Rating:

Explicit

Archive Warning:

No Archive Warnings Apply

Category:

M/M

Fandom:

Heated Rivalry (TV)

Relationship:

Kip Grady/Scott Hunter

Characters:

Kip Grady, Scott Hunter (Game Changers)

Additional Tags:

5+1 Things, Sex, Love, Inappropriate Cake Use

Language:

English

Stats:

Published: 2026-08-06 Words: 11,724 Chapters: 6/6

Clocking Out

Summary

There’s still six months of the season to go. Scott twists his wedding ring on his left ring finger, and bites the bullet.
“I’m retiring.”
Murdock nods. “End of the season?”
“Yeah. It’s time, coach.”

Or: Five times Scott and Kip worked through their feelings about Scott’s impending retirement.

Chapter 1

Murdock’s office in the back halls of Tarrytown is an understated space, ill-fitting for the man in charge of many millions of dollars of human assets. The small room is dominated by a heavy wooden desk, the surface of which is covered in loose papers in haphazard stacks, a wireless keyboard and a mouse on an ergonomic mousepad with wrist support. A monitor teeters on risers, post-it notes clinging to its bottom edge. Behind the desk looms a stout wooden shelving unit, its tiers laden with trophies and plaques, photographs and memorabilia, pucks from important games, ESPYs and BET awards, and a framed photo of Murdock and Scott together on the ice in front of the Stanley Cup, Scott’s eyes wild and red-rimmed. He knows exactly the feeling when that picture was taken. Somewhere to his right, held up by Carter and adrenaline, waits Kip, freshly kissed and shunted onto a whole new life trajectory. Two and a half years ago, now. It’s January 2020, Scott is thirty-eight years old, and it’s time. 

The man himself, Harv Murdock, sits in a leather desk chair, hands folded in front of him, elbows resting on top of the desk. 

“What can I do for you, Scott?” Murdock asks, but he probably knows what’s coming. 

Scott sits in a hard-back chair on the other side of the desk. He feels like a kid again, like he’s meeting with Murdock for the first time. Not like he’s running out the clock on eighteen years in this training facility. He takes a look around the room—not the last look he’ll take, but it kind of feels momentous anyway. Murdock waits, patience worn thin. There’s still six months of the season to go. Scott twists his wedding ring on his left ring finger, and bites the bullet.

“I’m retiring.” 

Murdock nods. “End of the season?” 

“Yeah. It’s time, coach.” 

The slow nod again. “You got one more cup in you?” 

Scott barks out a laugh. Back to back in 2017 and 2018 not enough, it seems. 

“I’ll do my best.” 

Murdock stands and holds his hand out. Scott takes it and gives the shake back as firmly as his coach—his friend. 

“I expect nothing less,” Murdock says. 

 

The rest of the team have cleared out by the time Scott leave’s Murdock’s office and makes the familiar series of turns back to the locker room. His gear bag sits in front of his cubby, where his practice jersey hangs. His name is emblazoned across the shoulders, his number, 21, and his captain’s C are stitched on so firmly he can feel the weight of them in his sleep. Who he is. Or, who he has been. 

He grabs his phone out of his pocket and calls the only person who really matters. 

“Hey, babe,” Kip answers on the second ring. “How was practice?” 

“It was good,” Scott says, suddenly feeling uncertain. The room drops away, nothing left in his ears but the sound of Kip’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Good. I know you’ve got meal prep in the fridge for lunch, but I really want a Reuben—like, I was gonna do a healthy Reuben for us? There’s all that pastrami that dad dropped round. Is that normal? Should fathers travel across boroughs just to drop off deli meats? Anyway, we really need to eat the last of that sauerkraut, and I promise not to complain about the amount that it makes you fart, I love you anyway—”

“Kip,” Scott interrupts, unable to stop smiling. “Kip, I did it.” 

“Did what, babe?” 

“I talked to coach.” 

“Oh, what about? That knee thing?” He can hear the sound of Kip opening and then shutting the fridge on the other end of the line.

“There’s no knee thing! No, no—I gave him notice.” A silence on the other end of the line. “I’m going to retire. End of the season.” 

He hears a shaky breath. And then, quiet, “Scott. Come home. Now.” 

“Are you okay?” 

“Just come home.” 

Kip disconnects the call. Scott stares down at his phone, confused. Weird. Maybe Kip is mad? They’d talked about it before, about Scott finishing up, maybe at the end of the season, but maybe he should have given Kip more warning. They probably should have made the decision together, even if Kip has always been supportive of whatever Scott wanted to do with his career. 

He shoulders his gear back and heads out to the car park where his ride is waiting. It’s a quiet ride back to the city. He thinks about messaging Carter and telling him about the decision, or calling Eric to get tips on how to make the change, but he needs to talk to Kip first. 

The elevator seems to take longer than usual, maybe due to his nerves. God, the idea that Kip could actually be mad about this…he hadn’t even considered it. Which makes him feel worse. He fumbles his keys into the lock and pushes the door open. 

Kip is waiting for him. Kip is waiting for him, his body bare in the afternoon light that leaks greyscale through the windows behind him, but for a pair of red lace panties. 

“Woah,” Scott breathes. “So you’re not mad, then?” 

“Definitely not,” Kip says, sauntering closer Scott in the doorway. “Why would I be mad?” 

“I can’t remember,” Scott says, resting his hand on Kip’s hips as Kip links his arms behind Scott’s neck, leaning up to kiss along Scott’s jaw. “Not when you’re wearing that.”

“Team spirit,” Kip says. “Seemed appropriate.” 

The panties are a stupid gimmick, something that Sorensen, a second-line defenceman, had brought into the locker room during training a couple of years ago on Valentine’s Day. For the WAGs, in theory, these pairs of frilly red underwear, each with a big, gold A stitched onto the rear, were handed out to any man on the team who’d wanted them. At the time, Scott was engaged and did what he knew was required: held up his hands and joked that I don’t think that’s Kip’s style. And then, when the rest of the team had filed out onto the ice to begin warming up, he’d quickly grabbed a pair from the pile and shoved them deep into the bottom of his bag. 

They are too small, but Kip has been a remarkably good sport about wearing them during playoffs and on Scott’s birthday. And today, apparently. 

