9. Ryan

Chapter nine

Ryan

Holy fucking shit. Alan’s mouth is hot against my lips, and when his tongue plunges into my mouth, my stomach swirls. I sweep my free hand through the water until it finds the small of his back, and I pull him closer. His other hand grips mine tightly at our side, fingers laced together, my pulse beating so hard it’s sure to make ripples in the water around us.

He’s still gripping the edge of the pool, and my hand tightly, like he’s worried that if he lets go, he could be swept away. As soon as I saw his hesitation to even enter the water, I wasn’t going to push him to swim with me. There had to be trauma there. Something from his past that had created this long-lasting fear. But he did get into the water. He got in with me, and he trusted me to let go of the edge. Sure, only for a few steps, and then his free hand reached past me and gripped so tight I thought he might climb out, but he didn’t. He came back. Every day this week he came back, and every day he trusted me to take him further.

He breaks the kiss far too soon.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he whispers, eyes still closed, chest heaving in time with my own.

“Why?”

I always thought his eyes were brown, but with the water reflecting in them they appear almost forest green, and when his lips pick up a little at the corner into a sort of half smile, I can’t help but lean in and kiss him again. Just a small kiss. And I keep my eyes open and locked on his when I do it, too.

“I think it was a great idea,” I say, and the smile widens.

“But we work together. Sort of. Saying we play together sounded too weird in my head, but we do.”

I know I’d like to play with him some more. My cock is seriously tenting my swim shorts. Good thing the old ladies are not doing their water aerobics today.

“There are no rules saying we can’t do this.”

“There probably are.”

I shrug. “I’d break the rules to do it again,” I say, my gaze moving to his mouth. He lets out a shuddered breath but then steps to the side, and my hand slips from his back.

“We can’t, though. If the guys found out. We’re on opposing teams. On the field, you’re the competition.”

“I like to think of it like our two teams are the new guys, and the OG’s are the opposing teams, but I get it. It would be…hard.”

There are four teams in the league right now, the two original teams that we all refer to as the OG’s, and then Alan’s team, the Party Animals, and mine, the Funky Monkeys. But if the rumors are true and Bart Erricson is planning on shafting one of us out at the end of this tour, who knows what that could mean for whatever this is between Alan and me.

Alan lets go of my hand and the pool is suddenly five degrees cooler.

“Right. It would be too hard. We should just forget this happened. Umm, I’m going to hit the gym,” he says, climbing from the pool. “See you at training.”

He can’t be serious, can he?

“Yeah, okay, sure. See you at training,” I reply, then sink under the water.

***

I’m late to training, which isn’t like me, but after our little pool incident, I swam laps until I could no longer taste his mouth on mine. We go through the regular training program, stretches, throwing, the works, and then take a quick break before we get into the promo and choreography stuff. It’s almost four when I step back onto the field and find Dennis waiting with Alan, and Alan is wearing a billowy white shirt, half tucked into his pants, open at the collar, and fucking sexy as hell.

“Right, we’ve got work to do,” Dennis says, tossing me a similar shirt in black. “Get this on, and we’ll rehearse a few times, then go for a full promo shot.”

The team are all on the field behind us, and a few are wearing foam fish costumes while others are dressed all in blue, holding lengths of blue fabric between them for what I guess are supposed to be waves.

The scene in the movie where Romeo first sees Juliette is through a fish tank, and Dennis has figured out a way to get the guys to simulate a giant one in the middle of the field. Harrison and Stevie, the tallest of the guys, stand several feet apart, arms up high, and each holding one end of a wide black banner. They create the frame, and Arthur, Dave, Benny, Pat, and John are wearing fish costumes, pretending to swim through the water.

“Alright, let’s do this,” Dennis calls, and he hits play on the song, and I quickly strip off my training shirt and throw on the black one. I catch Alan watching me, and I toss him a wink. I know he thinks this is a bad idea. But I think it is a fucking brilliant one, and the sooner I convince him of that, the sooner I get to taste him again.

We play-act the roles of Romeo and Juliet, gazing at each other like we’ve just seen the most beautiful person in the world. It isn’t hard to do, Alan is gorgeous. He’s exactly what you would picture when they say tall, dark, and handsome. He clippers his face but doesn’t clean shave and the slight scruff brushing against my skin when he kissed me is all I can think about as he sings to the music across from me. What would the guys say if they knew that I kissed him? Would they even care? He made it pretty clear we should forget that it happened. Only I swear that his gaze keeps moving to my mouth, so I swipe my tongue over my upper lip and when he bites at his lower one and shakes his head a little, I know for sure he’s thinking of that kiss as much as I am. Now I just have to figure out how I get him to do it again.

