“I don’t want to leave you alone to ceiling-gaze all by your lonesome.”
“Being alone,” he says, “is not the same as being lonesome.”
“True. But sometimes it’s nice not to be alone.”
He stares up at me, those dark eyes unreadable, so frustratingly guarded. My heart slams in my chest. “You really should go,” he says, digging his palms into his eyes again and exhaling slowly. I see how much he’s hurting.
“Can I try to help first?”
He scoffs. “There’s no help.”
I have a few memories, growing up, when what was left of my dad’s leg ached fiercely, phantom nerve pain, pain from his prosthesis chafing against his skin. I remember him lying on the sofa one evening, his head in my mom’s lap, while the house swirled with chaos around them. Dinner waited. Extra TV time was allowed. I remember wondering, when it was his leg that hurt, why my mom didn’t just focus on that. Sure, she massaged his spasming thigh muscle, the place where his skin and muscles had healed around severed bone.
But she spent much more time slipping her fingers through his hair, down his neck, pressing kisses to his face, his temple, whispering words we weren’t meant to hear that made Dad groan and smile. I didn’t understand why.
Now that I’m older, after having broken bones and sprained joints, after seeing the people I love hurt and heal, I understand. So often, pain isn’t something we can cure or prevent, and that’s not why we lean into the people we love. We don’t need them to fix it for us or ask about all the things we could have done to avoid it or the ways we’ve tried to remedy it. We just need them to see us, to find ways to love us, not in spite of our pain, but through it.
Comfort was what my mom taught me to give and receive—not in an attempt to fix pain, but to love and be loved with humanizing touch, to give soothing pleasure where it could be had. The simple joy of having your hair played with, muscles that weren’t on fire and bones that weren’t broken stroked and kneaded and reminded: pain is part of you, but it’s not all of you. You’re hurting and you’re here, and I am, too.
“I know there’s no fixing it,” I tell him quietly. “That’s why I only want to help. Helping is different.” I lift a hand, reaching for his hair, wet from his shower, then stop myself. “Can I touch you?”
Gavin opens his eyes, then glares up at me. He’s silent for a long, tense minute. “Yes,” he finally says. “But lay so much as a finger on my knee, and I will rip your arm off.”
“Ten-four.” I scooch closer, then swipe my finger across his temple, over his nose, around his mouth. I trace his features, strong and sharp as if carved in stone. His eyes flutter shut, and a soft, slow breath eases out of him.
Next, I slip my fingers through his hair in slow, rhythmic strokes, scraping across his scalp, before moving on to massage his temples.
“Fuck,” he groans.
I pause. “Of the good or bad variety?”
“Very good,” he says hoarsely.
A smile lifts my mouth as I do it again. “Good.”
After a few minutes of that, I drift my hands down his neck, kneading the tight muscles joining his shoulders.
A pleased groan rolls out of him.
Using one hand to scrape my fingers softly across his scalp again, I roll the other over his shoulder, down his arm. Air saws in and out of his lungs. His eyes scrunch tight. “What are you doing?” he whispers.
“Helping,” I tell him, staring down at his severe features. Thick dark brows, lashes, beard—a beard that I’m still convinced hides a dimple. His nose just slightly off-center from when a player from Arsenal broke it with his elbow during a corner kick eight years ago.
I remember vividly watching the game, watching blood pour down Gavin’s face, while he blankly stared ahead and they shoved cotton up his shattered nose. Like he felt nothing, like pain was the same as existing.
“Still feel okay?” I ask.
He nods slowly.
For a while, I keep my mouth shut and watch him for signs of what feels great and what doesn’t. When it seems like I’ve exhausted all the places I can make him feel good without touching what will feel bad, I give his shoulders one last squeeze. “There.”
Just when I’m about to pull away, his hand snaps up and wraps around my wrist, freezing me.
Time stretches. Our gazes hold. My pulse pounds in my ears.