Scott catches Kip’s mouth in a hungry kiss, his hands roaming over Kip’s back, his ass, slipping under the waistband of the panties. “Fuck, you’re hot,” he murmurs into Kip’s mouth, and Kip responds by laughing, then sliding his tongue into Scott’s mouth. Scott groans, then pulls Kip to him. Kip keeps going, pushing Scott back against the front door, pinning him with hands on Scott’s hips. 

“When?” Kip asks, pulling back and looking at Scott with dark eyes shining. 

“End of the season,” Scott says. 

“God,” Kip breathes. His hands twitch at Scott’s waist. “How do you feel?” 

“Like I want to fuck you,” Scott groans. “I had other things I was going to say, but they don’t seem so important now.” 

Kip gets warm hands under Scott’s hoodie and t-shirt, running fingers up his stomach and chest, pushing the fabric up and out of the way. Scott lifts his arms and tugs both shirt and sweater off over his head, throwing them aside. He hears something get knocked askew, maybe that James Lee Chiahan painting they’d bought last winter. It doesn’t matter. Kip’s hands are on him now, broad warm palms over his skin—not much matters more than this. 

“God, retirement,” Kip whispers, like it’s fragile. “The guys give you shit about making time for that knee replacement?” 

Scott laughs, then spanks Kip’s ass, hard. Kip jolts closer. “I haven’t told the guys yet, I wanted to talk to you. And I don’t need a knee replacement.” 

“Oh no?” 

“No. Nothing wrong with my joints at all.”

“Wanna show me?” Kip’s grinning up at him slyly, and it could honestly mean any one of many things Scott could do to demonstrate the fortitude of his patellae, but he chooses this: he reaches down and grabs Kip around the thighs, urging him up. Kip jumps, wrapping his legs around Scott’s waist and gripping onto Scott’s shoulders. Like this, he can feel Kip’s hard-on pressing against his stomach. He grips onto Kip’s ass, fingers slipping under lace, stroking over Kip’s rim, only to find him already slick and loose. 

“Oh, I see,” Scott says, biting at Kip’s jaw. “Ready for me, huh?” 

“Whenever you want,” Kip breathes, his fingers tightening around Scott’s shoulders as Scott slides a finger deep inside him. 

“I want,” Scott groans. He kisses Kip hard and wet, tongue pushing into Kip’s mouth, and he turns them, pushing Kip up against the back of the door. He crooks his finger inside Kip, unerring and practiced, and Kip moans long, his head thudding back against the solid wood of the door. He’s so slick inside, so ready for Scott to take him. 

Ready except for the panties, which remain stubbornly in the way. Kip’s cock had long since slipped out from the scrap of fabric at the front. 

“Hold on,” Scott says, and Kip’s hands tighten around the back of Scott’s neck. Scott slips his finger out of Kip, and then grips the panties in both hands, tugging the flimsy fabric until he hears it rip. Kips eyes are wide, his cheeks pink, lips parted in surprise. 

Scott leans Kip into the wall, one hand under Kip’s ass, the other slipping fingers back inside, curling and seeking. Kip cries out, eyes closed, and Scott smiles, wolfish and filthy. “That’s better,” he murmurs. 

He teases Kip for a while, kissing his neck, his mouth, along his collarbones, making him writhe and moan with just his fingers, stretching and playing. Then he reaches down to his sweatpants and tugs them down just far enough to free his own achingly hard cock, taking a moment to slick himself with the precome that’s welling at the tip. He tugs his fingers out of Kip, kissing him and swallowing the soft sound he lets out at the feeling. He keeps one hand on Kip’s ass and the other on the back of Kip’s thigh, holding him up and open. Kip’s fingers are digging into his shoulders, and he looks into Kip’s eyes and sees nothing but desire, trust, heat. 

He guides Kip down onto his cock—it’s tight, there’s probably not enough lube, but it doesn’t matter. Kip’s eyes are rolling back in his head, and Scott starts to fuck him in shallow, slow thrusts. 

“Fuck, you feel so good,” Scott groans. “Always so good, so perfect, Kip.” 

He grinds his hips up and Kip lets out a shout, his head knocking back against the wall again. “Oh, Jesus, honey, right there, please—”

Scott complies, fucking Kip again and again up against the door to their home, their sanctuary, the place where he’s always been able to strip away who he is on the ice and become his true self. His whole self, since this incredible man walked into his life. The door Kip walked out of and then came back through a handful of months later, bringing hope and trust and the promise of more. The threshold that Scott carried Kip over on their wedding night. The door that remains, after they’ve blown open so many others over the years. The door that holds his husband up now, helps cradle Kip and take his weight, that gives them this: their bodies’ momentum in together, their pleasure, this moment. 

He braces his knee against the door and lets Kip slide a little further down onto his cock, rocks up until he’s completely buried inside. He slows his thrusts and kisses Kip’s face, his neck, his cheeks. Kips legs are wrapped around his waist, and he trails his fingers over one thigh. 

“Don’t stop,” Kip whispers. “Please, Scott, please…” 

He rolls his hips up, one hand holding Kip up, the other reaching around Kip’s cock to stroke him in time with the thrusts inside. They come like that, moving in tandem. Kip buries his face in the crook of Scott’s neck as he releases between them; Scott holds his husband effortlessly close as he spills inside. 

 

 

Afterwards, on the floor where they collapsed, weak-kneed and spent, Scott traces his fingers through Kip’s curls. 

“I’m excited about it, to be honest,” he says. “It’s been a long time coming.” 

Kip looks over at him, rolling fully onto his side to face Scott. His dark eyes are pleased but also questioning. “You didn’t do this for me, did you?” 

“No,” Scott says. “There are benefits for you, I hope. Me being home, for one. Until you get sick of me.” 

“Impossible.”

“It’s for me,” Scott continues. “I’m so tired, baby. I just want to live my life. And it’s so crazy, you know…You remember what I said to you, that very first morning we spent together here?” 

Kip squeezes Scott’s middle. “I could never, ever forget.” 

Scott kisses Kip’s cheek and then lets out a long sigh. “To think the best I ever hoped for was to fade away. Look at me now.” 

