Misha was horrified to feel his face flush. “Max does smile a lot. Yes.”
“It’s weird. I thought at first he was just trying too hard to make everyone like him, but then I realized he’s just like that. And everyone
does
like him,” Drake assured him. “But it’s hard to believe Coach Ashford… like, he’s that hot
and
a good guy? And bisexual? So a fucking unicorn, then.”
Misha blinked. Drake’s slang, combined with that Southern twang, occasionally made him hard to understand. “A… did you say unicorn?”
Drake nodded. “Yeah. Like, hot bisexuals are supposed to be a myth. Like unicorns. But I really don’t think Coach Ashford… I mean, I bet he’s more gay than he thinks he is.”
The conversation should probably stop, but Misha was—maybe not fascinated, but something close to it. “You think Coach Ashford is not really bisexual?”
“No. I just…. Okay. So, I’m not saying there’s no bisexual dudes. God no. Remember that game we had in Bakersfield a few weeks ago? I know a few of the guys on that team, and we went out after the game. Anyway, I was trying to explain this whole thing, but I guess I wasn’t doing a very good job and I made it sound like I said there was no such thing as bisexuals. And one of the guys, his fiancée was there and, like, yelled at me for ten minutes and called the Jacksonville Sea Storm’s goalie’s boyfriend to give me a lecture about bisexual erasure? I don’t know. It was weird. But I’m just saying that sometimes people think being gay means you won’t ever find girls attractive. And that’s not true. I think girls are attractive sometimes. Like, okay. That girl in Bakersfield—I think her name was Zoe—she was totally hot. I just thought her fiancé was way hotter.”
The difference between Misha and Drake, Misha realized, was that Drake had been stigmatized for being gay, had been disowned and thrown out because of it, but he never internalized it and thought his attraction to men was something to be ashamed of.
Neither had Max, come to think of it. Despite being “new to being bi,” as he liked to put it, Max had no internalized sense of guilt or shame about it. And as uncomfortable as it was to admit, Misha had to admit
he
did.
Granted, Max and Drake did not live in a country where being gay was illegal—but neither did Misha. Not anymore. And that meant it was long past time that he stopped being ashamed. Maybe that’s why Max had suggested Misha and Drake have these Wednesday-night hockey sessions. Max was smarter than anyone—especially Belsey—gave him credit for.
Misha parked the car in the driveway behind Max’s Jeep and switched off the engine. He thought carefully of how to phrase what he wanted to say. “I want you to know that it is… good for me. To hear you talk the way you do.”
“About how I think your boyfriend is hot?”
Misha smiled briefly at that. “In a sense. Yes. You speak of being gay like it is….” He waved a hand. “I’m not sure how to say it.”
“Like I’m a normal twentysomething dude talking about sex?” Drake gave the kind of sigh favored by weary millennials. “It
is
normal, Misha. That’s the thing. When my parents threw me out, they said I could stay at home if I went to some intensive “get rid of the gay” therapy camp or some shit.” Drake rolled his eyes. “I considered it, but only ’cause I thought maybe there’d be a bunch of cute, repressed gay guys there. Then I realized that going there would be like admitting I thought it was wrong. I mean, I’m not saying that’s true for the other people there, since I didn’t go so I never met them. But I wasn’t going to let anyone take that away from me.”
Misha thought about that. “I prayed for it to go away. To any saint who might listen, that’s what I asked for. And I thought when it didn’t that they did not answer.”
“Maybe their answer was that there was nothing you needed to get rid of.” Drake laid a very careful hand on Misha’s shoulder, which was the first time Misha could think of that Drake had touched him. “Since we’re sharing shit, I wanted to thank you. For coming to find me when I ran away.” He lowered his head, and his voice was heavy and choked with tears. “That’s never…. My parents just let me go, and I can’t tell you what it means to me that you didn’t. So, thanks.”
Misha very carefully put his hand on Drake’s shoulder and squeezed. Then he dropped it without comment. He wasn’t as good with words as Max, but in this case, he didn’t think there was anything that needed to be said.
Later Misha watched as Max went through his usual routine before bed, which amounted to plugging a few gadgets into chargers and making sure he had something to wear the next day. Misha usually read, but instead he unabashedly watched Max, who’d stripped down to his boxer-briefs. He caught Misha looking and gave him that wry, playful smile Misha liked so much. “What?”
