Page 43 of Two for Roughing

Relief overwhelmed him. Not joy, not pride, just relief that they wouldn’t bring home another loss.

His teammates crowded off the bench, jostling his shoulders and patting his butt in celebration. (Again, why did straight men think that was acceptable?)

Coach called out, “Nice one, Denny!” over the din of the crowd.

Afterward came the interminable sequence of postgame media, showering, changing, and piling into the bus to the hotel. Curfew was suspended because they weren’t doing anything besides traveling tomorrow, which meant Lissy spent the whole bus ride shouting out suggestions for bars they could hit up.

Everything in Damir tensed. A loud, crowded bar full of fired-up hockey players getting drunk and hitting on local women—two things Damir had no interest whatsoever in doing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Friday, and inventing some fake religious reason to avoid socializing would make him feel guilty.

“I know that face,” Ketchup said. “Don’t you dare. You’re coming with us. You won us the game, bro! You gotta celebrate!”

“I don’t drink,” Damir reminded him.

“Yo, Lissy,” Ketchup shouted right beside Damir’s ear, causing him to flinch away. “We need a bar with, like, mocktails. Or smoothies. Our star’s gotta party too!”

“Pretentious hipster bar. On it!” Lissy called back.

Damir sighed and sank deeper into his seat. He stuck one earphone in so he could feign ignorance of whatever other awful plans the team agreed upon for the night.

He pulled out his phone and thumbed open Instagram.

A bad habit, but it was only reinforced when he saw a message from Kilian. The words “sound on” preceded a clip of Damir skating up for the goal in the shootout, set to the theme of “The Pink Panther.” It made the corner of his mouth quirk up. He turned the volume back off and reacted with the crying-laughing emoji.

ddenisov88: the internet works fast

howza68: not as fast as id be on my knees to suck u off if i was on ur team

Damir straightened in his seat, shifting to hide the sudden interest his cock had taken in those words.

ddenisov88: are you drunk?

howza68: lil bit relax it’s a night off

ddenisov88: out clubbing?

howza68: y

ddenisov88: so why are you texting me?

howza68: idk clubbing sucks no one here can fuck me as good as u

Heat rushed through Damir’s body so fast it felt as though he’d been clubbed over the head by a hockey stick. His head swam for a long moment, and when he came to his senses, he found he’d typed out and sent a message.

ddenisov88: be a good girl for me and fuck yourself on your fingers in the bathroom

Kilian responded with several of the red, sweating emojis.

Damir stuffed his phone into his pocket before he could get too carried away. He was on the team bus; since when was he so careless?

When he looked up, he found several teammates crowded in the aisle around Ketchup, who was holding his phone. Any of them could have seen what Damir had written, but thankfully, whatever they were watching kept them occupied.

“What have you got there?” he asked, nodding toward Ketchup’s phone.

“Oh, it’s my boy Howie.” Ketchup paused the video and tilted the screen so Damir could see too.

There was Kilian, his red hair curling almost out of frame, full lips parted mid-speech.

Damir’s pulse quickened at the thought of what he was doing in a dingy bathroom stall in a nightclub in San Francisco.