Kip slots their fingers together—Scott’s left hand, his right. He picks up their hands and kisses over Scott’s wedding ring. 

“Look at you now, babe. Look at you now.” 

 

 

Chapter 2

In spring, Kip starts his new job. It’s his first “proper job” (his words) since he finished his PhD in the fall before. Kip has been patient, waiting for a post-doctoral position to open up anywhere in the tri-state area. With an incredible sense of cosmic timing, one opened at NYU in the winter. After a ridiculous and exhausting application process, he finally received the call that he got the early-career researcher position in late February. Celebration ensued, and then the requisite existential panic, and then wait until the contract started in mid-March. The first few weeks have been incredible, even though he’s been mostly doing what he was doing as a TA—grading papers, leading discussion groups, and fighting for office space. But this time he has his name on the door, preceded by the title ‘Doctor’, and in the fall he’ll start his own series of lectures. 

All in all, it’s a dream come true. 

Scott has been incredibly supportive. He insisted on accompanying Kip to campus on his first day, which coincided with a three-day stretch of home games. Scott had packed Kip’s lunch—leftovers of salmon and quinoa salad, and a surprise cupcake that Kip’s still not sure how he snuck in there—and taken the subway with him downtown. Kip had gladly taken the kiss at the front entrance, his messenger bag heavy against his hip and Scott’s fingers gentle against his cheeks. 

“You’re going to be amazing,” Scott had said. 

“I am,” Kip had agreed, riding the high of the appointment, so sure of himself.

And for the most part, he has been great, and the work has been interesting, and he has been so utterly content. This morning, however, he feels less than organised. 

“Babe, have you seen my good striped shirt?” He’s half-dressed in a peach linen button down, sorting through his shirts where they hang in his half of their walk-in closet. 

Scott pops his head in the door, soft and bed-headed in his pyjamas. “The Tom Ford one?”

Kip narrows his eyes, still uncomfortable about having so many designer shirts in his rotation, but Scott is unstoppable and generous and only got worse about it once they were married. 

“Yes, that one. I’ve got that conference starting tomorrow, and I wanted to make a good first impression on the forty-odd other academics that will be coming to shout about Van Eyck iconography.” 

“No one’s shouting, surely. You’re all so dignified.”

Kip snorts. “There’s always one.”

Scott runs a hand through his hair. “Didn’t you wear that shirt to dinner with Carter and Gloria last week? It should have been picked up with the laundry service. Let me check.” 

He wanders off to the bathroom, and Kip keeps flicking through his hangers, looking for something that isn’t there. 

“It’ll be fine, babe,” he calls out. “I’ll just wear something else.” 

Scott reappears, holding a crumpled white and blue striped shirt in his hand. “Looks like it got missed.” 

“It’s fine,” Kip says. “I’ve got other shirts.”

“But you want this one,” Scott counters.

Kip finishes buttoning up the shirt he’s actually wearing, and grabs a pair of jeans from a shelf. “I’ll survive,” he laughs. He goes and kisses Scott on the mouth, gentle and quick. “It’s just a shirt.” 

 

When Kip comes back from his campus in the afternoon, Scott calls out a hello from the depths of the apartment. Kip follows the sound of his voice and finds Scott in the laundry room, pulling a few items of clothing out of the dryer. He recognises the blue and white stripe of the Tom Ford shirt amongst them. 

“What’s going on here?” he asks, coming up behind Scott where he stands in front of the stacked washer and dryer. 

“Hmm? Oh, nothing.” Scott leans back and Kip gets the hint, winding his arms around Scott’s waist. 

“This doesn’t look like nothing.” 

“I’m just trying to be useful,” Scott says. He drops the dry clothes onto the bench, and then wraps his hands around Kip’s forearms. 

“You washed my shirt,” Kip says, smug and pleased and all warm inside. 

“I did,” Scott says. He leans back into the warmth of Kip’s body, and Kip presses his forehead into the back of Scott’s shoulder, kissing against firm muscle. 

“You didn’t need to do that for me,” he says. 

“I wanted to.” 

And that’s the thing about Scott—his unwavering commitment to acts of service as a love language, from the very moment they met. He’s so selfless, and so caring, and the shirt didn’t even matter, not really, but here he is. 

Kip kisses Scott’s shoulder again, and wishes he were a little taller so he could get at Scott’s neck properly. He leans up on his toes to kiss at Scott’s nape, and decides to let his hands do the talking. He slides one palm to Scott’s hip, and slips the other under the soft cotton of Scott’s t-shirt, palm over the warm skin of Scott’s stomach. 

“You’re wonderful,” Kip murmurs into the top of Scott’s spine, and then trails kisses from the collar of his t-shirt down across his scapula, nosing into the back of Scott’s armpit. He smells so familiar here, the musk of his body and brightness of his deodorant. Kip breathes it in and hears Scott sigh in response. 

“You deserve it,” Scott says. “You deserve everything. Kip—” He tries to turn in Kip’s arms, but Kip stills him with the hand on his hip, leans into him a little more firmly, pushing him up against the counter. He’s half-hard just from the sudden idea of something more, and he presses his hips into Scott’s ass, rocking forward against him as Scott pushes back with a shaky exhale. Kip feels the push of breath against the hand he still has on Scott’s abs, and he slides his hand higher, fingers trailing through the small patch of hair between Scott’s pecs, and then dragging his nails across the skin. Scott shivers. 

“Will you give me everything?” Kip asks, voice low. He pulls his thumb across Scott’s nipple, feeling the skin pebble under his touch. 

“Yes,” Scott breathes. He tries to push against the hand on his hip but Kip holds him firm. “Yes, Kip, anything.” 

Kip pushes his hand down to cup Scott’s growing hard-on through the front of the sweatpants he’s wearing. “This,” he breathes. “Can I have this?” 

“God, baby, any time,” Scott groans. “Whenever you want, please.” 

He doesn’t waste any time. He doesn’t even bother to pull the sweatpants down—just shoves his hand inside and grasps Scott’s cock, the flesh hot and hard against his palm. 

“You’ve been so good, baby,” he murmurs, feeling Scott tremble. He slicks his palm with precome that weeps from the tip of Scott’s erection and begins to stroke him slow and deliberate. “Always so good for me, always have just what I need.” 

