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2minsforslashingTitle: Reunion
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zdarovyeh
Pairing: Steve Bernier (Bernie) [POV]/ Milan Michalek (Bad Czech)
Rating: PG, for suggestiveness & language
Disclaimer: These are characters based off real people, but the story is 99.999% fake.
Author's Note: This is part of the same series as a few previous fics I've posted here (1 / 2 / 3). Milan reportedly has a girlfriend, but has never publicly shared her name or any details about her, so I took more liberty than usual in creating her as a character. Thanks to_lady_lilith_, harleymae and seachanges for the beta.
Dedication: To_lady_lilith_, who has been helping to feed the Bernalek plot bunnies so well the past couple of weeks… ;)
Thursday, September 28, 2006
I was in a good mood. An extremely good mood. My heart was light, my belly was full, it was a sunny afternoon in the Bay Area, and I waited cheerfully for Milan to answer my knock.
He did so on the phone.
My mood dipped.
He mouthed the word parents with an apologetic grimace, then spoke, Czech flowing forth far more facilely than even the French we shared. He walked deeper into his apartment, leaving me to follow in his wake and shut the door behind me. He continued to the kitchen, from which I heard the noises of cabinets opening and closing and china clinking around, and I sighed, dropping heavily into a seat on his couch to wait. He came out with a glass of water and a brief smile for me, then retreated, leaning against his dining room table to continue his conversation.
I watched him, noting the tiny ripples along his bare skin by the tiny flexing of his muscles simply from being there, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the animation of his expression as he spoke, the light in his eyes when he laughed. He caught me looking and favored me with a warm smile, which I returned, and counted myself lucky to be here at all.
Earlier…
“Hey, Bad Czech, it’s me,” I said into the phone.
“Oh, hey, Bernie.”
Milan’s response was distant, which confused me but I continued on. “I’m back in town, I was wondering if you wanted to get together tonight and do dinner or something, hang out.” Although my voice was casual, my heart raced in anticipation. We’d talked off and on all summer about when we’d get to see each other again, and this was finally it.
“This week’s really busy, getting unpacked, settled in, you know.”
I deflated. “Yeah, I know.” Disappointment colored my tone.
“Hey,” he said, voice softening, “I’ll see you at practice?”
I forced brightness. “Yeah, sure.”
“I’m sorry, I have to go. Eliska’s over.”
His girlfriend. A flash of jealousy twisted the corners of my mouth and inspired my reply. “Oh, for sure. I should go, too, Anne-Sophie’s here.”
“She is?” Milan asked sharply, and I wondered if I was only wanting to hear what sounded like jealousy in his voice, too.
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Okay.” He sounded disgruntled, so maybe I wasn’t wrong. “Well, seeya, Bernie.”
“Yeah, seeya, Bad Czech.”
The whole conversation sat badly with me. After a few days of distant contact in practice, frustration mounted. Of all the teammates I’d befriended in my first season, I missed him most of all. I wanted back the close camaraderie we’d shared both on and off the ice, and wanted to be with him as we’d only been able to a few short days before our summer had begun.
I finally went to him in the locker room and asked, “Can we talk?”
He continued putting toiletries back in his bag, not looking up at me. “Sure, if it’s short, I’m meeting Eliska for lunch.”
His girlfriend again. I was glad he wasn’t looking up, because he missed the scowl I made at hearing that, wiped away before anyone could notice or comment. I didn’t say anything, simply waited impatiently. The silence finally drew his attention up to glance at my irritated expression.
He flinched, then rose to his feet. “Let’s talk out in the hall.”
I didn’t want to talk in the hall, I wanted to talk somewhere privately. I began to suspect that’s exactly why he suggested it. Thorty was gone, but Lukas and Tomas were around and could understand us speaking French, as well as the new kid, Marc. With the odds of one of them coming by at any moment, any conversation we’d have would necessarily have to be short.
He leaned up against the cinder block wall, hands tucked at the base of his spine, and jerked his chin up and down fractionally. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” I volleyed back, trying to unclench my teeth. “You’re avoiding me again, aren’t you.”
