiot. Real smooth.

“Hey,” Dean said, looking surprised to see him.

Or maybe he was surprised to see the pillow.

Dean dumped his bag on the floor by the door but didn’t make a move to immediately leave. Instead he hovered, like what he really wanted was to join Brody on the couch—he just didn’t know if he was invited or not.

Spoiler alert: as far as Brody was concerned, Dean was always invited.

Brody flushed and dug his fingers into the cheap cushioning. “Hey,” he said. “I . . .uh . . .watched the game. It was amazing. You were amazing, that fumble return . . .” Brody trailed off when he realized he sounded just like the girls who always clustered around the athletes at the frat house parties. The ones who gazed at every athlete with a predatory, breathless awe.

And now that’s you.

Dean frowned, and that was when he chose to collapse onto the couch. He looked tired, deep circles and lines under his eyes.

Not for the first time, Brody realized how much pressure he was under. Empathized with it. His own situation was bad enough, but he had so many ways he could land easily and softly, if the NHL fell through.

Dean didn’t have those.

His only path was to move forward, inexorably.

“Yeah, except I didn’t get in,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What? No, you didn’t, but like . . .seventy fucking yards, man.” It had looked like a lot from Brody’s perspective.

“Yeah,” Dean said.

Brody couldn’t say they knew each other well , but he’d already begun to figure out when Dean was shutting down.

He was doing it right now. Shutting down. Shutting Brody out.

And if Brody didn’t know , intimately, how and why Dean felt the way he did, he might’ve let him.

“Listen, Dean, you can’t do it all. Not every play, not every game, not every time you step onto the field.”

Dean made a face. “Don’t placate me. Do you know what I’m trying to do? What I’m trying to escape?”

Brody knew he hadn’t meant to say it, from the way Dean’s mouth flattened into a hard line.

“No, ’cause you haven’t told me,” Brody said quietly. But he’d wanted to know. Had almost asked half a dozen times.

“Right. Right .” Dean sighed. “You can probably guess though. Shitty small town. Shitty mom, too interested in drinking at the bar and dragging her flavor of the night home to worry about having a kid. Dad? Nowhere in sight, not ever.”

“I’m sorry,” Brody said, and he understood a lot better now why Dean had been a little guarded at the beginning. Brody had had the childhood Dean had never gotten. The parents he’d probably dreamt of, his whole life, that he’d never had.

“Don’t be,” Dean said. “Made me into the guy I am now. Made me work my ass off. But with that comes this anxiety shit. Makes me worried I’ll screw it all up.”

“You wouldn’t.” Brody believed it, more than he’d ever believed in anything, ever. Maybe even his own future.

Dean didn’t say anything, just shrugged. Like he was helpless to that feeling, when the last person on earth who could ever be helpless was Dean Scott.

“You should listen to me. I’m the smart boy, remember?” Brody teased, and to his delight, the corner of Dean’s mouth tilted up, like he was tempted to smile despite his mood.

“Thought you were pretty,” Dean said, and he was smiling now, with his whole face.

Damn , Brody thought. And he almost regretted bringing it out of Dean. But not really. Not actually.

“See, you’re smart where it counts,” Brody joked.

“I try not to embarrass myself,” Dean said with a self-deprecating grunt.

“You don’t. You don’t ever,” Brody said, shifting to something more serious.

“Ah, well . . .” Dean looked uncomfortable. “I just wanted to get in, you know? A TD isn’t just a fumble return. It’s a different kinda stat. A better kind of stat.”

It seemed unfair, but there were plenty of unfair statistics in hockey, too.

“Yeah, there’s always gonna be something better, isn’t there?” Brody said, and Dean nodded.

For a moment, they were both quiet.

Brody didn’t know what Dean was thinking, but he was thinking that he liked this. This touching base with each other on the couch. Even if there was a respectable three feet between their thighs.

Then Dean said, “I didn’t know you watched football.”

Caught red-handed.

“I . . .uh . . .” Brody gave up. “I don’t normally, but this lab report was kicking my ass, and I thought, why not put it on? See what the fuss is about?”

Dean grinned. “And ’cause your roommate was playing, right?”

Brody rolled his eyes, but he was not going to shy away from this. “Actually, ’cause my friend was playing.”

Dean looked surprised by this admission, which was ridiculous. They were friends . Admittedly, friends who had an elephant in the room they were scrupulously ignoring, but friends nonetheless.

“Don’t tell me we’re gonna have to go over this again,” Brody said with mock seriousness. “We covered this the other night.”

Dean smiled again. Twice in one night. A new record! Brody mentally patted himself on the back.

Already Dean seemed lighter than when he’d come in, and if that was something Brody could do for him—take him out of his own head, a bit—then he’d gladly do it.

Because they were roommates. Because they were friends.

Or something like that.

“We don’t. I . . .we’re friends, yes,” Dean took a deep breath and glanced over at Brody, and even that brief eye contact felt as good as a touch.

Under the pillow, Brody’s cock stirred again, deciding it was time to rejoin the party.

“Good,” Brody said, telling himself this was what he wanted. What they both wanted. But that didn’t mean, deep down, it didn’t feel almost like a lie.

A half-truth they were both telling themselves because it was easier and more comfortable.

“It was so stupid,” Dean said, with a rushed exhale. “I spent the whole game trying to fucking smile , and I was so bad at it, Wes thought I was grimacing.”

“Seriously?”

Dean legitimately grimaced now. “I can’t decide which is worse: that I thought smiling on the sideline would actually convince an NFL team to draft me high, or that Wes thought I was fucking grimacing instead of smiling.”