“Yeah, yeah, Kip,” Scott breathes. “Whatever you need, just don’t stop.” 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kip smiles. He rubs over Scott’s nipple again with his other hand, rolls the nub of it under the pad of his thumb, just to hear Scott gasp. “Is this what you’re gonna do when you retire, then, huh? Just make yourself available for me to touch, to fuck, whenever I want?” 

Scott whines, his hips thrusting into Kip’s hand. “Yeah, want that,” he murmurs. 

“Tell me how you want it,” Kip breathes, wanting to hear the fantasy. 

“I—I want to be waiting at home for you,” Scott starts, his voice rough. “I want to meet you at the door and suck you off as soon as you come home from work. I want to—oh Jesus, Kip—I want to jerk off in our bed and have you come home to find me.” 

“Yeah?” Kip asks, breathing faster now, pushing his hard-on against the firm muscle of Scott’s ass. “Want me to walk in on you touching yourself, and then take over? Swallow you down?” 

“God, always. Kip, I—I want…”

“What do you want, baby?” 

“I want to take care of you.” Scott’s hips stutter as he says it, erratic and rushed. Like it’s something dirty. Something wrong.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Kip murmurs, low and amused. “You want to make me dinner while I’m at the office?” 

“Yes,” Scott hisses, although he’s a fairly dreadful cook when left to his own devices.

“You want to make this house all nice for me? Countertops clean enough to eat me out on?” 

“Shit, Kip, yes—I, yes—”

Kip eyes the pile of laundry. “You want to wash my shirts for me, baby? Is that it?” 

“Please, Kip, let me, let me,” Scott pants. 

“You want to be my perfect little housewife.” 

Scott comes with an audible groan, spilling over Kip’s fingers and the inside of his sweats. Kip gives him a moment, rubbing his hand over Scott’s heaving back. 

“Jesus Christ,” Scott breathes. And then he turns, catching his fingers in Kip’s belt loops, and slides down onto his knees. His fingers are at Kip’s belt, his eyes imploring, and all Kip can say is, “Take it, baby, that’s it. Come and get what you deserve.” 

 

Later, the clean laundry hung in the closet, the Tom Ford shirt ironed and ready to wear tomorrow, Kip flops onto the couch next to Scott and tucks himself into Scott’s side. 

“You know, I don’t expect any of that stuff from you. At all.”

“I know,” Scott says. He puts down the Patricia Highsmith book he’s reading. “But I want to do things for you. Nice things. Not just sexy things.”

“Your retirement should be about finding new, annoying hobbies,” Kip says. “Fill the apartment with model trains. Start a jam band with Eric. Get really into sourdough bread.” 

“I can do all of those things,” Scott says. “But nothing is ever going to make me feel better than taking care of you.” 

Kip kisses him, sweet and soft. “Only if I get to take care of you, too.” 

Scott kisses him back, then pulls away a scant inch to look into Kip’s eyes. “Absolutely.” 

 

 

Chapter 3

The cake samples sit arranged neatly in a box on the dining room table: twelve cupcakes, twelve flavours, neat frosting piped on each. 

“God, I’m having flashbacks to our wedding planning,” Kip groans, staring at the cake. “Babe, you know I can’t cope with this much sugar.” 

“Hey, I liked our wedding planning,” Scott says, mildly miffed. These cakes, as far as he’s concerned, look pretty good. The departure from his diet is appreciated. Sometimes carbs come in the form of three cups of brown rice. And sometimes it’s Italian meringue icing. 

Kip kisses his cheek. “So did I. Loved it. Love you. Did not enjoy the sugar crash.” 

“Well,” Scott grins, “no one told you that you had to eat the entire cupcake. Eight times.” 

“Shut up,” Kip laughs, pinching Scott’s side. “Anyway, I seem to recall some…encouragement from you.” 

He looks up at Scott, his eyes merry and dark. The encouragement, as Scott recalls, had devolved into Kip sitting astride Scott’s lap, licking icing from Scott’s fingers. They’d kind of rushed the wedding planning—engaged six months after the first Stanley Cup win, and married six months later after the second in the summer of 2018. Everything about the planning of their wedding had made them insatiably horny. Maybe it was the rushed timeline, or the euphoria of their big public declaration on the ice, or just the fact that they didn’t have to hide anymore after three and a half years. Or maybe it was because Kip, among his innumerable qualities, is the hottest man he’s ever met, and he is the luckiest creature to have found him. Maybe part of it was rubbing it in the face of every homophobe who’d side-eyed him after coming out. Or maybe it is just their default setting, because it’s not like their sex life has slowed down since then—if anything it’s gotten better. But those weeks, while planning: they’d fucked about the cake tasting, the invitation stationery, the venue planning, the music choices. The suit fitting, oh god, they’re never welcome back at that particular Hugo Boss store, not after what they did in its dressing room. They’d picked their floral arrangements and then gone home and made love in a bed literally strewn with rose petals, for god’s sake, because Scott could finally have it all and he wanted it all. Every big, stupid romantic cliché he thought he’d never get. 

Here, on their dining table, sit cake samples for another milestone. 

“What’s the vibe for a retirement cake, anyway?” Kip asks. He swipes his finger through the peak of icing on one cake, and then licks it off with a flash of pink tongue. Scott swallows, his throat a little dry. 

“Uh. I don’t know, what do you think?” 

“Red velvet?” 

“No, no more red,” Scott says. “I’ve worn enough red to last me the next forty years.” 

“Chai,” Kip smirks, invoking the great Wedding Cake Flavour Argument of 2018. 

“Cinnamon,” Scott counters, smiling. He picks up the first cupcake and reads the label underneath it. “Uh, how about strawberry with matcha cream?” 

Kip’s nose crinkles. “It’s so green.” 

“Try it,” Scott says, swiping his thumb through the icing and holding it out. Kip’s eyes are light, playful, as he licks a hot line up Scott’s thumb. 

“Not bad,” Kip says. “The cake?”

Scott breaks off a piece and holds it out. Kip sucks the tips of Scott’s fingers into his mouth as he takes it. 