“I am?”
“Milan.”
He sighed, capitulating, ducking his gaze so he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Yes,” he agreed with reluctance. “I’m avoiding you again.”
I looked at him, bewildered. “Why?”
“You know why.”
I did, probably the same reason he’d avoided me in May, but my confusion remained. My voice dropped even quieter than it had been, trying to avoid any chance eavesdroppers. “I thought we worked all that out?”
“We did, but…look, Bernie.” He sighed, and snuck a look up at me, there and gone. “It’s just not going to work. Better to just let it go.”
“Aren’t we going to at least talk about it?”
“No,” he said decisively, peeling himself off the wall. In a normal voice, he said, “I need to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Down the hall he walked, out into the bright sunshine of the California afternoon and the cluster of waiting fans.
I did see him, but he continued to use teammates, trainers, in and out of the locker room at mismatched times, and prior commitments to evade any attempts I might’ve made to corner him again over the following couple of weeks. Frustration gave way to anger.
I finally found an opportunity to confront him during our first short road trip of the pre-season, down in SoCal. I saw Cheech leave his room to meet up with Jimmy, then went to the door of the room he shared with Milan and knocked on it.
Milan answered, standing apprehensively in the doorway. “Hey.”
“Hey. Can I come in?”
“I don’t th—”
I put my hand out on the door, taking a half-step into the room and leveled a look at him. “Please,” I asked, voice dropping in volume. “I just want to talk about it.”
I noticed unease and indecision flash through his demeanor, before he took a step back, opening the door to allow me entrance. He continued to give me a wide berth, retreating deeper into the room while I closed the door. A wild thought flitted through, a wondering if he did it intentionally because of the last time we were in a hotel room together, alone. The memories of that night in Edmonton flooded through me, the electric shock the first time Milan kissed me, the zinging realization of how much I wanted him, of concerns swept aside by newly discovered lust. My breath caught in my chest and I felt myself harden, and when I looked to find Milan, I saw that he was remembering, too.
“Milan…” I started, then trailed off.
He shook his head, rejecting me. “It won’t work, Steve.”
I noticed the use of my given name. He rarely used it. “Why not?”
“It just won’t.”
“That’s not an answer,” I said, resentment bleeding into my tone. “We talked about this last year.”
He laughed, a short bitter laugh. “We didn’t talk about it, Steve. We said the words, but we didn’t really mean them. We weren’t really thinking about them. We just wanted to make out and screw around.” He took a ragged breath, betraying how shaky he was. “I thought about it a lot this summer, a lot, and I realized we can’t make it work.”
“We made it work just fine those last couple of days, why couldn’t we?” I challenged him. He was knocking everything, okay, most of everything I’d looked forward to out from under me, and rage built in me now.
“It was just a couple of days, Steve,” he persisted, undeterred. “The season is nine months, full of practices and road trips and everything else. Showering together and undressing together and—fuck.” The rarely used swear word exploded out of him heatedly. “We’d never be able to hide it in the locker room.”
“Then what about everything you said over the summer? About how much you were looking forward to seeing me and getting to be with me again?” I hissed. I wanted to shout, but I still had a shred of awareness to realize what a very bad idea that would be.
His anger collapsed. “I was. And I do,” he insisted in a low, pleading voice. “I wasn’t lying.”
“Then we should just do it,” I argued. “We can figure everything out, we can make it work.”
“No, Steve,” he said with a finality in his voice. “Not if I choose not to. We’re teammates, linemates. We can be brothers. But we can’t be that. Not now. Not ever.”
I glared at him, then snapped, “Fuck you, Milan. Fuck you,” and turned on my heel to stalk out of the room.
The falling out lasted exactly two days.
We played on a line with Patty against Anaheim the following night. Having him between us smothered any discord we might’ve let leak into our game, but Patty sat out the next game at home against Vancouver. Smitty centered us, a familiar pivot we’d had experience with in the playoffs, but it was still different, and I found myself reacting and playing differently with Smitty between us, more on edge, emotions closer to the surface.
