| |
Chris
When Chris was ready to head out for training in the morning, Matt was still asleep. Nothing had happened – that much, he was sure of – but it still felt wildly intimate to see him curled up on the guest bed, hair a crumpled mess against the expensive white cotton of Chris’s sheets.
What the fuck had he kissed the journalist for? Was he crazy?
His mouth was dry and his head was spinning this morning. He’d downed enough water to put out a bushfire – and yet one particular fire in him was still burning. He couldn’t get the picture of Matt’s eager, pretty face out of his head. The memory of the smell of his skin was intoxicating, and the way he’d gasped like a virgin at Chris’s touch creeping beneath the hem of his shirt.
Definitely not a virgin, though. Not by the way Matt’s own hands had strayed.
This was terrible, though, honestly. However good it had felt last night, this was exactly the wrong time for him to be having a crisis of sexuality. Not only was it right before the season began – or more or less, anyway – but he was hanging out with a goddamn reporter. As well-meaning as Matt was, could he really ignore the story of Chris’s burgeoning homosexuality?
Was that even what it was? He’d never even wanted another man before.
Shit. Either way, Matt would surely want to print it. It was obvious that he considered the lack of out gay men in sports to be a problem. Would he shove Chris out of the closet to further the cause?
It didn’t seem characteristic of him, but fuck. Now he had the ammunition if he ever did want to do it, and that really didn’t feel good.
He threw his gym bag into the car aggressively and climbed in after it, covering his face briefly with his hands. Was he stupid? Anyone who was at the restaurant with them last night could probably have picked up on some of the flirting, and if the door-staff at his apartment complex talked to the press, then they’d know that Chris and Matt had gone home together. The fact that nothing had actually happened wouldn’t matter any more.
Darren would never talk to him again, for one thing.
He drove to the gym with a stony expression, all these bad outcomes swirling around his head. Occasionally, thoughts of Matt’s easy laugh and his caramel skin and his handsome, angular cheekbones drifted into Chris’s head, but those thoughts were easily overrun by the thought of being known by the media as ‘the gay hockey player’ instead of ‘the Chris Knoll’.
However good the memory of the kiss felt against his lips, he’d done a stupid thing. Now, he was just going to have to fight as hard as he could to keep his life on the same tracks. He’d have to be upfront with Matt, and risk pissing him off. But most of all, he was going to have to be honest with himself.
At some point, he was going to have to deal with these feelings on their own terms, too. And what then?