“Good?” Scott asks, voice rough at the graze of Kip’s teeth. 

“It’s okay.” 

Scott takes a bit for himself, barely tasting it anyway under the weight of Kip’s eyes on him. His throat is dry. He goes to the kitchen and fills two glasses with water. 

“What else have we got?” Kip asks. He hops back onto the table and sits with his thighs parted in invitation. Scott steps between them and picks up the next cake. 

“Coconut cake with yuzu curd,” he says. 

The cake breaks open easily, the yellow filling spilling over Scott’s knuckles. Kip’s eyes track it, his gaze darker now. 

“You want it?” Scott asks, not really talking about the cake. 

Kip nods. Scott raises his clean hand and grasps around the back of Kip’s head, fingers scratching  across his scalp and thumb pressing into the hinge of his jaw. 

“Open, then.” 

Kips mouth drops, and Scott pushes his fingers over Kip’s tongue, the tart yuzu curd catching on his lips and teeth. Scott’s eyes drop shut as Kip sucks on his fingers, wet and desperate already. He pulls his hand free and kisses Kip, tongue gliding hot between his lips, chasing citrus. He pulls back and breaks off a third of the cupcake, feeding it into Kip’s mouth. He fits the palm of his other hand to Kip’s throat. 

“Swallow it,” he says. Kip does, his throat working against Scott’s hand. Scott smiles at him. “Good boy.” 

He watches as Kip’s eyes flutter shut. He picks up a glass of water and offers it to Kip, who takes a small drink. Then he turns back to the cupcake tray. 

“Dark chocolate and whiskey cream,” he reads. 

Kip bites his lip, anticipating. “Scott,” he whispers. 

“Begging already?” Scott asks. He looks down and sees the hard-on bulging painfully in Kip’s jeans. He reaches out for the button at the waist, deftly slipping it open. 

“Please,” Kip murmurs. “Please touch me.” 

Scott kisses him hard, tasting coconut and faint matcha. He’s still holding the chocolate cupcake in his hand, his other fingers pressing into Kip’s shoulder. “Soon,” he says against Kip’s mouth. “Take your shirt off for me now, though.” 

Kip complies quickly, whipping the shirt over his head and tossing it out of sight. It’s cool in the apartment, and his pale skin pebbles once bare. Scott takes him in, all the cut muscle and dark hair, and the lovely, pale column of his throat. He takes the cupcake and smears the icing in a trail down the front of Kip’s neck, chasing it with his tongue. 

“Oh, god,” Kip groans, and Scott feels it echo against his lips. He laps at the whiskey cream, gathers it on his tongue, and the kisses Kip again, sliding their tongues together and swallowing Kip’s startled moan. 

“Thoughts?” he asks casually when he pulls back. 

“Chocolate cake is overrated,” Kip pants. His fingers are twisted in Scott’s t-shirt. Scott wants to feel him, wants to make Kip dig his nails in. 

He abandons that cupcake and chooses another. “Huh. Dulce de leche and sea salt.” He looks at Kip and the flush on his neck, which is spreading beautifully along his chest. “Lie down,” he says, pushing against Kip’s shoulder. 

He takes a handful of the frosting—sticky caramel, overly sweet just from the smell, and smears it over Kip’s abs. Then he ducks his head and laves his tongue in broad strokes over muscle and salt-musk skin, lapping at the caramel, feeling Kip quiver beneath his mouth. 

“Jesus, Scott,” Kip groans, his head dropping back against the table. 

Scott takes another cake—vanilla bean with crème pâtissière and presses it against Kip’s stomach, smearing cream and cake crumbs across his skin. He eats it voraciously, tongue lashing and teeth scraping, a deep groan letting loose from his own throat. He feels Kip’s hands in his hair and he reaches up and grabs at his wrists, pinning them down against the hard wood of the table. 

“Hold still,” he says, dipping his tongue into Kip’s navel, chasing sweetness. Kip tenses against him, so he sucks a mark into the tender skin of his stomach, just near a beautiful mole he has to the right of his hip. 

Leaning up, he’s aware that he has icing in his beard, and possibly looks insane, but Kip is looking at him with nothing but desire. He lets go of Kip’s wrists. “Hands up over your head,” he says.” Kip complies, crossing his wrists against the table overhead, exposing the dark hair of his armpits. A feast, like this. 

There are seven cupcakes remaining. Scott grabs one more, reads Italian meringue frosting on the label, and then takes a finger full of the icing. He holds it out for Kip, who sucks it into his mouth. Their eyes hold, dark and wanting, as Scott eases Kip’s jeans open and pulls his hard cock out. He wraps his fingers around heated skin and begins to stroke, watching Kip’s eyes flutter shut, his eyelashes dusting dark and pretty across the tops of his cheeks. Scott presses down on Kip’s tongue, fucks into the seal of Kip’s lips with his finger as he jerks Kip fast and hard. 

“You’re gonna come for me,” Scott growls. He slides his fingers out of Kip’s mouth, watching him chase the digit compulsively, wanting. He knows what it means, when Scott says it like this. That Scott will make him come and then do it again, and again, until he’s crying with it.

“Fuck, Scott!” Kip shouts, hips bucking into Scott’s fist. 

“Soon,” Scott promises. 

He scoops more frosting onto his fingers and drives them back into Kip’s mouth. Kip moans loud around them, thighs shaking already, sucking at Scott’s digits. He’s close, Scott can feel it. Kip’s body starts to tense, his cock weeping slick that wells and catches on Scott’s hand.  He slips his fingers free of Kip’s mouth and instead fits his palm over Kip’s lips. Kip’s eyes widen and he sucks breath in through his nose. 

“Come for me like this,” Scott says, and Kip nods, curls shaking. “Come on, baby. Give it to me.”

He watches as Kip’s eyes squeeze shut, feels the tension build in the body he knows so well. Just before Kip starts to come, Scott moves his thumb and forefinger, pinching Kip’s nose shut, cutting off his oxygen. 

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Scott murmurs, watching as Kip’s back bows and his legs kick, feeling his dick jerk and shoot hot all over Kip’s belly, mixing with the streaks of icing still on his skin. Kip’s face is pink, his eyes watering, blinking back tears as he fights against the hold, needing to breathe, needing anything. 