Milan, too. He scored early in the first, then another in the second, slamming home a rebound of my shot on goal. I went to congratulate him and suffered a jolt when I caught the look on his face. Celebration or joy, I could’ve handled, but what I saw was want, aching longing, his gaze locked on me as if for that moment, I was the only one on the ice. He reached out to clap my shoulder, but as he withdrew, I felt the back of his gloved fingers brush against my neck and cheek, a deliberate caress. Then Smitty was on us, the moment was broken. Milan yanked his gaze away to smile in a mask at the rest of the team. I skated back to the bench, shaking and pale.
He got a hat trick that night, my Milan, and even though he was typically humble about it under the onslaught of good-natured ribbing and congratulations from our teammates and in the press, I could see how proud he was of his achievement. Nearly as proud as I was of him for it, but through it all, I felt the phantom brush of his fingers burning across my cheek.
I decided I couldn’t let it go. I borrowed Ryane’s car and drove over to Milan’s apartment after dinner, dialing the code up to his apartment.
“Hello?” Milan answered, confusion prevalent.
“Hey, it’s Steve. You alone?”
“Yeah, I am, but Bernie, it’s late. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Let me in.”
“What?”
“Let me in, I’m downstairs.”
“Bernie, no.”
“Let me in or I’ll keep calling up there.”
“If you do, I’ll take the phone off the hook.”
“No, you won’t, I know you won’t.”
I could only guess from his tone that he was swearing, but I heard the long-tone of the depressed number key and the electronic buzz of the lock admitting me and pounced on it. I took the stairs up to his apartment three at a time and knocked quietly.
He opened the door only a fraction, glaring suspiciously at me through the crack. “Bernie, what are you doing here?”
“Let me in, Milan. I can’t talk about it out here.”
He prepared himself to refuse, I could see it go through his expression, considering whether he could do it and not raise a fuss, but decided he couldn’t. He stepped aside to let me in.
As soon as the door was shut behind me, I closed the distance to him and before he could react, cupped his face in my hands and kissed him, pouring all of the months of pent-up need into it until I was breathless and quivering and Milan was clinging to me, hands gripping my upper arms.
I wrenched myself away and looked at him, gulping air and desperately fighting the impulse to throw him against the wall and rip his clothes off.
He trembled and visibly struggled for control as well, misery etched into his face. “Why did you do that?” he asked, pain woven into the words.
“Because I wanted to,” I said. “Because of the way you looked at me tonight and the way you touched me.”
His trembling increased into shivers, and he lurched away from me, into his living room. “I didn’t mean to, Steve,” he explained, sounding lost. “I was just so happy, and then I saw you there…”
I barked a short laugh. “Jesus, Milan, if you’re like that trying to stay away from me, how could it be any worse if we were together?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around himself protectively. “But maybe it would be.”
I stepped forward again, noting with relief that he didn’t draw away as I did. I reached out once more to cup his shoulders in my hands, squeezing reassurance. “But maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe,” I continued, seizing on an idea, “if we were, it’d be easier to hide, because we’d have it, and we wouldn’t be trying to suppress it all the time and having it sneak out in front of God and everyone like it did tonight.”
“I don’t know, Steve,” he said, shaking his head back and forth in denial. “I don’t know.”
“Milan,” I begged him, “why not?”
His answer came low, nearly inaudible, and I got the sense that he was finally admitting the truth he’d been covering up the past few weeks. “I’m scared, Steve.”
I had to squash the bubbling, uncontrollable laughter welling up inside of me that it was all that simple. My pulse pounded in my ears as my heart raced, that I was close, so close, to maybe understanding all of this, and afraid I was going to fuck it up. But I could see the terror in his eyes, so I asked as gently as I could, “What are you scared of, Milan?”