Misha spoke before he could change his mind. “You remind me very much of the first man I kissed. A boy, really. We were only fifteen.”
“I remind you of a fifteen year old
boy
?” Max gave him an affronted look. “Someone was going to get laid tonight, but now they’re not. Eww. And here, you wouldn’t even play the ‘who is hot on other teams’ game.”
“It’s an abuse of authority, and you didn’t want to play who was
hot
. I believe your exact words were ‘Who would you suck off in a shower after a game—’”
“Misha, you have got to lighten up and live a little. Stare at other hot guys. Just don’t suck any of them off in the shower that aren’t me.” Max blushed in that way of his, where only the tips of his ears turned red. “We were talking about you and the first boy you kissed and how I reminded you of him and how I was wrong to think that sounded creepy even though it totally did.”
“He had nice eyes. Like you. Expressive. And cheekbones. Very nice cheekbones. But he was very joyful. Like you are. Even about… about this thing we do.”
“Coach hockey?”
“Fuck,” Misha clarified.
“Who’s not joyful about fucking?”
Just me, apparently.
“Max, come here,” Misha said, exasperated and amused, and Max padded over to the bed, climbed on top of him, and straddled him. Misha took Max’s face between his hands before Max could lean down and kiss him. “I wasn’t. Not for a long time. Since the boy with the nice cheekbones. But I am now.”
“Damn right you are,” Max murmured, wriggling on his lap, but his smile drove all the darkness out of Misha’s mind and cleared the thunderclouds of his memories until nothing was left but sunlight. “I’m a catch, Samarin.”
“You’re something,” Misha agreed, and kissed Max to keep him from saying anything else. “Max?”
“Yeah?”
Misha bit him gently on the mouth. “Fuck me.”
Max went still in his lap. “Really?”
“Yes. If you want.” Misha moved back a little to look at him. Max was usually very happy to bottom, and if he wasn’t in the mood, there were other things. He was always in the mood to get fingered, though, and he liked that more than anyone Misha had ever been with. Talk about joyful.
He put his face between Max’s neck and shoulder. “When I—I only let them if it was a lot. Of money,” he clarified. Misha concentrated on how good Max felt—on his scent—and kept the gathering clouds of his memories at bay.
“Oh,” Max said quietly, running a hand down Misha’s back. “Well, I’m kind of broke, but I’ll make you eggs in the morning. Some toast.”
“You burn the toast. Every time.”
“I still think your toaster is broken.”
“If you wouldn’t try to make the toast and brush your teeth and do ten things at the same time—”
“Misha,” Max said, and Misha would never, ever get tired of hearing the way Max said his name. “Do you want this? Like, really want it? Or is it another one of those things where you’re trying to love yourself? Because that’s cool and all, and I really want to fuck you, but I’m only doing it if you want it.”
“Max,” Misha interrupted, and he would never get tired of saying
Max’s
name either. He put a finger over Max’s mouth, which was swollen a bit from all the kissing and biting. “I want it. I want you. I want to feel you inside of me and I want to see how it makes you feel.”
Max inhaled a sharp breath and kissed Misha’s neck. “Oh. Okay. The things I do for you.”
In all the times Misha had ever let someone fuck him, it had been quick, furtive, and—there was no way around it—shameful. And he hadn’t liked it. He could vividly remember grasping at the stained, dirty mattress beneath him, smelling cat piss, and wishing he had something to twist in his hands while the man sweated and pumped on his back.
But there was one time, shortly after he arrived in America, when the lonely nights and the fantasies of how things could have been grew too insistent, and Misha reached out for someone to make it feel good. And it had been good. The man he’d been with—Misha no longer remembered his name—had taken his time and made Misha tremble and moan, facedown on a bed with clean sheets that smelled like nothing but fabric softener.
He liked it, and of course that’s why he never asked for it after that. He rarely fucked other men, because that too had been part of the shameful activities hidden away in dark rooms and back alleys.
Max, because he was Max, was clumsy and excited and endearingly chatty as he fucked Misha. He stopped every so often to kiss Misha on the neck or rub his hands down Misha’s body and lick his tattoos. And Misha was on his back, not his stomach with his face buried in the mattress. And watching Max was as good as he thought it would be. But when Max kissed between his thighs and gently tongued at his hole, Misha couldn’t stop the sudden torrent of words that spilled forth as his hips bucked in pleasure.