Scott pulls his hand away and Kip sucks down deep gasps of air, his legs still trembling. 

“So beautiful,” Scott murmurs, bending his head to lick at Kip’s spend, mingling it with the remnants of crème pâtissière still on his stomach. He scoops it into his mouth, trailing his lips up Kip’s body, over his chest and along his neck to his gorgeous mouth, red and wet and heaving breath. Scott applies pressure to Kip’s jaw, dragging his chin down and his mouth open, as he spits the mess of come and frosting onto Kip’s tongue. 

“Swallow,” he says. Kip gives a soft groan, a whimper, and does. 

Scott stands up. “You’ve been so good, he says. He gets a hand under Kip’s shoulder and helps him sit up. “You deserve a reward. Turn over.” 

Kip turns and rests his elbows on the table, bending at his graceful waist. Scott tugs Kip’s jeans and boxers down and off, and then removes his own sweatpants, noticing for the first time, really, how hard he is. 

“Are you going to fuck me?” Kip asks, his voice fuzzy round the edges.

Scott grabs Kip’s ass with both hands, massaging and then spreading him wide. 

“Yes,” he says, simply, listening to Kip’s moan in response. In anticipation. 

They keep lube in the kitchen, lesson learned from the olive oil fiasco of four years ago. Scott works Kip open quickly, and then slicks himself, lining up. He takes one of Kip’s legs and hoists it, placing Kip’s knee up on the table, and applies pressure to Kip’s back, pushing his chest and face lower, arching his back and exposing more of him. God, he looks so perfect. Good enough to eat. 

He fucks Kip hard and slow at first, thrusts even and deep. Kip’s moans bounce the wood of the table and he pushes up against Scott’s hand, which only makes Scott press him down more firmly. 

“Take it, baby,” he says, his hips speeding up a little, applying pressure to Kip’s back. Kip resists, and then Scott realises why: the cakes. They’re right under Kip’s chest. Scott groans; he wants Kip messy. He shoves at Kip’s back, pushing him off-balance until he lands chest-first on top of the remaining cupcakes. 

“Oh, Jesus,” Kip moans, and the sweet-sticky smell of sugar and frosting bursts into the room. Scott speeds up the piston of his hips, fucking Kip faster and harder and just right, making Kip moan a constant string of pleasured sounds, his chest sliding in the icing as Scott fucks into him again and again. “Oh god, oh god, Scott, I’m gonna come—”

“Good,” Scott growls. “Good boy, come for me.” 

Kip does, his body shaking, a wail cutting loose from his mouth. Scott pulls out, still hard. He takes Kip by the hips, canting them higher, feeling the twitch of muscles beneath his hands. He lifts and turns Kip onto his back, pushing him onto the table proper, feeling him skid on the frosting beneath him. And Kip is coated in it, creamy and sticky and sweet, matted into his chest hair and smeared over red skin. He looks delicious. 

Scott grabs behind Kip’s knees and pushes his legs up and apart, baring him. He lines up the head of his cock with Kip’s hole. 

“One more,” he says. He wants to give it to Kip, give it until he’s crying with it. He tugs Kip closer by the hips and drives his cock in deep. 

“Oh, Scott, Jesus, fuck—” Kip wails, his eyes screwed shut and his arms stretched above his head. “Oh, god, fuck me, fuck me!” 

Scott growls, animal and deep, and he holds Kip still by the hips and fucks him slow and shallow, right in the place that makes Kip sob and shudder with the intensity of the pleasure. He digs his thumbs in, ducks his head and licks at the mess of icing and cake across Kip’s chest. It bursts in flavour across his tongue—raspberry, chocolate, cream, maple syrup—and he chases after the familiar skin that lies beneath, lips closing around a nipple to suck and bite until Kip’s hands are scrabbling at his shoulders, nails leaving marks. He fucks deeper now, harder, holding off his own orgasm until he gets what he wants: Kip, wrecked again on the end of his cock. 

It’s close. He can feel it, the tension in Kip’s muscles beneath his mouth. He can hear it in the punched-out little moans that fall from Kip’s mouth. He can see it, when he lifts his gaze and sees a tear track down Kip’s temple—he licks it into his mouth, the salt cutting through the sweetness of the icing. He kisses Kip’s cheek, his brow, his slack and moaning mouth. 

“Come for me,” he whispers, against the shell of Kip’s ear. “One more, baby, come just for me.” 

Beneath him, Kip’s back arches, his feet kicking against the tabletop. He comes, dry and sobbing, Scott tumbling after. 

 

Clean and showered and in fresh clothes, they survey the mess that’s on the table. 

“I think the vanilla?” Scott asks, clearing his throat.

“With maple frosting,” Kip nods, his cheeks pink. 

“Italian meringue,” Scott says. “It’ll hold its shape better in the summer. I’ve heard.” 

Kip hums a vague sound of agreement. A hickey blooms on his throat. “Well, I think people will love it,” he says. 

Scott nods, his cheeks pink. He goes to get a damp cloth from the sink. 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 4

One month out from the end of the season. Kip’s sitting in the living room with a stack of undergraduate papers to be graded balanced precariously on the edge of the coffee table. He really should be more organised, should do this at his desk, but some days the floor is just more comfortable, and also resonates better with his sense of general desperation at the end of semester. Cannot sink lower. He picks up another paper from the stack. One of his colleagues, a smug classicist called Dalton, keeps reminding Kip that he can just review and grade these online through the student portal, but Kip feels like he’ll go insane if he has more than the requisite time staring at his computer monitor, so printing it is. 

He uncaps his pen and settles back against the couch to review the paper. He’s about a third of the way down the first page, already feeling sorry for the student and the middling grade they’ll receive, when he hears Scott call out from the bedroom down the hall. 

“Babe?!” 

Kip sits up straighter. Scott sounds kind of panicked. 

“What is it?” he calls out, slightly concerned. 

He sees Scott pad towards him down the hall, one of the nice cotton towels slung around his waist. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. “Babe, I found a grey hair.” 

Kip looks at him over the top of his glasses. “Honey, I hate to be the one to break it with you, but you have the loveliest little grey streak already, right by your temple.” He gestures to his own head, at his hairline over his right eyebrow. 