Like a dam breaking, the words tumbled out of him in a gush hardly punctuated by a breath, increasingly impassioned as they kept coming out. “I’m scared of this. I’m scared of someone finding out and ruining our careers, both our careers. I’m scared of trying to hide it from everyone, of making a mistake and getting caught. I’m scared of how it’ll affect us on the team, how we play together, what happens if we have a fight? What happens if we do this and then break up, will we be able to keep playing together? Or how miserable we’ll be if we do. I’m scared of how we could do this and make it work, how will we have time to be together. What about our girlfriends, how do we keep it from them, do we even keep them? I’m scared that we’ll do this and then one of us will get traded, and then I’ll never see you again. And I’m scared of what would happen if we do this, and I fell in love with you.”
Through it all, I squeezed his shoulder for support, absorbing the verbal and emotional onslaught, the welter of fear and worry dumped on me in a rush, until the end, which hit me like a spear to the gut. My eyes widened, and words failed me momentarily.
“So that’s what I’m afraid of,” he concluded despondently when I didn’t reply immediately.
His tone hurt my heart, made it hard to breathe. I wanted to gather him up in my arms, to protect him, but how can I protect him when I am the threat? Frustration and fear constricted my throat and made it hard to speak. “Milan,” I started slowly, tone fragile. “I’m scared of all those things, too. But all that…” I trailed off, groping for words. “Most of that could happen whether or not we’re together. Even if we’re not, it’s not going to change how we feel, what we want, what we are. Look at tonight. Yeah, there are some things we’re going to need to work out, but…” I loosened my grip on his shoulders to rub his back in reassurance. “Isn’t it worth it? To try?”
“I don’t know.”
I sighed and dropped my hands to my sides. My entire chest felt bruised and battered, and not from the beating I had taken during the game tonight. “I do. I want to be with you, Milan. But if you want me to go, I’ll go.”
He stood there, looking down and away from me, jaw clenched, not speaking. Time slipped past, I don’t know how many seconds, maybe a minute, maybe more, before I sighed again, turning to leave.
I got halfway to the door when Milan said, “Steve, wait.”
I turned back to look at him. His gaze was up, looking at me, and his shoulders squared. I could tell he’d come to a decision.
“Don’t go.”
Distantly, I heard the electronic beep and the plastic snap of Milan’s cell phone flipping closed and hauled myself out of the pleasant memories of the rest of that night a week ago back to the here and now.
Milan casually tossed his phone on the coffee table then dropped to a seat next to me and smiled as I draped my arm over his shoulders. “Hey,” he greeted me finally in a soft, warm voice, dipping in to kiss me in a gesture equally soft and warm.
“Hey,” I replied when he’d withdrawn, smiling. “How’re your parents?”
“They’re fine. They read about the game last night and wanted to call before they went to bed.”
“That’s good.”
He flashed a boyish smile and curved his body into my side. “That’s not why you’re here, though, to talk about them.”
My smile turned wry. I admitted, “No, it’s not.”
He reached out to run the back of his fingers along my cheek, mimicking the motion he’d made during last week’s game, and grinned when I shivered under his touch. “We were going to celebrate your hat trick, weren’t we?” he asked innocently.
I huffed amusement, breathing already picked up a notch from stirring arousal. “That was what you promised, at least.”
“And I should keep my promises,” he said solemnly.
I grinned. “Yes, you should,” I agreed, before capturing his mouth in another kiss, this one deeper, lingering, igniting a slow burn all through me.
He pulled away with a deep inhale, eyes opening to look at me with delight which dimmed as reality intruded. “We only have until 5, Eliska’s coming over after work.”
Some of my ardor cooled at his words, a shadow crossing my face to betray me. Milan reacted to it by cradling my cheek in the palm of his hand. “Are you okay with that?”
I forced a smile, then didn’t have to as I laughed ruefully. “It’s just one of those things we’re going to have to work on.” I leaned in to kiss him a third time, this one laced with the growling edges of hungry desire, and he responded, arms sliding around my waist possessively. I broke free to look at him earnestly. “I totally will, to be with you.”
His elated smile illuminated his features and he rose to his feet, tugging on my hand to have me join him, guiding me back to his room.
~~~~~~
Author's epilogue: Think I made up the look they shared on the ice that catalyzed the resolution? Decide for yourself. :)
(crossposted tozdarovyeh)
Author:
zdarovyehPairing: Steve Bernier (Bernie) [POV]/ Milan Michalek (Bad Czech)
Rating: PG, for suggestiveness & language
Disclaimer: These are characters based off real people, but the story is 99.999% fake.