Once we reach the edge of the people-made fish tank, we grab hold of each other and waltz in a circle while the rest of the players get into position. He’s avoiding meeting my eyes now, and the scent of his cologne is filling my nose and making my head spin in the best kind of way.

“That kiss—”

“We can’t,” he says, turning me around again and I almost miss my cue to move on to the next part of the choreography.

I’m pitching for the Funky Monkeys, and to add some drama to the close of the skit, they’ve put Alan first up to bat, so after he spins me towards the mound, he releases his hand from mine, and while I keep spinning, doing my best to focus on something still so that when I stop I don’t fall over completely, Alan jogs away, grabs the bat, and then I pull a ball from my pocket on the last turn, line up and throw.

Only my aim is a little off and it goes wide. But Alan swings for it anyway, and his bat clips the ball, sending it to the side.

It might not have been the cleanest hit, but Dennis is cheering from the side, so from his point of view, it must have looked great.

I’m glad Dennis got to stay as one of the lead choreographers for the league. The choreography team all work together to get the game day stuff sorted but having a familiar face telling us what to do really does make it easier to listen. Plus, he knows what our strengths are. He spotted the chemistry between Alan and me, and now I get to be up close every game, every practice, working on our star-crossed lovers’ bits. Fuck, I hope I can convince Alan to take a chance on something real.

“I think we should practice the waltz part a bit more. I almost tripped over my own feet a few times,” I say to Alan as we’re walking off the field. Dennis is within earshot in front of us and turns before Alan can answer.

“Yes, oh, I saw that. Good idea. You two head into the conference room and run it a couple more times. Do you need me to come, too? I can—”

“No,” I blurt a little too fast, my cheeks warming. Hopefully, given I’m all sweaty from the rehearsals, neither will notice. “I’ll just need the music. I’ll grab my phone from the locker room and meet you in there,” I say to Alan, and Dennis nods, and I run off.

When I get there, Alan is waiting, leaning against the far wall of the conference room, the white shirt open down to his navel, revealing his glistening chest.

“Cheers for doing this,” I say as I put my phone on a chair and close the conference room door.

“No problem, but I thought you did fine out there.”

I shrug. “A little more practice never hurt anyone.” I press play and the song starts slow. This is normally the part where we are walking on either side of the fish tank, and Alan steps into the middle of the room and holds out his hand.

My heart is pounding, and it’s like my skin is electrified by just the thought of touching him again, but I push through the nervous energy and reach out, too. The second his fingers wrap over mine, he pulls me to him, our chests tight against one another, his other hand on the small of my back, sending heat flooding through to my core.

I try not to look at his mouth because when I do, all I can think of is kissing those perfect sweet lips again.

He takes a step and I follow, waltzing through the room with ease like we’ve done it a million times before. When the music stops, he doesn’t let go right away, and I swallow the lump that’s risen in my throat.

“That was…” I begin, my voice a whisper.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” he says, his eyes closing, but his hold on me stays in place.

“Do what?”

“I don’t think I can be close to you and not kiss you.”

“Then kiss me already.”

His eyes open and move straight to my mouth.

“What about the team?”

“They don’t have to know,” I say, and then I close the distance, and his mouth is on mine again, and it’s just as amazing as the last time.

I let go of his hand and slide my palms up the muscles of his back, the thin fabric of the shirt revealing every curve.

He pulls away.

“What if someone comes in?”

I walk to the door, taking his hand and leading him over, too, then slide a chair in front of it.

“Sit,” I tell him, and he smiles, presses the replay on my phone on the chair beside it, and does as I ask.

I straddle his legs and cup the side of his face in my hands.

“Now no one can come in, and we can do this as much as we want.”

I kiss him again, his tongue exploring my mouth, fighting mine for control. Perfectly delicious. My hand moves to the back of his neck, my fingers lace through his hair, and he moans into my mouth, sending a pulse to my balls.

As his palms slide down to grip my ass, he squeezes tight, and pulls me closer, grinding my ass over the thin fabric of his pants and his growing bulge. He moans again.

This time, I break our kiss.

“The chair stops the door being opened. It doesn’t block out the sound.”

“Then we better turn up the music,” he says, reaching over and grabbing my phone. He swipes the volume all the way up and puts it back, his hands immediately moving again to my ass, and I don’t hate it. I only wish I’d suggested we rehearse the lyrics back at his place in the shower instead, where there are better acoustics, and where I could be doing this naked, covered in soapy bubbles.