I Stared At The Line Of Text For A Long Time

Dean's POV

During the three days Curtis was away, I went to class as usual, clocked in at the Equipment Room, kept everything running on schedule.

But every time I pushed open the storage room door, I'd pause for half a second, waiting for someone who wasn't going to be there — waiting for him to appear around the corner of the hallway.

I hadn't updated the story on the forum. Not a single word.

I'd opened the document and stared at the screen for half an hour, and nothing came. Every time I tried to write the way hunter looked at someone, I thought about Curtis in the Equipment Room — the pressure of his thumb against my lower lip, and the careless way the corner of his mouth had curled up.

The more I thought about it, the more uneasy I felt. That suspended, unresolved uncertainty was worse than any definite answer could be. I needed to figure out whether that comment was from him, and I needed to figure it out soon.

Thursday night, around eleven, I had no business being at the rink that late. But I "happened" to be organizing some game footage that kept me there until that hour.

The rumble of the bus engine drifted in from outside, followed by a wave of uneven footsteps flooding through the entrance. My hand tightened around the mouse.

I kept my eyes on the rink doors. Curtis walked in first, wearing his team jacket, his blond hair damp with sweat, a fresh red mark on the back of his neck — probably from a stick catch during the game.

Brendan and two other players trailed behind him. As they passed the Equipment Room door, Brendan glanced in, spotted me, and let out a low whistle. "Yo, the night watchman's still here."

I didn't look up, but I felt Curtis's gaze pass through the half-open door and settle on me.

He raised a hand at Brendan and the others. "You guys go ahead."

Then he walked over, pushed the door shut behind him, and stood at the desk looking down at the paused footage on my screen.

"Watching today's game?"

"Yeah. Analytics team requested it. Coach told me to sort it." I kept my voice even, though my heart was already pounding hard. My other hand, hidden beneath the desk, was trembling.

Curtis pulled out the chair across from me and sat down, his long legs spread wide, his knees nearly touching my chair.

He tilted his head and looked at me, his gaze so open and unhurried it edged toward intrusive.

"You always stay this late?"

"Yeah, sometimes—" The stare was making sweat break out across my back, soaking cold through my T-shirt. I spoke first. "What do you actually want from me?"

Curtis glanced at me, then reached out and took hold of my bandaged hand. The corner of his mouth lifted in a loose, unbothered grin. "What do you think I want?"

That smile pulled every muscle in my body tight. I kept my head down and said, low and flat, "You backed me into a corner in the locker room, said all of that, wrapped my hand — are you just screwing around with me?"

Curtis didn't answer. He lifted my bandaged hand closer to his face and ran his thumb lightly over a frayed patch on the gauze. "You didn't change it."

My heart missed a beat.

He leaned in, his voice dropping. "Still wearing the one I put on you. Couldn't bring yourself to take it off?"

I lied. "I wrapped a new one myself."

Curtis scoffed and pressed his thumb against the bandage again. "This is the knot I tied. It's different from yours."

He remembered the knot. He'd recognized it at a glance. I sat completely rigid in my chair.

Curtis let go of my hand and tilted his head, watching me. "You spend every day here hauling cones and sharpening skates. How much are they even paying you a month?"

He'd seen all of it — me making my drab rounds through the rink, lugging water buckets with a limp. What humiliated me wasn't being broke. It was that Curtis had seen it.

My voice came out low and rough. "What business is it of yours what I make?"

Curtis didn't react with any irritation. His tone was flat, declarative, like he was issuing a schedule change. "Starting next week, you're with me. Equipment, data, whatever needs running."

He was giving me charity. I nearly shoved my chair back and walked out.

It felt exactly like the time my father had pointed his finger in my face and said, this family can't produce something like you. I was being treated like something to be pitied, something to be handed a scrap.

I didn't want charity. Especially not from Curtis.

My pride overrode everything else, and my voice came out unsteady. "Why would you—"

Curtis cut me off without appearing to register my resistance at all. "I'll handle Abel. You keep your regular pay. No more lugging those busted buckets around."

I gripped the mouse. Getting close to him. Watching him. Confirming whether that comment was from him. This was a real opening. But something in me pushed back — if I accepted, I'd become exactly what he seemed to think I was: someone who needed looking after, someone to be managed.

But what if that message really was from him? He'd cornered me in the locker room, tested me with every word he'd said. The only way to get to the truth was to stay close.

I kept my voice as steady as I could manage. "Are you sure Abel will go along with it?"

Curtis made a short, dismissive sound, one eyebrow lifting slightly, as though the question had caught him off guard. "If I ask, he will."

"Why me?" I said.

Curtis had already straightened up and moved back toward the door. He glanced over his shoulder, the corner of his mouth pulling up just slightly. "Because you've been writing a lot lately."

He pushed the door open and left. I slumped back in my chair and just breathed.

What did he mean by "writing"? The weekly training analysis reports I turned in to Abel? Or the chapters where I kept putting him into my fantasies?

It could be either one. Curtis was always like this — never enough to hold onto, never enough to let go of.

Damn it.

Over the next few days, I really did become his shadow.

Monday morning, six a.m., I waited outside the gym.

Curtis showed up, tossed his bag at me, said "keep up," and walked straight into the weight room.