Author's Note: This is part of the same series as a few previous fics I've posted here (1 / 2 / 3). Milan reportedly has a girlfriend, but has never publicly shared her name or any details about her, so I took more liberty than usual in creating her as a character. Thanks to
_lady_lilith_, harleymae and seachanges for the beta.Dedication: To
_lady_lilith_, who has been helping to feed the Bernalek plot bunnies so well the past couple of weeks… ;)Thursday, September 28, 2006
I was in a good mood. An extremely good mood. My heart was light, my belly was full, it was a sunny afternoon in the Bay Area, and I waited cheerfully for Milan to answer my knock.
He did so on the phone.
My mood dipped.
He mouthed the word parents with an apologetic grimace, then spoke, Czech flowing forth far more facilely than even the French we shared. He walked deeper into his apartment, leaving me to follow in his wake and shut the door behind me. He continued to the kitchen, from which I heard the noises of cabinets opening and closing and china clinking around, and I sighed, dropping heavily into a seat on his couch to wait. He came out with a glass of water and a brief smile for me, then retreated, leaning against his dining room table to continue his conversation.
I watched him, noting the tiny ripples along his bare skin by the tiny flexing of his muscles simply from being there, the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, the animation of his expression as he spoke, the light in his eyes when he laughed. He caught me looking and favored me with a warm smile, which I returned, and counted myself lucky to be here at all.
Earlier…
“Hey, Bad Czech, it’s me,” I said into the phone.
“Oh, hey, Bernie.”
Milan’s response was distant, which confused me but I continued on. “I’m back in town, I was wondering if you wanted to get together tonight and do dinner or something, hang out.” Although my voice was casual, my heart raced in anticipation. We’d talked off and on all summer about when we’d get to see each other again, and this was finally it.
“This week’s really busy, getting unpacked, settled in, you know.”
I deflated. “Yeah, I know.” Disappointment colored my tone.
“Hey,” he said, voice softening, “I’ll see you at practice?”
I forced brightness. “Yeah, sure.”
“I’m sorry, I have to go. Eliska’s over.”
His girlfriend. A flash of jealousy twisted the corners of my mouth and inspired my reply. “Oh, for sure. I should go, too, Anne-Sophie’s here.”
“She is?” Milan asked sharply, and I wondered if I was only wanting to hear what sounded like jealousy in his voice, too.
“Yeah.”
“Oh. Okay.” He sounded disgruntled, so maybe I wasn’t wrong. “Well, seeya, Bernie.”
“Yeah, seeya, Bad Czech.”
The whole conversation sat badly with me. After a few days of distant contact in practice, frustration mounted. Of all the teammates I’d befriended in my first season, I missed him most of all. I wanted back the close camaraderie we’d shared both on and off the ice, and wanted to be with him as we’d only been able to a few short days before our summer had begun.
I finally went to him in the locker room and asked, “Can we talk?”
He continued putting toiletries back in his bag, not looking up at me. “Sure, if it’s short, I’m meeting Eliska for lunch.”
His girlfriend again. I was glad he wasn’t looking up, because he missed the scowl I made at hearing that, wiped away before anyone could notice or comment. I didn’t say anything, simply waited impatiently. The silence finally drew his attention up to glance at my irritated expression.
He flinched, then rose to his feet. “Let’s talk out in the hall.”
I didn’t want to talk in the hall, I wanted to talk somewhere privately. I began to suspect that’s exactly why he suggested it. Thorty was gone, but Lukas and Tomas were around and could understand us speaking French, as well as the new kid, Marc. With the odds of one of them coming by at any moment, any conversation we’d have would necessarily have to be short.
He leaned up against the cinder block wall, hands tucked at the base of his spine, and jerked his chin up and down fractionally. “What’s up?”
“What’s up?” I volleyed back, trying to unclench my teeth. “You’re avoiding me again, aren’t you.”
