Page 108 of Two for Charging

“You wanting to spend time with me.”

Luca took no responsibility for the immediate need to seal his mouth to Chris’s, or for the fact that they spent the next half hour kissing perched on the edge of the bed like teenagers whose parents had asked them to leave the door open.

“How about,” Chris suggested, “we order room service and watch a movie? Doesn’t even have to be a romcom.”

They would do the same thing at home—share a meal and watch TV curled up together. The only difference was that Luca now had full license to touch Chris everywhere he could, which he took complete advantage of. By the end of the movie, his skin buzzed with comfortable, low-key arousal, and his lips were swollen with kisses.

But Chris pulled away with a frown. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m—I’m not—”

Luca moved his hands from Chris’s ass to the safer territory of his waist. “It’s fine.”

“But you’re all…”

Luca shrugged. “I have been turned on by you many, many times before. I will live.”

Chris sighed and looked away.

Following him, Luca shifted so he could set his chin on Chris’s chest and look at him. “Chris? What’s wrong?”

“…Nothing.”

It obviously wasn’t nothing. Luca cast his mind about for what might be the issue. “Are you worried about what Hayes said about management trading him?”

“Nah, they wouldn’t, not with Phil on the coaching team.”

“So what is it then?”

In a voice so quiet Luca could barely hear him, Chris said, “It’s stupid.”

“You are upset. It’s important.”

“I thought I was fixed, okay?”

Luca blinked. Fixed? “What do you mean?”

Chris sighed and cuddled Luca close, burying his face in Luca’s neck. “I thought…I love you, and I want to be with you. I thought it would be easier now. The sex stuff.”

Luca kissed one perfect, hairy pec. “Not wanting sex does not mean you are broken.”

“I know that.”

Luca kissed the other pec and waited.

“I’m trying to know that. I’ve been thinking of myself as defective for so long, you know? I didn’t know it was just…a normal way a person could be.”

Nuzzling into the spot between Chris’s pecs, where he could lay his head and listen to Chris’s heartbeat when they finished talking, Luca said, “Do you know I’m so proud of you?”

“You are?”

“Mm-hm. Two months ago, the idea of being an alternate scared you so much you had to go panic in your car. When Tom came out to me, you were so frightened of the fallout you nearly lost your appetite.”

Underneath him, Chris’s chest shook with laughter. “Those were good enchiladas. I’m glad I made it through the freak-out.”

“You bent over backward to make everyone happy, and you blamed yourself every time someone wasn’t.”

“Are you going somewhere with this?”

“Shh. Yes. You stood up for yourself so many times, and you found ways to accept who you are when I know it can’t have been easy to come to terms with.” Luca kissed the skin under his lips again. “Maybe it’s all right if not everything changes at once?”