“I . . .uh . . .” Brody didn’t know what to say. “You can totally smile.” Sometimes you smile and it takes my breath away.

“Yeah.” Dean chuckled humorlessly. He didn’t sound convinced.

“Here. Try it right now.” Brody reached over and gave his arm a reassuring squeeze before he remembered it was way better if they didn’t touch.

Dean just stared at him, those unearthly light green eyes meeting Brody’s own.

For a single moment, Brody thought that maybe he’d be the one to suggest another experiment.

But he didn’t. Of course he didn’t.

Instead Dean said, “How’s this?” And then he cracked a smile. It was too rehearsed, too much teeth. Too much, Brody realized, like forcing it out actually hurt him.

That must’ve been what Wes had meant.

And if you knew Dean—and Wes clearly did—you knew the difference between that and his real smiles.

“Uh, well,” Brody said, wincing. “No.”

A single look of hurt outrage crossed over Dean’s face before he buried it. But before he could get up and walk off to his bedroom, Brody reached out and latched onto his arm.

This time he didn’t let go.

“No,” Brody repeated, more gently this time. “You can smile better than that. A real smile. Not something that someone’s forcing out of you. Let’s try something . . .you love playing football, right?”

Dean frowned. “Yeah, I guess. It’s a—”

“A means to an end, I know.” This time Brody knew better than to let his wince show. It was fucking sad, almost, that the guy didn’t even know what he loved anymore, because it was so tied up with all these plans he’d made for his future.

Brody might not know if he wanted to play pro hockey, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t something pure and beautiful about a stretch of untouched ice and blades underneath him that he was gonna use to carve it up. The sound as he did it.

He took a deep breath. “What do you like about it?”

But Dean was still frowning, a wrinkle between his dark eyebrows that Brody wanted to reach up and smooth away. It was bad enough that he was still touching his arm, though, and hadn’t let go.

Hadn’t wanted to let go. But he did now, because how awkward would it be if he just kept hanging on. That wasn’t how friends behaved.

“How about this? I love when I come back on the ice after the Zamboni does its thing, and it’s all clean and shiny and new and the possibilities feel endless. I love when we run a really good play, the exact way we set it up in practice. It doesn’t even matter that we score or not—it’s that we’re all executing our roles perfectly, like we’re folding into one player. There’s no feeling that can match that.”

Dean’s face smoothed out, the lines disappearing. He thought for a second and then he said slowly, with more consideration that most people would ever believe of a football player best known for his destruction prowess on the field, “When Wes’ shoulders relax.”

Brody raised an eyebrow.

“Every game he starts out with a certain amount of anxiety. I’m not sure he can dismiss it entirely. It’s the pressure—of how much each game means, that he’s ultimately responsible ’cause he’s the leader. But we score, and the defense holds, and slowly, it’s like he can fucking relax. When he thinks he’s got this—that we’ve got this—in the bag.”

“What else?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You gonna start moonlighting as a therapist, too, Faulkner?”

“Hey, it’s helping, isn’t it? At the end of that, you totally smiled a little. A real smile, just thinking about that moment.”

And he had. Brody hadn’t made that up.

“Fine. Uh . . .I really like practice, actually.”

“Really? I hate practice. Not as much as Elliott, but enough.”

“Who’s Elliott?”

“He’s a young guy on my team. A forward. He’s about as anti-practice as they come.”

“He’s wrong,” Dean declared matter-of-factly.

“Why?”

“Practice’s the measure of an athlete. How dedicated they are to getting better. How determined they are to hone their skills. Anyone can show up on game day and be ready, but are you ready every single day? Do you bring it when there’s no team opposite you?” Dean shrugged. “I approach every single practice like a game, and every game like a practice.”

“Huh. I never thought of it that way before.” He was going to have to use that line on Elliott sometime and watch as he made a face worse than any Dean had ever made.

“Well, now you have.” Dean leaned forward. Set his elbows on his jean-covered knees. They were worn white in spots. Fit him like a glove. All that tightly coiled muscle.

Brody knew exactly what that muscle was capable of. He’d seen it the other night, in the gym, and this afternoon, when Dean had laid it all out on the field.

He wanted to lean over too and touch it.

Feel all that coiled strength for himself.

And yet, during the experiment he’d been unexpectedly careful. Gentle. Considerate.

Ramsey liked to talk about big dumb football players—not that hockey players were necessarily any kind of improvement in that area—but while Dean might be big, he wasn’t dumb.

Not by a long shot.

“You gonna smile for me again?”

Dean’s gaze was serious. Then he smiled, and it was real.

“There you go,” Brody said, trying not to stammer as the impact of it hit him hard. Glad he’d still not let go of the stupid pillow, because his dick was just as affected by the smile as the rest of him was.

“Thanks to you.” Dean’s voice was gravelly rough.

Brody waved a hand, trying to underplay his contribution. “I . . .uh . . .it was just a bit of friendly assistance.”

But he was beginning to think that wasn’t true, at all.

Sure, he did feel friendly towards Dean. He straight up liked the guy. But it was more, too.

He’d wiggled right under Brody’s skin when he hadn’t been looking, and now he was there and wasn’t going to let go.

It was just like Dean to be the source of the stubbornest crush in existence.

Dean got to his feet, like he was all-too-aware that Brody wasn’t going to be moving from his spot—or without his handy pillow—until he did. “Right, pretty boy,” he said as he was picking up his bag and moving through the living room. “See you tomorrow then.”

It took an embarrassingly long time after Dean’s bedroom door closed before Brody felt like he could move the pillow without exposing something about himself that he wasn’t quite ready to face yet.