“I am?”
“Milan.”
He sighed, capitulating, ducking his gaze so he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Yes,” he agreed with reluctance. “I’m avoiding you again.”
I looked at him, bewildered. “Why?”
“You know why.”
I did, probably the same reason he’d avoided me in May, but my confusion remained. My voice dropped even quieter than it had been, trying to avoid any chance eavesdroppers. “I thought we worked all that out?”
“We did, but…look, Bernie.” He sighed, and snuck a look up at me, there and gone. “It’s just not going to work. Better to just let it go.”
“Aren’t we going to at least talk about it?”
“No,” he said decisively, peeling himself off the wall. In a normal voice, he said, “I need to get going. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Down the hall he walked, out into the bright sunshine of the California afternoon and the cluster of waiting fans.
I did see him, but he continued to use teammates, trainers, in and out of the locker room at mismatched times, and prior commitments to evade any attempts I might’ve made to corner him again over the following couple of weeks. Frustration gave way to anger.
I finally found an opportunity to confront him during our first short road trip of the pre-season, down in SoCal. I saw Cheech leave his room to meet up with Jimmy, then went to the door of the room he shared with Milan and knocked on it.
Milan answered, standing apprehensively in the doorway. “Hey.”
“Hey. Can I come in?”
“I don’t th—”
I put my hand out on the door, taking a half-step into the room and leveled a look at him. “Please,” I asked, voice dropping in volume. “I just want to talk about it.”
I noticed unease and indecision flash through his demeanor, before he took a step back, opening the door to allow me entrance. He continued to give me a wide berth, retreating deeper into the room while I closed the door. A wild thought flitted through, a wondering if he did it intentionally because of the last time we were in a hotel room together, alone. The memories of that night in Edmonton flooded through me, the electric shock the first time Milan kissed me, the zinging realization of how much I wanted him, of concerns swept aside by newly discovered lust. My breath caught in my chest and I felt myself harden, and when I looked to find Milan, I saw that he was remembering, too.
“Milan…” I started, then trailed off.
He shook his head, rejecting me. “It won’t work, Steve.”
I noticed the use of my given name. He rarely used it. “Why not?”
“It just won’t.”
“That’s not an answer,” I said, resentment bleeding into my tone. “We talked about this last year.”
He laughed, a short bitter laugh. “We didn’t talk about it, Steve. We said the words, but we didn’t really mean them. We weren’t really thinking about them. We just wanted to make out and screw around.” He took a ragged breath, betraying how shaky he was. “I thought about it a lot this summer, a lot, and I realized we can’t make it work.”
“We made it work just fine those last couple of days, why couldn’t we?” I challenged him. He was knocking everything, okay, most of everything I’d looked forward to out from under me, and rage built in me now.
“It was just a couple of days, Steve,” he persisted, undeterred. “The season is nine months, full of practices and road trips and everything else. Showering together and undressing together and—fuck.” The rarely used swear word exploded out of him heatedly. “We’d never be able to hide it in the locker room.”
“Then what about everything you said over the summer? About how much you were looking forward to seeing me and getting to be with me again?” I hissed. I wanted to shout, but I still had a shred of awareness to realize what a very bad idea that would be.
His anger collapsed. “I was. And I do,” he insisted in a low, pleading voice. “I wasn’t lying.”
“Then we should just do it,” I argued. “We can figure everything out, we can make it work.”
“No, Steve,” he said with a finality in his voice. “Not if I choose not to. We’re teammates, linemates. We can be brothers. But we can’t be that. Not now. Not ever.”
I glared at him, then snapped, “Fuck you, Milan. Fuck you,” and turned on my heel to stalk out of the room.
The falling out lasted exactly two days.
We played on a line with Patty against Anaheim the following night. Having him between us smothered any discord we might’ve let leak into our game, but Patty sat out the next game at home against Vancouver. Smitty centered us, a familiar pivot we’d had experience with in the playoffs, but it was still different, and I found myself reacting and playing differently with Smitty between us, more on edge, emotions closer to the surface.
