Page 46 of On Thin Ice

“You don’t. You got this,” Jacob said and patted him on the shoulder pad, his touch lingering this time.

“And here I thought you weren’t going to bother with meaningless platitudes,” Finn said.

Jacob laughed. Tightened his grip on Finn’s shoulder. “Who says it’s meaningless?”

“I—”

“No,” Jacob said earnestly. “Imeanit. You got this. You can handle these guys. But more importantly, I know you can handle yourself.”

“You believe that.” Finn had the nerve to sound surprised.

“I sure fucking do. That’s what I really came down here to say.”

Finn’s chin lifted and his eyes flashed with something else now. Not the heat of a challenge, but a warm affection, and an understanding.

And that scared the shit out of Jacob, even more than the desire to touch and to feel Finn’s bare skin against his.

“Thanks,” Finn said.

“Good luck out there.” Jacob patted him one last time.

“You’re not coming into the locker room?”

Jacob shook his head. “Not today. But maybe someday.”

“Alright,” Finn said, and there was that understanding in his eyes again.

Like he understood that Jacob wasn’t ready for that, yet.

He wasn’t wrong.

There was still a part of Jacob that longed to be the one on the bench, sweat slicking his skin, checking every piece of his gear and getting mentally ready for another period.

He didn’t need that desire to grow claws and rake at him, relentlessly, even more than it already was.

Though funny enough, as Jacob retraced his steps, coming down herehadhelped. He felt more settled already, like a pieceof him that he’d been missing forever had finally locked into place again.

Happy, he realized as he headed back towards where Bryan was sitting, he washappyagain. He hadn’t thought he’d like coaching. But maybe it wasn’t off the menu, forever.

“So, how was it?” Bryan asked him when he got back to their seats.

Bryan had taken the opportunity to go grab drinks and a pretzel nearly the size of his head.

“I thought doctors were against salt,” Jacob said, because it was so much easier to talk about Bryan’s eating habits than to tell him the truth about how that had just gone.

Pretty good. And a total fucking disaster.

Bryan smacked him on the back of his head. “Don’t change the subject. Besides, this is my night out, and if I can’t get laid, and they don’t even have beer here, I’m going to eat this fucking pretzel.”

“Fair,” Jacob said. “Don’t—”

“You mean, don’t mention thatyoucould get laid, because you could, you absolutely could.”

“You didn’t even see us together,” Jacob protested.

“Yeah, didn’t need to. You wouldn’t be so torn up about this if it was just you. You’d slink off and lick your wounds. You wouldn’t be sitting here, looking torn, like you’re only five seconds away from listening to the devil on your shoulder.”

“I am not,” Jacob said. But for someone who’d always had ironclad self-control, he wasn’t doing a very good job of exercising it right now.

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