Page 112 of Two for Charging

Chris blinked. Had he said anything dumb? No, he’d said the most innocuous, obviously true thing he could. He looked over to Kayleigh, who made a cutting motion across her throat. But she wasn’t trustworthy, all she wanted were clicks, and Chris knew he hadn’t said anything wrong. If Howie could stand up for what he believed in with the media, then so could Chris.

“I don’t think it should be political to treat everyone well,” Chris said. “Also, if people cared about athletes making statements about LGBTQIA-plus rights, all those guys who refused to play in Pride jerseys a couple years ago for religious reasons or whatever should have gotten fined.”

“Okay, we’re out of time for tonight!” Kayleigh said brightly and began shooing the reporters out of the room.

As Chris returned to his stall, Howie caught his eye and nodded at him.

It wasn’t much, but it was better than silence.

He rooted around in his bag for his shower things.

Leaning in close, Luca muttered in Italian, “I am going to suck your dick for that.”

Oh, Chris wanted to feel Luca’s perfect lips on him again. But… “I thought you wanted me to fuck you. Tomorrow is an off day.”

Luca’s eyes went half-lidded. “New rule. You cannot talk dirty to me in Italian in the locker room.”

Chris would live. He could talk dirty to Luca in Italian in so many other places. “What about French?”

“If you give me some sort of Pavlovian reaction to the French language, my family might disown me.”

“Challenge accepted.”

“Kids, quit flirting! We have a plane to catch!” Jax called.

Given he was three years younger than Jax and now the same rank on the team, Chris wanted to say he would flirt wherever and whenever he wanted, but it was neither the time nor the place. He went for the shower and imagined a snappy comeback instead.

Their flight home left late after the game. It had been a long couple of days, and Chris was exhausted. He meant to check in with his parents, make sure they weren’t taking everything he said too hard. He also hadn’t checked the team Instagram since before he and Luca had gotten together. People had probably left a lot of comments on his interview tonight already. But his phone only had 2 percent battery, and it had put itself into energy-saving mode. Chris could have charged it and checked, but he knew what he’d said was true. So what if strangers online didn’t?

He could have also pulled out his book, but the few pages he’d managed of Anna Karenina so far had required a lot of concentration, and he didn’t feel up for that right now. It had a killer first line—Matty was right—but Chris needed more of an attention span to tackle the rest. Instead, he balled up his sweatshirt against the window and passed right out. He woke up somewhere over Oregon and found Luca chatting with Hayes of all people.

Chris stayed in a hazy, drowsy state through landing and the bus ride to the arena. He forced himself into wakefulness for the drive home, but as soon as he and Luca got there, after a perfunctory shower to wash off the plane smell, they crashed in Chris’s bed completely nude.

They woke to find the weak winter midday sun at its peak, warming up the room. Sunlight dappled strips of light across Luca’s smooth skin. He stretched, revealing the full length of his toned abdomen. Chris splayed a hand out across it.

Luca flexed his abs.

It was such a douchey move that Chris couldn’t help but laugh, and then Luca laughed, too, his stomach going soft again under Chris’s touch.

“You’re so pretty,” Chris said.

“I like when you call me that.”

Chris snorted. He loved the man, but Luca was just the tiniest bit conceited.

“No, I mean…” Luca rolled onto his side and propped up on his elbow. “I used to hate being called pretty.”

“Why?” People mostly called Chris stupid. He’d love to get “pretty” instead.

“My team in Juniors…” Luca trailed his fingertips up Chris’s side, whispering along his ribs. Chris bit his lip to keep from laughing at the soft touch. It tickled, but Luca seemed serious. “I told you they didn’t like me very much, right? ‘Pretty boy’ was one of the nicer things they said. They also used ‘fag’ and ‘homo.’”

Chris caught Luca’s hand in his and drew it up to press a kiss to the back of it. “How old were you?”

“Sixteen. My English was—” Luca made a face. “—so-so. They made fun of that, as well. But it is not hard to understand tone of voice or having to sit alone on every road trip in the bus.”

“Assholes.”

“Yes.”