“No, not there. I already know about that one, the guys have been giving me shit for about a year now.” Scott bites his lip. “I found it while I was…trimming.” 

“In your beard,” Kip nods. “Look, I hadn’t noticed, but it’s really nothing to worry—”

“Not my beard.” Scott interrupts. He shifts on his feet, his hands tightening on the towel around his waist. 

Oh, Kip realises. “I’m sorry, a grey pube?” 

“Don’t laugh at me!” Scott comes and flops onto the couch next to where Kip is sitting. “I’m old!” 

“You’re not old,” Kip says. 

“I’m old, I’m retiring, my dick is tired—”

“Your dick isn’t tired, Jesus—”

“—and I just don’t know who I am anymore.” Scott finishes and throws his arm over his eyes dramatically. 

Kip sighs, just quietly. Scott’s major crash out about retiring has yet to really occur. The change, the worry about what he’ll do next. Scott’s mostly just been powering on towards the end of the season, seemingly unconcerned about retirement, happily planning the party. But it was inevitable. 

“I want to help you,” Kip says. “Baby, you’re going through a really big change. I get that. It’s normal to feel like you’re at the end of something, because, well, you are.” 

Scott peers at him from under his forearm, looking unimpressed. 

“The end of your career isn’t going to be the end of your life, though,” Kip continues. “And it doesn’t even have to be the end of your hockey career. You could look at coaching, or commentating, or anything like that. You can be as involved as you want—or not. You can do something completely new. As long as it’s not something that’ll earn you any more concussions.” 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Scott says. “I honestly have zero ideas for what comes next, other than being with you.” 

“Well, that one’s locked in. I’m not going anywhere.” Kip turns and rests his chin on Scott’s knee. “Tell me one thing you’re excited about for after you retire.” 

Scott lets out a long breath, and reaches his hand down to sink into Kip’s hair. “Maybe cycling. Something easier on my knees. Reading more. I think I want, like, six good months of doing nothing, though.”

Kip smiles, knowing well that Scott would last approximately three weeks before going stir crazy and annoying Kip to the point where he’ll be forcibly marched out to a ceramics class at a community centre to just get him out of the apartment. 

“That sounds good,” Kip says. “And you can spend more time with Eric. And more time at home. No more late night flights.” 

He kisses Scott’s knee, pulling up the edge of the towel a little to get at his skin. Late in the season, Scott’s more wiry now, his muscles more defined. Kip kisses at the edge of his quadriceps and runs his fingers up Scott’s shin. 

“I’m just worried,” Scott says, stroking behind Kip’s ear. 

“About what, babe?” 

“That I’m not going to know who I am anymore without it.” 

Kip catches Scott’s eyes with his own, recognising the concern there, the worry, the fear. 

“Oh, baby,” Kip says, low and sweet. “You know exactly who you are. You want me to remind you?” 

He runs his hand higher up Scott’s thigh, under the edge of the towel. Scott parts his knees, hand back in Kip’s hair. 

“Yeah,” he murmurs. “Yeah, Kip, please.” 

Kip puts the paper he was grading back on top of the pile, and then shifts up onto his knees, crawling between Scott’s spread legs. 

“Let me see that grey pube,” he grins, hands on the towel. Scott rolls his eyes but shifts lower in his seat, letting Kip part the cotton and draw it to the sides. Kip runs his hands up Scott’s inner thighs, thumbs stroking over soft skin. He makes a show of peering at Scott’s groin. “I can’t even see anything.” 

“That’s because I plucked it out,” Scott says. 

Kip rolls his eyes. “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but growing old with you will be literally the greatest pleasure of my life.” 

Scott’s mouth drops, and his eyes look suddenly wet.

Kip continues. “So leave the grey pubes. And the grey hairs. I want all of it. Okay?” 

“Okay,” Scott nods. 

“Good. Now, where was I?” Kip clears his throat. “Oh, yes. I remember.” 

He ducks his head and sucks Scott’s mostly soft cock into his mouth. He hears Scott give a stifled groan, feels him growing firmer along his tongue. He loves this—the vulnerability of it, of having Scott soft and wanting between his lips, teasing him, making him hard. It doesn’t take long. He takes Scott deep, slow and wet, listening for the hitch in his breath, the moan that comes next. He pulls back and tongues at the head, sucking lightly, looking up at Scott’s half-lidded eyes. 

He pulls his head back and shoulders in closer, tugging Scott’s hips towards the edge of the couch. Scott wriggles forwards, pleased. Kip runs his hands over Scott’s inner thighs, pressing them wider apart, getting his hands on Scott’s ass and spreading him apart. 

“You know who you are,” Kip says, ducking his head to lick at Scott’s taint, to lap at his balls. “Tell me.” 

“I’m yours,” Scott says, immediate. 

Kip looks up at him, at the curl of his abdomen, the soft pink blush across his chest, the heat apparent in his cheeks, the dark eyes staring down. 

“Is your cock mine?” Kip asks. 

“Yes.” 

“And your ass?” He trails a finger over Scott’s rim, circling dry. 

“Fuck, yes, yours,” Scott breathes. 

Kip smiles at him, kisses the crease of his thigh. Then he gathers saliva in his mouth and spits onto Scott’s taint, watching it drip down over his hole. He swirls his finger through the wetness and the breaches Scott, slow and careful. 

“Oh, fuck,” Scott groans, his knees falling further apart. He gets a foot up on the coffee table, opening himself further. Kip’s finger slides deeper, curling and seeking as he takes Scott in his mouth again. 

He draws it out as long as he can, keeping his mouth a tease, his tongue curling. His fingers inside seek out the nerves that make Scott whine and wriggle, pleading as his hand fists in Kip’s hair. 

Kip pulls off Scott’s cock, but keeps his fingers pressing sweet inside. 

“What do they call you, at MSG?” he asks, voice low. “When you score and they chant it from the stands.”

“Hunter,” Scott breathes. 

Kip spirals his fingertips, watching as precome drips from the head of Scott’s cock. “And who are you, really?” 

“I’m yours, fuck, Kip!” His hands grip tight at Kip presses inside and licks the salt welling from the fat head of Scott’s cock. “All yours. Everything.” 