I gripped the strap and reminded myself silently: Dean, stop smelling it.

I sat on a bench in the corner, clipboard in hand, watching him work through his bench sets. After each set he'd glance over to confirm I was marking it down, then turn back and continue.

Tuesday afternoon, he worked through shot after shot from near the blue line, firing into the empty net while I sat on the bench counting his accuracy. But somewhere along the way, my eyes drifted to the way his hips rotated through every pull, the arc of it, the control in it.

Dean. Can you not. You're supposed to be working.

I pinched the inside of my thigh hard enough to make me wince, and forced my eyes back down to the clipboard.

Thursday, Curtis texted me to wait outside his building. He said there was a team get-together.

I stood outside his dorm in my old hoodie, one of the zipper pulls missing, the whole thing barely held together with a safety pin. I'd spent half an hour on it before leaving and only felt worse the longer I worked at it — like a stray that had tried and failed to look presentable.

Curtis looked me over, his brow pulling together. "You're wearing that?"

I kept my eyes down. "I don't really have anything else."

He clicked his tongue, turned back inside, and came out a moment later with a dark blue hoodie, which he tossed at me. "Wear this."

When I pulled it over my head, I lost a second. The collar brushed my chin, and his smell came through the fabric and filled my chest all at once, and I nearly had to catch myself against the wall.

Curtis had already walked a few steps ahead. I grabbed the sleeves and followed, pressing down the heat that had started climbing up from somewhere around my waist.

The basement was dark, the music loud enough to feel through the soles of my shoes.

The moment Curtis walked in, a handful of guys closed in around him, hands on his shoulders, beers extended. He moved through it all without any visible effort, working the room with an ease I had never come close to and probably never would.

I folded myself into a corner of one of the couches, holding a can of soda I didn't dare open. I was afraid of the noise.

About two hours later, Curtis came over with two drinks and sat down beside me.

His outer thigh pressed against mine. Through the fabric I felt the heat coming off him, steady and searing, like a brand pressed flat.

He draped his arm over the back of the couch behind me. From any angle across the room, it probably looked like his arm was around my shoulders. But his hand wasn't touching me.

I should have kept quiet, waited for the party to break up, gone back to my dorm. But I needed to know whether that comment was from him. The feeling of refreshing the page every night before bed, heart hanging, had become unbearable.

Maybe it was the hoodie. Maybe wearing something of his gave me a few degrees more nerve than I actually had.

I gripped the Coke he'd handed me, palms damp, and heard myself ask before I could stop it: "Curtis, do you — go online much?"

He smiled at the side of his glass. "What, trying to set up a gaming session?"

"No. I mean — do you ever use forums?"

The second it was out, I wanted to take it back. Anyone would find that question strange. It was too direct, too specific, and it made no sense coming from nowhere.

Curtis took a drink, his throat working as he swallowed. "Yeah. Game highlights, tactical stuff, sometimes I scroll through—" He paused. "Sometimes I scroll through things people write."

He smiled again, easy. "Why are you asking?"

"Just curious." I looked down and took a sip of my Coke, not meeting his eyes. Something low in my body was already warming and thickening, and I pressed my legs together without meaning to.

Curtis asked, almost as an afterthought, "Do you write?"

I choked. Coke went up into my nose, sharp and acidic. "What?"

Curtis's hand slid down from the back of the couch and grazed my shoulder. His eyes settled on my face, completely at ease. "I've read a couple of the reports you write for Abel. You've got a good eye."

"Those are just — it's homework." I wiped my mouth. My ears were burning.

Curtis made a low sound of acknowledgment and didn't push it. But his thigh was still against mine, and I could feel myself getting hard in my pants, slow and insistent.

By the time the party ended, it was almost one in the morning. I walked beside Curtis back toward the dorms, the autumn wind cutting through the collar of his hoodie. I pulled my neck down into it and said, "Six a.m. tomorrow. Gym."

"Got it."

Curtis didn't go in right away. He looked at me for a few seconds, then reached out and patted the top of my head once, lightly — the kind of gesture you'd use to settle a nervous animal.

"Get some sleep." He turned and walked into the building.

I stood there. The warmth from his hand was still sitting in my hair.

Back in my room, washed up and lying in bed, I closed my eyes and couldn't stop replaying it. Curtis on the bench press, the veins standing out along the side of his neck. On the ice, the strip of lean waist visible when his shirt rode up as he bent to retrieve a puck. The heat of his leg pressed against mine for two hours on that couch. And just now — that one easy, unhurried pat on the top of my head.

I turned over and pushed my face into the hoodie he'd thrown at me earlier, breathing in slowly.

My cock pressed hard against the sheets. I shifted, and exhaled.

Sleep didn't come. I unlocked my phone and pulled up the forum out of habit.

The homepage hadn't finished loading when a notification dropped down from the top of the screen.

I stared at it for a long time, feeling my heart sink one slow degree at a time.

SWEET: Got your head patted — so good you forgot which way was up, didn't you?

I couldn't breathe. He knew Curtis had patted my head. He'd been near the dorms? Somewhere farther? Or was he Curtis?

I held my breath and looked out the window. The walkway outside was empty.

SWEET had been there the whole time. I just couldn't see him.

I pulled up my messages with Memory. "Any leads on SWEET's IP address yet?"