Page 96 of Two for Roughing

“Denny was down,” Ketchup explained. “Lissy’s lifting him up.”

“With his dick?”

“With the helicopter.” How Lissy managed to sound indignant about it was anyone’s guess.

“Um,” Kilian said.

Lissy demonstrated, mercifully pointing the wildly flopping appendage away from Damir in Kilian’s direction.

The corners of his lips twitched.

“See!” Lissy cried triumphantly. “The helicopter brings joy and laughter wherever it goes.”

Kilian broke into loud guffaws, going so far as to set down his caddy so he could hold himself up against the force of his laughter with his hands braced on his thighs. “Oh my God,” he gasped out. “You pointed that thing at Damir?”

The sight and sound of Kilian’s merriment softened Damir into a smile. He forced his face back to neutrality.

“Whenever he’s grumpy,” Lissy confirmed.

“Wow, he’s always grumpy. You should be careful, man. Testicular torsion is no joke.”

The half of the team Damir could see winced and grabbed for their sacks. Kilian ignored them all and headed for the last remaining shower stall beside Damir.

Lissy followed him over. “I would have thought a gay man would appreciate art.”

Kilian eyed his soft dick, still swaying with his every move. “Whatever you say, bro.”

Spinning to glare at Damir, Lissy complained, “I can’t believe you got to him first. Everyone else thinks it’s funny. Everyone!”

“You think that includes his girlfriend?” Kilian asked Damir conversationally.

Damir dunked his head under water, rinsing off the last of the conditioner. “I have asked myself the same question many times.”

“Céline knows a good thing when she sees it,” Lissy said haughtily.

Damir and Kilian exchanged a glance.

“I thought I understood how straight people have sex.” Kilian widened his eyes, affecting dramatic innocence. “Now I have so many questions.”

Predictably, the team answered with far too many offers to tell Kilian everything he had never wanted to know about heterosexuality. Usually, the mood before a nighttime flight would have been dampened by having to travel after such a decisive win, but the stupid dick-related shenanigans actually buoyed everyone’s spirits.

“Thank you for including him,” Damir muttered to Lissy on their way out of the locker room and toward the team bus. The helicopter might be juvenile and borderline harassment, but at least Lissy wasn’t being a homophobic dick about locker-room nudity.

“Of course.” Lissy winked. “Everyone, gay or straight, should experience the glory of the helicopter. But if you keep mocking me, I will develop a complex.”

“Good.” Damir slipped into place beside Kilian on the bus to end the conversation. He would be happy to never again speak of the helicopter.

“Hey, Howie,” Ketchup called across the bus. “What did the guy on the Fury say to you anyway?”

Kilian snorted. “He told me I had better not be staring at his ass.” He busied himself digging through his bag, a perennial catastrophe Damir itched to organize for him. When Kilian finally found his wireless headphones, he looked up to find the whole bus staring at him. “What?”

“Well, what did you respond?” Lissy demanded.

“Oh. Uh, I told him I wouldn’t know if it was worth it unless he turned around and bent over.”

It was juvenile. And more than likely to make the Fury’s locker room even more toxic than it had already been. Damir had to bite his bottom lip to keep from laughing. No one else on the bus had the same compunction. The cacophony was nigh unbearable.

Things didn’t improve when it died down either. With the expression of someone who had just been shown the eighth wonder of the world, Matheson said to Kilian, “You could say anything on the ice and tell the refs they’re being homophobic if they give you an unsportsmanlike.”