Page 54 of Two for Holding
“I should never have fallen asleep.I’m so sorry.I—”
“Tom, it’s okay.Breathe.Breathe.”Jax searched for his phone and found it underneath his left knee.He checked the time.“It’s fine.We’re flying out late today, remember?No one’s awake yet.”
“Right,” Tom said, still breathing much too fast.“Right.I can just…sneak over to my room.No one will know.”
That hurt a little.Jax was aware of what he could expect from Tom and how deeply closeted Tom was.He hadn’t pictured Tom dancing for joy at the thought of a hotel full of their teammates realizing they’d spent the night together.Jax had reached a point in his life where he chafed against secrecy and pretending, but he couldn’t expect Tom to share his sentiments, especially when Tom didn’t feel the same way about him.Still, a petty part of Jax wished Tom could be proud of being seen with him.
“Your first walk of shame,” he joked.
Tom rubbed a hand across his face.“Oh my God.I can’t believe I fell asleep here.”
“It’s okay.Hey, don’t tell anyone I’m such a boring kisser I sent you to sleep.”
“I wasn’t bored.”
“I’m kidding.It’s fine.”
Tom shook his head.“No, Jax, I don’t…I don’t even sleep on the team plane.I fell asleep here because it was the first time all day I wasn’t worried about anything.”
He sat up and rolled out of bed.Stretching his arms above his head, a little sliver of his treasure trail became visible where his T-shirt rode up, and Jax had to swallow hard against the swell of saliva.He was literally panting over this man like a fucking dog.
He had a problem.
He had a lot of problems.
In particular, he had six-foot-three of this particular problem, and it kept getting worse.
“Glad to be of service,” he said weakly, while his brain assaulted him with several other ways he could be of service.
Tom rewarded him with a heart-stopping smile.
On reflection, it looked no different than Tom’s usual smiles, but Jax had trouble imagining a time when he didn’t find everything Tom did heart-stopping.Thank God he hadn’t tried having feelings for someone earlier on in life.It was fucking debilitating.
“I’m gonna…” Tom said with a nod toward the door.
“Oh.Right.Of course.Um, bye.”
Ignoring Jax’s sudden inability to form full sentences, Tom leaned down and kissed him, just a little brush of their lips against each other.“I’ll see you later?”
“Uh-huh.”
It occurred to Jax later how stupid a question that was given they were staying at the same hotel, riding the same team bus, and getting on the same flight.At the time, his heart had skipped a beat in joy that Tom wanted to see him later.After a reasonably healthy breakfast of fruit, yogurt, and shredded oats—Jax could not face the thought of more reconstituted scrambled eggs—and enough coffee to replace at least part of his bloodstream, he regained the ability to think rationally.
So he’d had another make-out session with the Crow, and they’d slept in the same bed.Weirder things had happened.Probably.Somewhere.So he wanted to go home with Tom, continue where they’d left off, and take him out to dinner during a nice weekend on the coast.It was probably nothing more than a crush.Jax had a thing about taking care of people, and Tom needed taking care of.Jax had let his instincts run away with him a little, but he could keep it together and be professional about this.Tom did not need or want some guy panting after him at work.
Breakfast eaten, Jax sipped his second coffee and distracted himself by scrolling through Instagram on his phone, which was at 12 percent battery after lying in the sheets all night instead of charging like good little phones were supposed to.Vanessa’s interior design channel still showed at the top of his feed.Since Breezy had dumped her for being in the mob or something, Jax could probably unfollow.He did find something about the room transformations she posted hypnotizing.Every time, she’d start with a perfectly livable room and end with a place where Jax would be scared to sit down on anything in case his butt left a print.
The official NHL channel had posted an interview with the captain of the Magpies and tagged him in it.
He dug an earbud out of his pocket, prayed it was still charged, and pressed Play on the interview.
“Yeah,” Tyson said on the tiny little video.(They used to keep a tally in the Magpies locker room of how often he said “yeah” in interviews.When he did it more than ten times, he bought the team a round at the sports bar they frequented.) He was sweaty, his hair the rat king of cowlicks, so this must have been postgame, probably before his shower.“I mean, as far as I knew, Jax asked for the trade?He didn’t really talk to me about it.”
Jax closed his eyes.Definitely postgame if they asked him about what Jax had said in his own interview last night.
“He’s not the best at impulse control.Maybe he regrets it now or something.”
The feed cut out then, replaced by the NHL’s blue-and-white logo.Jax googled the full clip before the audio ended.There wasn’t much more to it, though, just some talking points about the Magpie’s new second-line center, who couldn’t hold a candle to Jax.Tyson must have realized immediately after that he shouldn’t gossip about former teammates to the media.
