Score me, Captain

Chapter 9

Three days. It's been three days since the shower, and I still can't close my eyes without feeling his hand on me.

I've called in sick to practice twice now. Coach Wellington left a voicemail that I deleted without listening to. Teammates have texted asking if I'm okay. I've ignored all of them.

The only person I can't ignore is the one I'm trying hardest to forget.

My apartment feels like a prison. I pace from the living room to the bedroom to the kitchen and back again, wearing a path in the carpet. Every time I pass the bathroom door, my stomach clenches. I haven't been able to shower without remembering—the steam, the water, his body pressed against mine.

The way I fell apart in his hands like I'd been waiting my whole life for someone to touch me like that.

I tell myself it was physical. Just bodies responding to stimulation. Put any two people in a hot shower together, add some tension, and biology takes over. It doesn't mean anything. Doesn't have to mean anything.

But then I remember his voice in my ear. Low and rough, saying my name like it meant something. Saying "I've got you" like he actually meant it.

And I remember the way I moaned for him. The way I came undone with his name on my lips like a prayer I didn't know I'd been holding back.

Fuck.

I sink onto the couch, pressing the heels of my hands against my eyes until I see stars. This is insane. I'm not—I can't be—

But every time I try to finish that sentence, my brain short-circuits.

I think about Amelia. Force myself to remember our relationship, the year we spent together. The first time we had sex—nervous, fumbling, over too quickly. The times after that, when it became routine. Something to check off a list rather than something I craved.

She used to complain that I was distant. That I never initiated. That she had to practically beg me to touch her, and even then, I seemed like I was somewhere else.

I told myself I just wasn't a physical person. That sex wasn't that important to me. That I showed love in other ways—reliability, loyalty, presence.

But I never felt desperate for her. Never lay awake at night aching to feel her skin against mine. Never came so hard I forgot my own name just from the sound of her voice.

The comparison makes me want to throw up.

I stand abruptly, pacing again. The walls feel like they're closing in. I need air, need space, need to outrun the thoughts chasing me in circles.

But there's nowhere to go. Nowhere that isn't tainted by memories of him.

The rink where we practiced together. The parking lot where he rescued me from Amelia. My own fucking apartment, where I invited him in like an idiot and let him—

I stop in front of the bathroom door.

My hand finds the handle before I can think better of it. The door swings open, and I'm hit with the lingering scent of soap and steam, even though it's been days. Probably my imagination. Probably just my brain torturing me with sense memories I can't escape.

I stare at the shower. At the tiles where I pressed my back while he pinned my wrists. At the floor where the water swirled down the drain while I shattered into a million pieces.

"How far are you willing to go for that captain position, Ash?"

The words echo in my head, teasing and dangerous. He was joking—I know he was joking—but the question haunts me anyway. Because the answer is: apparently pretty fucking far. Far enough to let my childhood best friend jerk me off in my shower while I forgot every reason I was supposed to say no.

I move to the sink. Grip the porcelain edge and force myself to look in the mirror.

The face staring back at me looks like a stranger. Hollow eyes, dark circles, three days of stubble because I can't bring myself to stand in this bathroom long enough to shave.

"Say it," I whisper to my reflection. "Just fucking say it."

My throat closes up. The words stick, lodged somewhere between my chest and my tongue, too terrifying to release.

But I'm so tired of running. So tired of pretending. So tired of building walls that Blaze tears down with a single look, a single touch, a single moment of seeing me more clearly than I've ever seen myself.

"I'm not straight."

The words come out cracked. Broken. Barely audible even in the silence of my empty apartment.

I grip the sink harder, knuckles turning white.

"I've never been straight."

Saying it out loud doesn't feel like freedom. It feels like the ground opening up beneath my feet, swallowing everything I thought I knew about myself. Twenty-one years of assumptions, of carefully constructed identity, of telling myself I was normal, I was fine, I just hadn't met the right girl yet.

All of it. A lie.

My legs give out. I slide down the bathroom wall until I'm sitting on the cold tile floor, knees pulled to my chest, head in my hands.

Everything makes sense now. The distance with Amelia. The way I never felt what other guys seemed to feel when they talked about their girlfriends. The reason my eyes always lingered a beat too long in the locker room before I forced myself to look away.

The reason Blaze has been under my skin since the moment he walked back into my life. Since before that—since we were kids, playing hockey on frozen ponds, making promises I thought were about the sport when maybe they were about something else entirely.

I've been in love with him my whole life. I just didn't have the words for it until now.

The realization should terrify me. And it does—it absolutely does. But underneath the fear, there's something else. Something that feels almost like relief.

A piece clicking into place that's been missing forever.

I sit on the bathroom floor for a long time. Minutes or hours—I lose track. The cold seeps through my sweatpants, numbing my legs, but I don't move. I'm too busy letting the truth settle into my bones, rearranging everything I thought I knew.

Eventually, my phone buzzes in my pocket.

I pull it out with numb fingers. One new message.

Blaze: "Haven't seen you. You okay?"

I stare at the screen until it goes dark. Then I stare at my reflection in the black glass, at the ghost of my face hovering over his name.

He's giving me space. Hasn't pushed, hasn't shown up at my door demanding answers. Just this—a simple check-in. A reminder that he's there when I'm ready.

If I'm ever ready.

I think about what he said in the shower, after. "Still think there's nothing between us?"

No. I don't think that anymore. I don't think I ever really believed it, even when I was saying the words.

My thumb hovers over the keyboard. I should tell him I'm fine. Should lie, deflect, rebuild the walls he keeps tearing down.

Instead, I type a single word: "Yeah."

It's not much. It's not an explanation or an apology or any of the things I probably owe him after three days of radio silence.

But it's honest. For the first time in maybe my entire life, it's honest.

I hit send before I can second-guess myself.

Then I pull myself off the bathroom floor, walk to the kitchen, and pour myself a glass of water.

Tomorrow, I'll go back to practice. Tomorrow, I'll face him, face the team, face whatever comes next.

Tonight, I let myself breathe.

It's a start.