Page 69 of Game Misconduct

lmao just fuckin with you dude. but seriously. will you?

I don’t know, Mike, it’s a long weekend and we’re playing that Monday.

cmon i miss you AND i owe you. pleeeease danny im ASKING and that’s yr thing right?

Danny stared at his phone. He was sweating from the workout, from the fact that he was still kind of trashed, and he’d never tried combining the two before. He was starting thechecking off new lowslist, he supposed, and it felt like giving up. Mike sure as fucking hell deserved better than that, but even though Danny knew that, knew it in his bones, he also just really missed Mike. He was only human, and he had no self-control.

Okay, I’ll come.

You want me to make the arrangements or?

already reserved a room. you can stay with me, i’ll send you the info

Oh yeah?

uhhh duh, dude. ok i gotta get to morning skate. if you bitch out on me ill FIND you and u’ll be sorry

Jesus, Mike.

He booked tickets to Vegas shortly after the text messages with Mike, and up until the day he was actually boarding the plane, Danny thought about skipping out. Some of the other Hornets would be there. Lévesque was a perennial fixture, unless he was injured, and it was going to be strange, balancing hanging out with the guys and trying to see Mike in secret. At least they’d be in the same position, since Mike was there for Bee.

They were mostly going to have to do their own things and bow out early. That was going to be easier said than done, because the All-Star Game was usually a shitshow anyway, let alone in Vegas, a city that catered to everyone’s worst impulses. Danny, who was only a man and not a particularly strong man, included himself in that. He was going to have to just find Mike early, hope they could slip away, and leave it at that.

He and Lévesque were on cordial enough terms these days, but Danny didn’t feel the need to cheer him on or anything. The dude certainly had accomplished enough without Danny’s encouragement before they’d played together and would probably accomplish even more after Danny had been forced into retirement. So while he sat in the box with Gears and Landry and Artyomov, he was mostly looking out at the crowd in the futile thought that maybe, somehow, he’d be able to pick Mike’s face out of thousands of people.

Part of him almost felt like he could do it, like Mike was some kind of magnetic north, like his body would just orient itself toward him wherever he happened to be.

He made it through the skills competition day without getting too drunk. Morin cleaned up, same as she had last year, and he thought again that it must be nice to be able to have a body that responded the way you needed it to. It was an uncharitable thought, but Danny felt scourged by that raw combination of melancholy and need by the time Mike texted him,can u get away?

Yes. Please.

see you at the hotel. theres a key at the front desk for u but...idk if you looked, i picked a really nice place for you

Danny’s chest was doing the thing where it constricted until it ached.You didn’t have to, Mike.

i wanted to you fuckin idiot. see you in 20ish? make sure you get the key or i think i gotta come down for you

That was the other strange thing about Vegas. Things that were ostensibly next to each other still took longer than they seemed like they should to reach. He walked for about fifteen minutes, his small backpack of shit slung over his shoulder, to the hotel Mike had picked. As soon as he saw it, combined with the fact that he’d need a key to even get in the elevator, Danny immediately realized that it was agesture.

It was one of those places that Danny knew would have you picked up from the airport, one of those places he never stayed on principle because it just didn’t seem worth it. Checking in might’ve embarrassed him, once upon a time when he was a rookie and hated the way people looked at him sometimes. Now he didn’t even give a fuck, beyond the faint sense of unease of using his own name. You had to trust the discretion of places like this, and he didn’t like doing that.

It was worth it, though, when he finally got out of the damn elevator and into the ridiculous fucking room Mike had reserved. The first thing he saw were Mike’s beat-up Doc Martens tossed carelessly next to the door, because Mike always took his shoes off inside, even in hotel rooms. It was a reminder how out of place both of them were in such a fancy fucking place. He looked up. The room was a two-story loft suite, and it was completely ridiculous. Everything was modern and shiny and opulent in a way that didn’t feel homey at all. Even after all of these years he’d never really gotten used to staying in these kinds of places.

Mike had been lying on the couch, still wearing his Morin jersey and skinny jeans, his legs hooked over the armrest. His feet, also tattooed, were bare, and Danny thought about the last time, in Philly, when he’d run his finger down the side of them and told Mike,no, you have to stay still, when his whole body had jerked in response. Mike was reading a book, which was also out of place, but when the door opened he rolled off of the couch and to his feet, grinning this hopeful, awkward smile. Danny had never been so glad to see anyone probably in his entire life.

“Youreallydidn’t have to do this.”

Mike ran his hand over his head, which was buzzed back down to the skull again. “Yeah, but I wanted to.” He was still smiling, lopsided and a little goofy. It was a side of him Danny would never have expected when they’d first met, but he was starting to see more and more often, and it killed him a little. “C’mon, Danny, we never get to even see each other, and I thought—I don’t know, I thought it would be fun. The view’s killer, anyway, and we can get room service.”

“Hey,” Danny said, “come here.”

It said something that Mike didn’t even hesitate anymore. He crossed the room and fit into Danny’s arms like it was the easiest thing in the world, like he’d been waiting for it. Went up on his tiptoes for the kiss, slow and thorough, like he wanted to reacquaint himself with Danny’s mouth, his hands soft at the sides of Danny’s face. Danny relaxed into it until Mike, the little shit, bit him on the lower lip, sudden and sharp, and Danny’s hand slid up, on reflex, to wrap itself around Mike’s throat.

Mike tested his grip, twisting his head a little. There wasn’t much give, and his voice was strained when he said, “You know, I like this, but I wanna—I told you I wanted to makeyoucry this time.”

Danny, who could feel Mike’s throat moving against his palm when he talked, bit his lip and didn’t answer. Mike’s hand came up and his thumb stroked along the outside of Danny’s hand, still gripping his throat, and Danny shivered. He knew what Mike wanted.

He was thirty-five years old and he liked sex. He had, without bragging, had a respectable amount of it with both men and women during his lifetime, he knew what he liked, and he wasn’t ashamed of that. He maybe had some wires crossed when it came to pain, but that wasn’t anything too unusual given his profession. But Danny was used to keeping control of the situation. Even the first night Mike had fucked him, he’d had the situation in hand. The need for control...sure, it was hot, and it had ancillary uses, like nudging Mike in the right direction and getting him to vocalize things he needed.