Page 153 of Full Contact

“You didn’t invite me,” Varga said.

“Your presence wasn’t required,” Pratt said.

I thought of Pratt in my doorway in his practice sweats, asking about the protocol for a personal announcement after the fact. Now I knew what he’d been asking.

Varga put down his tongs. “Sully deserved better. He should have had a crowd.” He held up one finger. “A man on one knee in front of the crowd.” A second finger. “And at minimum, one stranger crying." That was the third finger. "No strangers?”

“There was a stranger,” Sully said. “At the jeweler’s, when we picked up the rings. The woman asked if it was for an engagement, and Pratt said yes, and she cried.” He beamed. “That counts.”

Everybody looked at Pratt.

Pratt considered it. “Acceptable behavior.”

We all lost it. Heath had to put his drink down. Varga stood with three fingers still in the air. Pratt smiled while Sully leaned into his side.

“Fine,” Varga said. “I accept the stranger, but I’m giving a toast at the wedding.”

“We’ll negotiate,” Pratt said.

Trier’s hand settled against my back, just above my belt.

He leaned in. “What are you thinking?”

“That I’m happy for them,” I said.

***

We left the cookout a little after nine with a slab of foil-wrapped brisket on my lap, because Rook didn’t let anyone leave his yard empty-handed. On our way out, Varga had started a pool on the length of Pratt’s eventual wedding toast. He wrote it on the back of a paper plate, twenty dollars a square, and Rook put his money on under four minutes before Varga finished drawing the grid.

I had an eight o’clock in the morning with the league’s playoff communications people and slides that still didn’t line up. I’d told Trier that I’d come inside to see Peaches, and then sleep at home because I had to be at the arena early.

“That’s sensible,” he said.

Peaches met us at the door and went straight for the foil. Trier lifted the brisket over her head, put it on the top shelf of the refrigerator, and closed the door before she could get a paw in. She sat down in front of the refrigerator anyway, in case someone would reconsider.

I was leaning back against the counter. Trier stepped up close. “How early is early?”

“Eight.” He put his hands on the counter on either side of me. “It’s only nine forty,” I said.

“That’s a lot of time.”

“It’s enough time.”

He kissed me. It started slow but didn’t stay that way. When I pulled back to breathe, he said, “Bedroom,” the way he’d said it the first time, and I still loved hearing it.

He unbuttoned my shirt one button at a time and hung it folded on the chair in the corner. He was careful with his left hand. When he braced himself on the mattress, he used his right.

“Lie back,” I said.

“Is that a request?”

“It’s a plan.”

He lay back on the bed, propped on his good elbow. I knelt between his legs and took his cock into my mouth, slow, the way I knew he liked: flat tongue along the underside, fingers wrapped around the base, and a pause at the head that made him exhale through his nose. He slid his fingers into my hair and gripped.

“Mark,” he said. “Come here.”

He pulled me up and rolled us onto our sides, his chest to my back. He reached for the nightstand and swore quietly when the angle made him use his left hand.