Milan, too. He scored early in the first, then another in the second, slamming home a rebound of my shot on goal. I went to congratulate him and suffered a jolt when I caught the look on his face. Celebration or joy, I could’ve handled, but what I saw was want, aching longing, his gaze locked on me as if for that moment, I was the only one on the ice. He reached out to clap my shoulder, but as he withdrew, I felt the back of his gloved fingers brush against my neck and cheek, a deliberate caress. Then Smitty was on us, the moment was broken. Milan yanked his gaze away to smile in a mask at the rest of the team. I skated back to the bench, shaking and pale.
He got a hat trick that night, my Milan, and even though he was typically humble about it under the onslaught of good-natured ribbing and congratulations from our teammates and in the press, I could see how proud he was of his achievement. Nearly as proud as I was of him for it, but through it all, I felt the phantom brush of his fingers burning across my cheek.
I decided I couldn’t let it go. I borrowed Ryane’s car and drove over to Milan’s apartment after dinner, dialing the code up to his apartment.
“Hello?” Milan answered, confusion prevalent.
“Hey, it’s Steve. You alone?”
“Yeah, I am, but Bernie, it’s late. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
“Let me in.”
“What?”
“Let me in, I’m downstairs.”
“Bernie, no.”
“Let me in or I’ll keep calling up there.”
“If you do, I’ll take the phone off the hook.”
“No, you won’t, I know you won’t.”
I could only guess from his tone that he was swearing, but I heard the long-tone of the depressed number key and the electronic buzz of the lock admitting me and pounced on it. I took the stairs up to his apartment three at a time and knocked quietly.
He opened the door only a fraction, glaring suspiciously at me through the crack. “Bernie, what are you doing here?”
“Let me in, Milan. I can’t talk about it out here.”
He prepared himself to refuse, I could see it go through his expression, considering whether he could do it and not raise a fuss, but decided he couldn’t. He stepped aside to let me in.
As soon as the door was shut behind me, I closed the distance to him and before he could react, cupped his face in my hands and kissed him, pouring all of the months of pent-up need into it until I was breathless and quivering and Milan was clinging to me, hands gripping my upper arms.
I wrenched myself away and looked at him, gulping air and desperately fighting the impulse to throw him against the wall and rip his clothes off.
He trembled and visibly struggled for control as well, misery etched into his face. “Why did you do that?” he asked, pain woven into the words.
“Because I wanted to,” I said. “Because of the way you looked at me tonight and the way you touched me.”
His trembling increased into shivers, and he lurched away from me, into his living room. “I didn’t mean to, Steve,” he explained, sounding lost. “I was just so happy, and then I saw you there…”
I barked a short laugh. “Jesus, Milan, if you’re like that trying to stay away from me, how could it be any worse if we were together?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered, wrapping his arms around himself protectively. “But maybe it would be.”
I stepped forward again, noting with relief that he didn’t draw away as I did. I reached out once more to cup his shoulders in my hands, squeezing reassurance. “But maybe it wouldn’t be. Maybe,” I continued, seizing on an idea, “if we were, it’d be easier to hide, because we’d have it, and we wouldn’t be trying to suppress it all the time and having it sneak out in front of God and everyone like it did tonight.”
“I don’t know, Steve,” he said, shaking his head back and forth in denial. “I don’t know.”
“Milan,” I begged him, “why not?”
His answer came low, nearly inaudible, and I got the sense that he was finally admitting the truth he’d been covering up the past few weeks. “I’m scared, Steve.”
I had to squash the bubbling, uncontrollable laughter welling up inside of me that it was all that simple. My pulse pounded in my ears as my heart raced, that I was close, so close, to maybe understanding all of this, and afraid I was going to fuck it up. But I could see the terror in his eyes, so I asked as gently as I could, “What are you scared of, Milan?”
