Page 87 of Rising Heat

And then, because my brain has decided subtlety is for other people, both of them.

The weight of them closing in from either side, moving together as Mack’s hand tangles in my hair and Tyler’s mouth trails lower, neither of them needing to speak because somehow they already know exactly what the other is thinking. Everything about them is deliberate, practiced, impossibly in sync, and somewhere in the middle of it I stop trying to anticipate what comes next and simply let go⁠—

I shove the blanket off.

Holy fuck.

I bolt upright, pressing the backs of my hands against my forehead while my heart tries to beat its way out of my chest.

For a minute I just sit there staring at the wall. Could I handle something like that?

Physically? Probably.

Emotionally? Casual has always sounded a whole lot easier than it ever turned out to be. I can practically feel myself slipping into the familiar spiral—the contingency planning, the worst-case scenarios, the instinct to talk myself out of something before I’ve even admitted I want it.

Except I already know I want it.

Maybe I’m reading entirely too much into yesterday. If so, nothing happens. But if one day one of them, or both of them, ever ask…I already know my answer.

The realization washes over me with surprising calm.

We haven’t even kissed, and I’m already trying to figure out how not to get caught up. At least I’ve finally stopped pretending I don’t want to find out.

Better start looking up how to prep for anal.

Just in case.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

tyler

I know we’re screwed the second Mack misses an open net.

He never misses open nets. We’ve been playing together since we were kids—backyard rinks, frozen ponds, high school, four years of me at UMass while he’d spend all day covered in axle grease at the shop and still somehow make half my home games, and now club hockey on our nights off. I’ve seen that shot from just about every angle there is.

It doesn’t miss.

The man plays hockey the same way he does everything else

efficiently, without drama, and with a low tolerance for people who waste his time. So when he coasts past the crease and the puck skips clean off his stick into the boards, he doesn’t swear or throw his hands up. He just tightens his jaw and circles back into position like nothing happened.

I know exactly what’s going on.

I laugh into my glove.

Across the ice, he catches my eye from the slot and gives me a look that promises bodily harm after the game.

Weeknights at the Warrior are sacred. Some guys stop being hockey players after high school. I never really figured out how. The jersey changed, the locker room changed, and my knees definitely changed, but once a week I still lace up beside the same guy who’s been yelling at me to backcheck since I was old enough to skate. For ninety minutes, the rest of life gets real quiet.

Boston’s first responder league runs like a religion. Engine houses field teams, precincts ice their own crews, EMS jumps in wherever they fit, and everybody talks enough shit to make the Bruins look polite. It’s less beer league than citywide bragging rights with worse knees and better stories. Our roster’s mostly firefighters and medics, plus a handful of cops Ryan keeps sneaking onto the team because following rules has never really been his thing.

Hockey shuts my brain off. The scrape of blades on fresh ice. The crack of sticks against the boards. Cold air that somehow still smells like rubber, sweat, and every locker room I’ve ever loved. It’s muscle memory—the one place where thinking too much gets you stapled into the glass by a paramedic from Back Bay with something to prove.

Usually.

Tonight, not so much. Which is making me mean. And judging by the way Mack just stapled some poor lieutenant from Ladder 21 into the glass hard enough to rattle his teeth, I’m not the only one.

From the bench, Coop barks a laugh.