His thumb strokes my wrist. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
I need to leave. I need to run and keep running. But instead, Gavin’s holding my wrist, then he’s tugging me closer, and then my hand is cupping his face, my head bending.
Our mouths brush—soft, tentative. Light dances behind my eyes as I sigh against his mouth, as he sighs against mine. The sound of contentment. Sweet relief. Coming home.
His lips are firm and warm, his beard soft as I sip his mouth, as he releases my wrist and sinks a hand into my hair. A rough, deep moan leaves him as I sweep my tongue against his, wet, hot. I taste him and feel like I’ve swallowed sunlight. I need more. I need everything.
As if he’s read my mind, Gavin wraps an arm around me, hauling me against him, pulling us close. He hisses in a breath as he turns fully and bends his knee.
I pull away worried, glancing down at his leg. “Are you—”
“Shut up,” he says hoarsely, cupping my head, drawing me tight inside his arms. “I’m fine.”
I wrap my hand around his waist, up his bare back, my fingertips dancing over the terrain of hard, powerful muscles and smooth, warm skin. He shivers and exhales roughly in my mouth as I kiss him again, warm and slick, warring for control.
He kisses like I knew he would—harsh and hard one moment, then another, slow and tender. I kiss him back like he must have known I would too, sweet and teasing, the next demanding and fierce. Gavin’s hand slips down my waist and grips my ass, holding me against him. Our chests crush together, our hips move as we rub against each other, as our kisses build in speed and rhythm.
“Just this once,” he says.
I nod. “Just once.”
“Then tomorrow,” he says between kisses, biting my lip, chasing it with his tongue, before he begins kissing my jaw, my neck. “At practice, we’ll be what we were.”
I moan as he grips my ass hard and moves me against him. “Day after tomorrow—”
“God,” he says roughly, hauling me so tight against him I can barely breathe. “God, you feel so good, taste so good. So much better than I—” He kisses me harder, stopping himself, but it’s not difficult to fill in the rest of that sentence.
I smile against his mouth. “Been thinking about this, huh, Hayes?”
“Piss off.” He cups my jaw, and holds it while he fucks my mouth with his tongue. “Like you haven’t, too.”
“Maybe just a little bit.”
Groaning, he presses his mouth to mine, this time hard and slow. He holds my face, my hips. And that’s when I realize what this is. A last kiss. A goodbye kiss. A no-more kiss.
On a slow, unsteady exhale, he cups my cheek, slides his thumb along my bottom lip as he stares into my eyes. And then he leans in, as if impulsively, for one more kiss, a bite of my bottom lip that he drags between his teeth, before he lets go.
I stare at him, hearing my uneven breathing, feeling heat flame in my cheeks. “Why did you—”
His finger stops my mouth. His eyes hold mine. “You’re going to go home now. And I’m going to stay here.”
“But—”
“And I will be fine.”
I swallow against the knot of something in my throat, a bittersweet pang smarting against my ribs.
“And when I see you in two days,” he says, “this will be behind us.”
I stare at him. Hating that he’s right. That as incredible as this was, it’s the worst possible thing I could do. I have to be wise. I can’t get sucked into caring about someone on the team and repeating the same mistake I made with Bryce.
Even though I know Gavin’s not Bryce, it’s too much of a risk. So what if we make out like champs? So what if at some point it snuck up on me—the mutual needling and provoking and smack-downs turning into something that turned me on? Even if we kept it to only off-hours, in our homes, even if we tried everything to keep it out of our minds and awareness when we practiced and trained and played games and did promotional stints, it could get away from us and compromise our captaincies, the team, the season. One of us could lose interest; the other could want more. We might slip up in front of the team and have to answer for breaking what I’m not even sure are the rules about players being together.
So much could go wrong. Gavin’s right. This has to stop.
“C’mon.” He sits up slowly, blanching with the pain as he swings his legs off the bed and stands. I scramble off his bed, following as he limps only slightly down the hallway, before he turns into his kitchen and opens the back door.