Page 3 of Game Misconduct

It was so fucking stupid, so fucking risky, that Mike couldn’t believe he hadn’t just kicked Garcia in the chin and left. It was so fucking stupid, but Mike had done the stupid thing every single time he met Garcia on the ice before tonight, and it seemed like an alley didn’t change one damn thing. Even if no one could see them from the street, it was risky, it was—

Garcia didn’t say anything else, just reached forward and put his hand on Mike’s belt. Looked up at him the entire time, unwavering. He had really long eyelashes. Mike still wanted to smash his face in, but he exhaled a shuddery breath and stood stock-still. Garcia smirked, like,that’s what I thought, the cocky bastard. Mike looked down at the hands undoing his belt buckle. They were big hands, knuckles a mess of bloody cuts and scar tissue. Garcia opened Mike’s shorts just wide enough that he could palm Mike’s dick through the boxers and press down hard.

Mike’s eyes screwed shut, his head smacked against the wall and he swore under his breath. It really had been that fucking long since someone else had touched him that even this brief contact, from Garcia of all people, could fuck him up that way. God, that was depressing.

When he chanced a look, Garcia was watching him still. Like they had all the time in the world, like they weren’t in public. It felt like he’d been flayed open, everything exposed. He didn’t like it.

“Are you—are you going to do it or what?”

Garcia didn’t say anything, just leaned forward and tugged Mike’s boxers down and took his entire length in his mouth, never looking away. Wet heat and suction, and a teasing press of his tongue against the slit. Immediately Mike knew he’d done it before. Like, going down on his knees in a fucking alley was the first clue and definitely a dead giveaway, but holy shit, Garcia knew what he was doing.

Any other thoughts he had, or was about to have, short-circuited completely when Garcia started to move his mouth. So Mike was drunk and horny and fucked up on adrenaline but he kind of lost control of his entire body, hips jerking forward as Garcia both took it, and then when Mike couldn’t stop, viciously shoved him back against the wall, hard enough to bruise. Mike had to bite his lip to keep from making noises, although he was fucking whimpering anyway.

It was probably the meanest blowjob he’d ever gotten, but he wouldn’t have expected anything less. Garcia would get him close, then scrape Mike’s skin with his teeth and pull away, leaving him panting and cursing again. It seemed like it went on forever, but he was so fucking keyed up, it was probably only a minute or two before he could feel his toes curling and tried and failed to push Garcia’s head to the side before he came.

Garcia didn’t move.

Mike died for a couple of seconds there. Everything went blank.

“What the fuck,” he gasped.

It was kind of a miracle he was still on his feet, honestly.

Garcia was still on his knees, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and Mike’s dick was hanging like right the fuck out there, slowly softening. He looked down and saw with nasty satisfaction that Garcia was hard, just from sucking him off, just from watching him come. Just from swallowing.

Mike had thoughts about that, but his brain hadn’t yet returned from the war, and every time he opened his mouth to say something, the only thing that would come out was, “What thefuck.”

“That was a blowjob,” Garcia said, finally. His voice was rough and gravelly because Mike had fucked his throat. “I know you’ve probably never had one before, Sato, but try to keep the fuck up.”

“You—” Mike swallowed, then looked down. He should probably be polite and...wave the white flag, at least temporarily. “Uhhh.” He sounded like an idiot, but that was about the level his brain was operating at right now. “Uh. Did you want me to do something about that?”

Garcia looked down, like his own fucking erection was something he was just discovering, then hauled himself up to his feet. His knees were bloody too, abraded from the concrete and studded with little rocks from the ground, and Mike’s dick gave a valiant little jump at the sight of them.

“Yeah, no. I’m good,” Garcia said, and rolled his eyes like it wasn’t a serious offer. Before Mike could say anything, he had turned and walked out of the alley, leaving Mike to try to shove his dick back into his boxers, buckle up his belt.

“What thefuck is wrong with you?” he yelled after Garcia’s retreating back, but it was too late. He scrubbed his hand over his face, legs shaky.

He had definitely lost that one.

It was just Mike’s luck that Bee came home before the bruises faded. Beatrice Morin, his best friend. Beatrice Morin, the first woman drafted in the league, a player whose sheer talent and bloody-minded determination had already proven wrong the people who’d said it was a publicity stunt by the worst team in the league.

The two of them had bonded early on in their rookie year, a Black woman and a Japanese-American guy forcing their way into a white league, long shots to make the team who’d managed to carve out a roster spot together. She’d spent the summer in Finland on her offseason crazy romantic-comedy grand gesture adventure with Sakari Mäkelä, the Cons’ goalie.

Mike had spent the summer having a nervous breakdown and making stupid fucking choices.

She texted him from the airport,hello, just landed, be home in a few hours, hope all is well, because she was a hockey robot masquerading as a sixty-year-old woman. Mike looked at their apartment, which he had cleaned up in anticipation of her return, cleared it of the evidence of his depression summer, and thought it was probably mostly okay.

He looked at his eye and his cheekbone in the mirror and thought they were definitely not okay. Both of them were in the mid-bruise stage, purple and yellow and green, and every time he looked at his face, he thought about Garcia in the alley and kind of wanted to die a little.

Actually, the worst thing was remembering the dismissive way Garcia had said,yeah, no, I’m goodand walked away. Mike still couldn’t figure out if the insult or the unfinished business made him angrier—the implication that, once again, he wasn’tgood enough. In the end it was probably bullshit he was thinking about it still, anyway; it didn’t matter.

Bee arrived with a suitcase full of clothes, all of which she had bought in Finland after showing up at the airport with only her passport and a crazy plan to tell Mäkelä she was sorry for breaking his heart and wanted to give their relationship a go after all and fuck whatever anyone else thought about it. Bee stood out no matter where she went, and it wasn’t just because she was basically as famous as you could be in Philadelphia. She was tall and striking and usually wore an expression like she could see right through your damn soul.

Vacation and Mäkelä had clearly agreed with her, because she looked relaxed and happy, her entire face beaming, her brown skin tanned even darker, curly hair in slim braids tied up in a ponytail. She wore cutoff jean shorts and a Cons T-shirt, because she was exactly the kind of dork who wore jorts and team merchandise everywhere, and her face was bright and open when she shoved at the door with her shoulder.

But whatever she’d been about to say, she forgot when she saw him.

“Michael!”