Page 33 of Delay of Game

The noise of the door behind him startled him into action; he pushed Nate, stumbling, away. The two of them whirled like guilty children to face Netty.

Netty turned his blank shark eyes from one to the other, raised his eyebrows, and said, “All okay in here, boys?”

Nate made a noise that sounded a little like he’d choked on his own tongue, so Zach, who was still drunk enough that his voice was thick and foggy when he spoke, said, “Just taking a piss, andthepiss. Or I was. I’m done now. Come on, Cap,” and grabbed Nate by the shirt and dragged him out of the bathroom.

“Oh, god,” Nate was muttering to himself once they were safely in the hallway, “what the fuck was I thinking? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I did that.”

“Hey,” Zach said, fighting the urge to press his hand over Nate’s mouth to shut him up, because basically they were in public, which was somethinghe had better fucking remember, “it’s cool, chill out, it’s cool, it’s just not—it’s just—uhhh...do you wanna...get out of here?”

“I’m sorry, I—what?” Nate’s eyes were a darker blue than Zach had ever seen them, his mouth hanging open like Zach had just slapped him.

Zach wanted to kiss him again.

Maybe it was alcoholic courage; maybe it was the fact that it was easier to slip back into his old habits of not considering the consequences. He still had his hand pressed against Nate’s chest. Nate’s heart thudded under his fingers through the thin dress shirt; he could almost hear it in his ears. He’d done this before and kept it bros, so there was really no reason he couldn’t havethisand keep it bros. Like, he was still tier one with Jammer after all of those years of on-and-off hooking up when they were single and bored.

There was absolutely nothing that could go wrong.

“I said, do you wanna get out of here?”

Nate swallowed hard and Zach thought about how if they were back at his hotel room, he could have put his teeth against Nate’s Adam’s apple and felt the swallow under his tongue.

“I... Okay.”

“Yeah?”

“Zach—”

“Just follow my lead, okay?”

It was like watching another Zach doing it. Dragging Nate out of the bathroom hallway, casually lurching from one teammate to the other as he grabbed their suit jackets and said his goodbyes and apologies, “oh yeah, Cap’s tired, gotta get him back to the hotel,” pounding everyone on the back.

He didn’t feel like he was back inside his own body until they were in the cab, and then he almost wished he wasn’t. The stupid sense of anticipation made everything feel charged with electricity, hypersensitive. Each time Nate’s knee knocked against his, he had to fight the urge to put his hand on Nate’s thigh. The cab driver must have thought both of them were crazy, the way they were completely silent, the way they couldn’t even bear to look at each other, the way they couldn’t stop touching each other even in the dumbest, smallest ways.

Somehow, he dragged Nate through the lobby and into the elevator. There were cameras, so he didn’t kiss him, even though he couldn’t think about doing anything else. Instead he slanted a glance sideways to make sure Nate was still, like, doing okay. Just in case Nate had decided to have a delayed freak-out about the entire thing.

Nate wasn’t freaking out, but he was brilliant red from his face down to his throat, and his hands were curled in fists, bitten-down fingernails digging into his palms.

“Hey,” Zach said. He was surprised by how soft his voice sounded. This was a weird fucking night. A weird fucking year. “We don’t have to—”

Nate licked his lips and couldn’t quite look Zach in the eye. Then he realized he was looking at Zach’s dick and looked up at the ceiling. “I...really want to.”

Little Zach made a valiant twitch at that, and Zach thought,don’t look a gift bro in the mouth. But he kind of knew where Nate was coming from. The first time it had happened it had been kind of inevitable, maybe, but a surprise all the same. Things had escalated quickly.

But this was a conscious decision, even if both of them had gotten drunk first. Steps had to be taken to get there. It was probably a lot, particularly for someone who’d never really done casual hookups before.

“Okay, I just want you to know, buddy, you’re really important to me, I don’t want you to be uncomf—”

Nate cut him off with his mouth, which, okay, not what Zach was expecting at all. He made a muffled noise of surprise, but then the elevator chimed and Nate pulled away again, face an even deeper red.

“Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.”

“Jesus Christ, stop apologizing and get in here,” Zach said, dragging him down the hall by a handful of shirt. Nate dutifully followed, and then dutifully waited while Zach fumbled in his pocket for the room key.

Once they were inside and the door was safely shut behind them, Zach finally felt like he could justlookat Nate, the agonized hesitation on his face and the tension in every muscle in his body.

Nate stared at him just as intently at first, then eventually, he swallowed self-consciously and said, “What?”

“I just—comehere,” Zach said, and Nate took one step forward, and then two. Zach closed the distance between them and leaned up to kiss him.