“Ha.” Max stopped to grin up at him. “I saw this on the Internet. I hoped you’d like it. I mean, it seemed weird at first, and guys in porn always like everything, so I wasn’t sure about it. But I looked on some websites.” He moved in again, tongue flickering around the edges, and Misha put one hand in Max’s hair and grabbed desperately at the bedding beneath him with the other.
Max’s tongue pressed inside and fucked him, and it was possibly the best thing Misha had ever felt. No one had ever done that before. Only Max. And that thought alone was almost enough to make him come. He would have tried to say that, but the words would be garbled and Russian and wouldn’t make any sense, even if Max were a native speaker.
“You should get yourself off while I do this,” Max said, and the words penetrated through Misha’s lust-fogged brain enough for him to abandon his hold on the comforter and take his cock in hand. “Just be nicer to your dick than you’re being to my hair. I have plans for it later. Your dick, I mean. You can pull my hair as hard as you want.”
He tried to gentle his hold, but Max went back to tonguefucking him, and Misha stroked himself off so quickly he might have been embarrassed if it weren’t for how good it felt. When he was able to open his eyes, it was to see Max kneeling between his legs, slicking up his condom-sheathed dick and watching Misha with obvious enjoyment. “You were loud. You’re never that loud.” Max smirked at him smugly. “You might be the head coach and the best at blowjobs, but I win at rimming.”
Misha’s breath evened out. “I think… maybe… I won,” he panted. Then he shifted so his legs fell open wider as Max rubbed his lube-covered fingers over his hole and slid inside to open him up.
Max eased on top of him and hesitated a little as he pressed the tip of his cock against Misha. “You’ll tell me to stop if it hurts. Right?” Before Misha could say anything, Max huffed and rolled his eyes. “Wait a minute. Who am I kidding? It’s you. Of course you won’t.”
Misha tried to glare at him and then opted for his coach voice—or his best approximation—since he knew it always got Max hot when he used it in bed. “Fuck me, Max. I want it hard.”
“Jesus, Misha,” Max moaned and pushed his hips forward. He was cautious as first, but Misha was relaxed and open, and he stopped being so careful when it was clear that Misha was enjoying it.
Drake must have had some eerie sixth sense about when Max and Misha went to bed and might be a bit noisy, because it was usually around that time of night that a low, rhythmic bass came pounding through the walls while there was some pounding going on downstairs in the master bedroom. Neither Misha nor Max ever asked, and the sound had become so familiar, it was hardly noticeable.
But it meant that Misha didn’t have to worry about the sound of his moans carrying, though he honestly didn’t care. Because Max fucked him with a single-minded determination that was the sexiest thing Misha had ever seen. It was enough to shake Misha’s entire equilibrium and leave him storm tossed and gasping.
“God, this feels so good,” Max panted, head thrown back, showing the corded muscles of his neck and the bruises Misha’s earlier, desperate kisses had left on his skin. “Oh, it’s good when you move like—ah—
fuck
—”
This was not shameful, it was not guilty, and it was not grim or in any way a punishment. But it wasn’t empty pleasure like the men Misha had paid either. It was joyful and it was good. It was so good that Misha knew he’d never have a problem with it ever again, and the thought was so amazingly freeing that it was almost as good as his earlier orgasm. Almost.
Misha reached behind him to grab at the headboard and push himself harder to meet Max’s thrusts. He started speaking in Russian. Max half fell on top of him and fucked him with graceless enthusiasm until he came with a muted moan and a sharp bite to Misha’s shoulder.
Later when they were cleaned up and in bed and Drake’s bass music was toned down a bit—“he must think we’re too old to go for that long”—Max looked at Misha and said, “You never did tell me what you said on the phone to me. That night when I was at my parents. But it sounded like the same thing you said right now. Was it?”
Misha nodded.
“What was it?” Max raised his eyebrows. “Holy shit, Misha. Are you blushing?”
“It was… ah. I tried to think of something I knew well. Yes? By heart even.”
“Was it some of that exa-whatever literature that Belsey hates?”
“No,” Misha promised. “It wasn’t.”