Like a dam breaking, the words tumbled out of him in a gush hardly punctuated by a breath, increasingly impassioned as they kept coming out. “I’m scared of this. I’m scared of someone finding out and ruining our careers, both our careers. I’m scared of trying to hide it from everyone, of making a mistake and getting caught. I’m scared of how it’ll affect us on the team, how we play together, what happens if we have a fight? What happens if we do this and then break up, will we be able to keep playing together? Or how miserable we’ll be if we do. I’m scared of how we could do this and make it work, how will we have time to be together. What about our girlfriends, how do we keep it from them, do we even keep them? I’m scared that we’ll do this and then one of us will get traded, and then I’ll never see you again. And I’m scared of what would happen if we do this, and I fell in love with you.”
Through it all, I squeezed his shoulder for support, absorbing the verbal and emotional onslaught, the welter of fear and worry dumped on me in a rush, until the end, which hit me like a spear to the gut. My eyes widened, and words failed me momentarily.
“So that’s what I’m afraid of,” he concluded despondently when I didn’t reply immediately.
His tone hurt my heart, made it hard to breathe. I wanted to gather him up in my arms, to protect him, but how can I protect him when I am the threat? Frustration and fear constricted my throat and made it hard to speak. “Milan,” I started slowly, tone fragile. “I’m scared of all those things, too. But all that…” I trailed off, groping for words. “Most of that could happen whether or not we’re together. Even if we’re not, it’s not going to change how we feel, what we want, what we are. Look at tonight. Yeah, there are some things we’re going to need to work out, but…” I loosened my grip on his shoulders to rub his back in reassurance. “Isn’t it worth it? To try?”
“I don’t know.”
I sighed and dropped my hands to my sides. My entire chest felt bruised and battered, and not from the beating I had taken during the game tonight. “I do. I want to be with you, Milan. But if you want me to go, I’ll go.”
He stood there, looking down and away from me, jaw clenched, not speaking. Time slipped past, I don’t know how many seconds, maybe a minute, maybe more, before I sighed again, turning to leave.
I got halfway to the door when Milan said, “Steve, wait.”
I turned back to look at him. His gaze was up, looking at me, and his shoulders squared. I could tell he’d come to a decision.
“Don’t go.”
Distantly, I heard the electronic beep and the plastic snap of Milan’s cell phone flipping closed and hauled myself out of the pleasant memories of the rest of that night a week ago back to the here and now.
Milan casually tossed his phone on the coffee table then dropped to a seat next to me and smiled as I draped my arm over his shoulders. “Hey,” he greeted me finally in a soft, warm voice, dipping in to kiss me in a gesture equally soft and warm.
“Hey,” I replied when he’d withdrawn, smiling. “How’re your parents?”
“They’re fine. They read about the game last night and wanted to call before they went to bed.”
“That’s good.”
He flashed a boyish smile and curved his body into my side. “That’s not why you’re here, though, to talk about them.”
My smile turned wry. I admitted, “No, it’s not.”
He reached out to run the back of his fingers along my cheek, mimicking the motion he’d made during last week’s game, and grinned when I shivered under his touch. “We were going to celebrate your hat trick, weren’t we?” he asked innocently.
I huffed amusement, breathing already picked up a notch from stirring arousal. “That was what you promised, at least.”
“And I should keep my promises,” he said solemnly.
I grinned. “Yes, you should,” I agreed, before capturing his mouth in another kiss, this one deeper, lingering, igniting a slow burn all through me.
He pulled away with a deep inhale, eyes opening to look at me with delight which dimmed as reality intruded. “We only have until 5, Eliska’s coming over after work.”
Some of my ardor cooled at his words, a shadow crossing my face to betray me. Milan reacted to it by cradling my cheek in the palm of his hand. “Are you okay with that?”
I forced a smile, then didn’t have to as I laughed ruefully. “It’s just one of those things we’re going to have to work on.” I leaned in to kiss him a third time, this one laced with the growling edges of hungry desire, and he responded, arms sliding around my waist possessively. I broke free to look at him earnestly. “I totally will, to be with you.”
His elated smile illuminated his features and he rose to his feet, tugging on my hand to have me join him, guiding me back to his room.
~~~~~~
Author's epilogue: Think I made up the look they shared on the ice that catalyzed the resolution? Decide for yourself. :)
(crossposted to
zdarovyeh)
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