I Lost a Bet to My Hockey Rival, Now I Wear His Number novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: First Public Day

Nash wears the number to a children's hospital and a roasting locker room, then drops to his knees for Gaspard in a boiler room under the arena.

The first kid he met on Monday morning was seven years old, bald from chemo, and furious.

"Why are you wearing the bad guy?" he said from the hospital bed.

Nash looked down at LACHAPELLE across his own chest, and at the camera crew pretending not to film.

"Because I lost a bet, buddy."

"To him?"

"To him."

"That's so dumb."

"I know. Tell me the dumbest bet you ever lost."

The kid thought about it with his whole face.

"My sister said I couldn't eat a whole lemon."

"Did you?"

"Yeah. I cried. But I ate it."

"Then you're better at this than I am," Nash said, and the kid laughed so hard that his mother had to turn around.

By noon the clip had four hundred thousand views.

By one o'clock Donnie had learned every Montreal fan chant on the internet.

He sang them at the Boston practice rink in a French accent so bad that the goalie left the ice.

"Allez, allez, La-cha-pelle," Donnie sang, skating backward in front of Nash's stall. "Oh, he's so handsome, he's so strong, he has a very nice jersey on."

"I'm going to kill you."

"It looks great on you. It really brings out your sadness."

"It's a bet, Donnie."

"It's a lifestyle." Donnie dropped onto the bench beside him and lowered his voice, his round face gone suddenly sharp. "You've got a mark on your neck."

Nash put his hand over it so fast it hurt.

"It's a rash."

"It's a bite. Shaped like a captain." Donnie held up both hands. "I'm not asking. I'm saying that if you wanted to tell me, I would be the calmest man alive."

"I'll tell you when there's something to tell."

"There's something to tell."

"Donnie."

"Fine. But I'm getting my own chant."

Tuesday afternoon, the arena was empty except for the crews setting up the Pucks for Kids photo shoot.

Nash stood in the concourse in the number 29, wanting very badly to be somewhere else, when the text came.

LACHAPELLE: Landed. Southeast tunnel. 3:10.

NASH: What's in the southeast tunnel?

LACHAPELLE: Me.

He told Bernie he needed the bathroom.

The southeast tunnel was a service corridor that ran under section 114 to the old boiler room, a low stone place that smelled like pipes and floor wax.

Gaspard was leaning on a steel door in his gray suit with his tie off, looking at his phone.

"You are four minutes late."

"I was in a hospital yesterday. I'm on a very tight schedule of being humiliated."

"You look excellent."

"I look like a poster for your team."

"That was the idea." Gaspard put the phone away. "Come here."

"You come here."

Gaspard crossed the space in three steps and took him by the collar of the jersey.

Nash let him, because there was no point pretending otherwise.

The kiss was slower than Saturday's.

That was almost worse.

Gaspard held his jaw in one hand.

It took Nash the length of a long breath to realize he'd gone limp against the wall.

"You have been thinking about me," Gaspard said, against his mouth.

"I've been thinking about murder."

"Your mouth says murder."

"My mouth says a lot of things."

"I would like to see what it says on its knees."

Heat shot up the back of Nash's neck, ridiculous and total.

"That's your plan?" he said. "You bring me down to a basement to ask me to get on my knees?"

"It is not a request."

"Then it's a bad plan, because I don't take orders from a guy who's up one nothing."

"It is up one to nothing?" Gaspard's eyebrows rose a quarter inch. "Then you have a way to fix it."

That was the thing about him.

He never pushed.

He just put the door in front of you and stood back and waited to see if you were too proud to walk through.

Nash was exactly that proud.

He dropped to his knees on the cold stone, right there in the number 29, and looked up.

"Ask me," he said.

"Ask you what?"

"Say please."

Gaspard stared down at him.

The corner of his mouth went up, a tiny helpless thing, and he said, "No."

"Then I guess we're done."

"You will not leave."

"Watch me."

Nash put both hands on his belt and got it open with a flick of his thumb, and when he pulled the zipper down, Gaspard drew a long hard breath through his teeth.

He was already thick in his briefs.

Nash pulled the waistband down and took him out in his fist, heavy and hot and flushed.

He traced the vein up the side with his thumb, just to hear the noise Gaspard made.

"I hate that you're beautiful," he said.

"I will remember that you said it."

"Don't."

He licked a long slow stripe from root to tip and closed his mouth over the head.

Above him, Gaspard's hand flew out and caught the pipe on the wall.

It rang.

"Ah, fuck," Gaspard said. "Brannagh."

Nash pulled off with a wet sound. "Name."

"What?"

"I'm on my knees in your basement. Use my name."

"Nash." It came out rough, with a little French in the edges. "Please."

Nash smiled around the next mouthful, and took him all the way to the back of his throat.

Gaspard swore in a language Nash didn't speak, low and continuous.

One hand tightened on the pipe, and the other hovered above Nash's hair, shaking with the effort not to touch.

"You can," Nash said, around him, pulling back for air. "I'll tell you if I hate it."

The hand dropped into his hair and held on.

That changed everything.

He started to move, slow at first, small shallow thrusts that made Nash's eyes water, and then deeper when Nash hummed encouragement.

Soon Nash had his hands on the back of Gaspard's thighs.

He was taking every inch he gave.

He was good at this, Nash realized.

He had always been good at the dirty work in the corners.

Some part of him had been waiting years to be this good for someone.

"You are going to ruin me," Gaspard said hoarsely. "In a basement. In a stupid shirt."

"Mm-hm."

"Stop talking with your mouth full."

Nash grinned around him, and Gaspard let out a sound that was almost a laugh and then wasn't.

He was close.

Nash could feel it in the tightening of his thighs and the hitch in his breath.

He pulled back to the head and sucked, hard, and reached up with his hand to finish him.

"Nash, wait, I'm going to."

"Good."

Gaspard came with a groan he tried to bite off, pulsing hot and thick over Nash's tongue.

Nash swallowed and kept going until the shaking stopped.

When it was done he sat back on his heels and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, red and wet and grinning.

"That's one-one," he said.

Gaspard was leaning on the wall with his eyes closed.

"It is not."

"I made you come first."

"You made me come." Gaspard opened his eyes. They were black at the edges, unfocused. "This is not the same as first."

"I'm going to throw up from how mad I am."

"Do not think this is the score, Nash." He reached down, caught Nash by the chin, and thumbed the corner of his mouth, very gently. "I will fix it in Montreal."

Then somebody on the radio at the end of the tunnel said that Brannagh was wanted at the shoot.

Gaspard fixed his own belt in two seconds flat and looked ten feet tall and unbothered.

Nash got to his feet with legs like wet rope.

"See you in December," Gaspard said.

"I'll be the one in your jersey."

"Wear it to the airport, too," Gaspard said, zipping his jacket. "In Montreal they will want to look at you for a long time."

He was halfway up the stairs before he understood that he had just been invited to a fight.

He smiled like an idiot all the way to the shoot.

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