Melting the Ice (Portland Evergreens #1)

Epilogue

Eighteen months later

“Did it feel like this when you got drafted?” Dean asked, glancing over at where Brody sat kitty corner to him on the other couch. He’d wanted Brody next to him, but the TV crew who’d set up in his house had insisted that he be in the shot by himself.

Annoyingly.

Dean knew there’d been plenty of draft night shots with girlfriends but apparently boyfriends was a step too far. So much for the NFL not giving a shit anymore. His anxiety spiked again, even though Ian had personally assured him that his sexuality being an open secret wouldn’t change a thing.

“Do you mean, was I a freaking mess? Barely able to sit still? Hopping up every five seconds to pace?” Brody raised an eyebrow. “No.”

Dean wiped his sweaty hands on his slacks. Even though he’d decided he didn’t want to do the whole going to draft night thing, climbing up on stage with the commissioner—because what if he didn’t go in the first round?—Ian and Brody had both insisted he be dressed in a suit for the occasion.

Even if the occasion was just a camera crew, standing by with thirty-two NFL hats in bins at their feet, filming in their tiny apartment, waiting for the call Dean was theoretically going to get.

Not theoretically, Ian would tell him firmly, it’s reality.

“I’m just nervous,” Dean explained, even though that was most definitely something Brody was already aware of.

“You did everything you could do. Set some records your last year. Set more at the combine. I think half the teams in the NFL are falling over themselves in their excitement at even the possibility you might be on their roster next year.” Brody sounded so proud. He shifted over onto the couch next to Dean and gave a hot glare to anyone who might argue. Not surprisingly, nobody argued.

Brody pressed a kiss to Dean’s trembling mouth. “You’re gonna kill it, and whoever gets you is gonna be the luckiest team in the NFL.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re the luckiest guy,” Dean said weakly.

Normally, he’d say that and mean it, but he felt a little like puking right now.

Brody seemed to understand though, tucking a hand into his and squeezing it, hard. “I am the luckiest guy,” he said. “And you know what else? We’re gonna be lucky together. I just know it.”

“You ready?” Ian said, walking in, tucking his phone into his pocket.

“We’re ready,” Brody said, and Dean agreed, nodding.

When the producers had asked him who he wanted to be there—if there’d be a big party they’d be capturing on camera if he went, as predicted, early in the first round of the draft, or if their apartment would be crammed full of family and friends and well-wishers—but Dean had very firmly shaken his head.

Still, it wasn’t as empty as it might have been, once.

His mom was here, tucked away in the back, like she didn’t really want to be on camera, and he supposed he couldn’t blame her for that. The spotlight wasn’t something everyone wanted. Fuck, Dean wasn’t sure how he felt about it, yet.

Brody’s parents were here, and since it felt sometimes like they’d actually adopted him into the family, that felt right.

Ian was here. Ian’s boyfriend, Carter Maxwell, too. Dean could hear his big booming laugh echoing in the walls of their small place.

Brody’s hockey teammates had come too. Elliott and Malcom. Finn. Even Ramsey had flown in. They were gathered around the edges of the living room, spilling into their tiny kitchen.

This last year he and Brody had finally converted their second bedroom into an office of sorts, a study lounge they went to when they actually needed to focus on their homework.

Wes and Marcus weren’t here because they’d gone to the big draft party in Miami, even though there was a lot of talk the quarterback wouldn’t get drafted in the first or second round.

“Maybe it doesn’t happen, but at least I was there,” Wes had told him, the last time they’d seen each other, about a week ago. The next time they saw each other, everything would be different. They’d be professional football players.

Dean couldn’t say this life was what he’d expected. He’d planned on being head-down, singularly focused on this one goal. The goal he was about to achieve.

But life had gotten in the way, like he was beginning to understand it always did, and that was okay too.

Whatever happened tonight was how things were meant to go.

“I’m so proud of you,” Brody murmured as they watched on the TV as the NFL commissioner walked onto the stage for the first time. “Whatever happens.”

“Even if I fall out of the first round?” Dean almost didn’t want to say it. What if it came true? But he had to voice it, because he’d spent too much time in the last few months dreading the possibility. Doing everything he could to avoid it, but it was there, all the same.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Brody said. “It could happen, sure, but we know how much like at least a dozen teams want you. The Riptide traded up in the draft. They’re now sitting at number three. You don’t think that was for shits and giggles, do you?”

Dean nearly giggled now. The pressure inside him was mounting, to an almost unbearable level. The only thing that kept it bearable was sitting next to him. Hand in his. Never flinching.

Ian leaned over, murmuring. “I told you, they want you to replace Spencer Evans. He retired two seasons ago, and the backup they had last year, he didn’t work out so well.”

Spencer Evans was one of the most famous defensive ends in football. Out and proud. An inspiration on and off the field.

It was mind-boggling, even after all his hard work, that anyone could look at him, Dean Scott, and think he could be even a fraction of what Spencer Evans was. But the Riptide had looked at him and then kept looking.

