Page 134 of The Grumpy Defenseman

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Just Evan, quiet and warm and here.

“Stay,” he said.

One word.

The same one I had given him once in a room that smelled like rubber mats and want. From him, it sounded different. Not a request about tonight. About morning. About coffee. About the ordinary days neither of us had known how to ask for.

“I’m staying,” I said.

His forehead came to mine.

The breath he let out was not dramatic.

It was worse.

It was relief.

We went to his bedroom without rushing. His hand stayed in mine down the hall, steady and warm. The room was simple: an unmade bed, clean laundry folded on a chair, one pair of running shoes near the closet, and a streetlight falling in through half-open blinds.

He looked almost embarrassed by it.

I loved it immediately.

“It’s not much,” he said.

“It’s yours.”

Thatstopped him.

I watched the words reach him.

Then he kissed me again, and the room narrowed to the places we touched.

This was not about proving anything. Not heat trying to outrun fear. Not two people using each other to avoid the harder conversation.

We had already had the harder conversation.

This was what came after.

His mouth at my neck. My hands under his shirt. The soft hitch in his breath when I traced the scar along his ribs.

I answered every time he asked without speaking.

Yes.

Still yes.

Here.

This time, I knew his body.

That was the difference I had not braced for. The first night had been new geography — every place I touched a discovery, every sound he made information I was filing in real time. This was the second visit to a placeI now understood. I knew where his breath would catch. I knew what slow did to him. I knew the exact spot below his jaw that made his hand tighten at my waist before his brain caught up.

So I went there.

His breath broke against my hair.

“Sam.” Low. “Careful.”

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