“Besides,” Brody continued, smirking at him, “I think I’d like LA, don’t you?”

Dean looked over him. He was gorgeous, so fucking gorgeous, in slacks and a clingy green knit polo shirt that Dean was already fantasizing about removing with his teeth. He’d love LA and LA would love him right back.

Maybe Brody wouldn’t be playing hockey professionally, but he’d hardly let himself go. In fact, one of their favorite things to do was go to the gym, egging each other on, until they lost the thread and usually ended up fucking in the gym bathroom.

Dean wasn’t proud of it, but he couldn’t deny he loved every second of it.

“I think you’d fit in anywhere,” Dean said.

Brody had that easy manner to him, the way he’d fit in so effortlessly with Dean, when Dean himself had never felt comfortable anywhere. Not until he’d walked out the door and seen Brody for the first time.

“I just want you to know”—Ramsey leaned over the couch, head between theirs, because of course it was—“that anything that happens in the next few hours is ninety percent because of Dean being a monster on the football field and ten percent because I hooked you two up. Not just once, but twice .”

“I’ll concede the roommate thing. But if you’re talking about how you sort of flirted with him, no ,” Dean said firmly.

“I knew you were still bent out of shape because of that,” Ramsey crowed, like Dean wanting to punch him in the face was something to be proud of.

“I wasn’t then and I’m not now. I didn’t think for a second that Brody would even look at you,” Dean said.

Brody wiggled closer to him. The producer looked like he was about to say something but it was Ramsey who shot him a look, and he smartly shut his mouth. “It was kinda hot,” Brody said. “My big man, getting all possessive.”

“Anytime you need a repeat, you just ask. I’ve always heard the sex life palls a bit after two years. After you’re . . .uh . . . settled . And I know Brody is real interested in that picket fence.”

“Brody,” Brody said firmly, “still thinks picket fences are very stupid, thank you very much. Now get out of our shot, Ramsey. You got your say, and we think you’re still full of it.”

Ramsey grinned. “Ten percent! I get ten percent!”

Dean rolled his eyes. On the TV the commissioner was about to read out the first card. His phone had not rung. Ian’s eyes met his own, and he gave an imperceptible shake of his head.

Well, they’d not expected him to go number one, anyway. Defensive players rarely did.

Besides, the two teams holding the first two spots in the draft were both sorely in need of a quarterback. Dean might be a lot of things, but he was no quarterback.

The five minutes to the next pick was interminable. Dean’s phone stayed silent. So did Ian’s.

Next to him, Brody made soothing noises, and Dean felt like he’d been reduced to grunts by the immense force of the pressure bearing down on him.

Then Brody apparently decided it was a good idea to make him hard, right before they might both be on national television.

“Hey,” he said casually, “do you remember the first time we sat on this couch together?”

It was not the same couch.

Though it was a couch in the same place, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t had sex on this couch before. Brody had insisted on having it steam cleaned before tonight, because there’d been one rather insistent stain neither of them could get out, from a memorable night about six months ago . . .

Dean yanked his mind out of the gutter and out of that memory.

“It’s not the same couch,” Dean reminded him.

“Oh, but it feels like it, doesn’t it?” Brody’s hand slid to his knee. Squeezed. Dean knew he was trying to distract him, and even though he knew it, it was still working.

“It doesn’t feel like anything,” Dean lied.

What it felt like was Brody was going to seduce him, right here in front of fucking everybody, right before Marisa Lyon, the daughter of the owner, might call his phone and tell him the Riptide were taking him with the third pick of the draft.

And Dean? Well, he wasn’t mad about it.

Except for the erection. That was a problem that nobody, least of all Ramsey, would probably let him forget.

“You’re lying,” Brody teased. “I can feel you tense up right here.” Brody’s hand moved up another inch. Almost to his thigh. “Same as you did that night.”

Dean felt drunk on Brody. On possibilities. On the thought of them in Los Angeles together, Brody’s skin golden in the sunlight.

“It wasn’t even the first time we sat on this couch,” Dean argued.

“First, second, third . . .it was easily in the first half dozen times,” Brody countered sweetly.

“I didn’t know you’d be so into going for my dick that night,” Dean said.

“Oh, but deep down you wanted me to,” Brody said.

A hit. Dean couldn’t even deny it.

He’d wanted it then. He wanted it now. He wanted it as much as he wanted to take his next breath.

“I love you,” Dean said and then grabbed Brody’s hand, squeezing it firmly but insistently. “But you gotta stop making me hard.”

Brody grinned at him. “But you quit angsting, didn’t you?”

“I love you,” Dean said again, because no other words felt sufficient to explain this goddamned miracle of a man he’d found and somehow managed to keep.

“Love you more,” Brody said.

“Okay, you two lovebirds, we’re going on air in five,” the producer called out, and then, on the coffee table in front of him, his phone rang.

It was California area code.

Ian looked at him, and Dean smiled, heart skipping a beat.

He leaned forward and picked up the phone.

“Hello?” he said.

And the rest of their life—not just his , not anymore—began.