“That ring on your finger?” Kip asks.

“Oh god, it’s yours,” Scott groans, never failing to get turned on by the fact that they’re married.

“Your body?” Kip demands.

“Yes!”

“Your name?” Kip tongues at the slit, and Scott whines.

“Yes, it’s yours, it’s yours! Please, Kip, I wanna come.”

Kip takes him deep in his throat again, the permission implicit. It doesn’t take long until Scott is coming in hot spurts across Kip’s tongue with a shout. 

Scott pants on the couch, his chest pink and heaving, and then he wraps his hand around Kip’s bicep and tugs. “Jesus, get up here,” Scott pleads, pulling Kip up and into his lap. He fumbles at the button of Kip’s jeans. 

They don’t talk about the grey pube again. 

 

 

 

Later,  Scott’s phone rings where it sits on the coffee table—it’s on silent, and it buzzes its way across the glass tabletop. Kip picks it up. He doesn’t recognise the number, so he takes it to find Scott. 

Scott’s sitting on the bed in their room, holding something small and leather bound in his hands. 

“Your phone was ringing,” Kip says.

“I’ll call them back.” 

“What have you got there?” Kip comes and sits beside Scott on the bed, resting his chin on Scott’s shoulder. He looks down and sees Scott’s holding his passport in his hands. 

“Planning a trip?” Kip asks, light and a little curious. 

“No. We should, though. This summer. Retirement tour.” 

“I’d love to.” 

Scott clears his throat. “I was just looking at…” He trails off, but Kip watches as he traces his index finger over the name on the passport. Scott Grady-Hunter. He gets it, suddenly. To all the world, for all his career, to every fan and commentator and management, he’s always been Scott Hunter. This, his real name, legal name, Kip’s name. Their name. He kisses Scott’s neck. 

“I love you,” he says. 

“Love you so much,” Scott replies. 

The phone rings again. Kip hands it over. Scott takes the calls, and Kip leaves him to it. 

A little while later, Scott finds Kip in the kitchen where he’s filling the French press. Scott’s eyes look a little damp. 

“Everything okay?” Kip asks. He puts down the bag of coffee grounds and goes to pull Scott into a loose embrace. 

“Uh, yeah,” Scott clears his throat. “That was Patrick Burke.” 

“The You Can Play guy?” Kip raises his eyebrows. 

“Yeah. He heard I was retiring. Wanted to know if I want to join the board after the season.” 

Scott’s voice is rough. Kip holds him a little tighter. 

“What do you think?” Kip asks. 

“I think…” Scott squeezes Kip back. “I think that sounds like a really nice idea.” 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 5

The Admirals’ season—Scott’s last season—ends with an overtime, sudden death loss to Philly, twelve minutes into the period. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, six games into the second round of the playoffs. No third cup, but Scott can cope with that. 

The mood in the locker room is a little sombre, what with the loss and the end of their post-season run. Adding onto that the fact that Scott is hanging up his skates for the last time, and it is a whole lot of emotion. Carter cries, unembarrassed. Scott pats him on the back, hugs him firmly. He isn’t sure, in this moment, why Carter is the one shedding the tears when it’s Scott whose life is about to change, dramatically and permanently. 

He gets called out to do press, one last time. Answers the questions about the end of his post-season run, and the end of his professional career, with the media-trained answers expected of him. He doesn’t say I plan on spending the rest of my life making love with my husband, and that’s a pretty good way to go out. But he does think it. 

He tosses his gear in the equipment bins, sending one last mental thanks to the equipment team. He takes one last shower in the long, tiled shower room, rubbing himself down with clean citrus multipurpose liquid soap for the last time. Last time dropping his towel in the laundry bin. Last time sitting on the bench to pull on his sweatpants and a worn-out Columbia University t-shirt he’d swiped from Kip years ago. He’s incredibly grateful they ditched the post-game suits thing a few years ago—the last thing he feels like doing is dragging himself into something uncomfortable and restricting. 

“Cap, what’s with the sweats?” Gillis calls over, nodding at Scott’s attire. “We’re gonna hit the clubs after this, it’s your last time.”

Scott shakes his head. “Give me a couple of days, okay? This weekend, we can celebrate. Tonight, I just want to go home.”

And he does. Suddenly, all he wants is to be at home, with Kip, preferably somewhere quiet and dark and soft. He’s tired. He’s exhausted. The marathon of his career has pulled the finish line up early, and now he’s standing on the other side of it, limbs weak and heart pounding as the adrenaline leaches out. He can break down the details of the race later. He can postmortem and dissect each leg of the run with his team and his friends another time. Right now, all he wants is to rest. 

Thankfully, the game was in New York. He hugs every one of his teammates with goodbye, with gratitude, and then shoulders his bag and leaves the locker room. The car’s waiting, and he takes the ride uptown with his head resting against the cool window of the car, watching the city lights pass and feeling the warm weight of the summer night pressing against the car window. 

At home, Kip is waiting for him. 

“I’m so proud of you,” he says as soon as Scott opens the door. Scott drops his bag and lets himself fall into Kip’s arms. 

“Kip, ‘m so tired.” 

“I know,” Kip says, kissing his neck, his cheek, stroking the short hair at the nape of his neck. “I know.” 

He lets Kip lead him through their bedroom to the ensuite. It takes Scott a moment to recognise the space like this: dozens of candles sit on flat surfaces around the bathroom—on the sink, the side of the tub, the floor of the shower—casting a warm, soft glow over the marble. The bath is full, soft bubbles on the surface of the water, which is emanating a gentle smell of lavender. There are towels folded neatly on top of the laundry hamper, and a bottle of champagne cooling in an ice bucket beside the tub. 

“What is this?” he asks, staring. “This is too much.” 

“It’s not,” Kip says, taking the hem of Scott’s hoodie in his hands and easing it up. 

Scott won’t admit out loud how utterly perfect it is, how romantic, how much he loves it. Instead he lets Kip tug his hoodie and t-shirt over his head, and then reaches over to divest Kip of his own clothes. This, this is what he wants. Creamy skin and dark hair and planes of muscle as familiar as his own. 

Kip starts to tug Scott’s sweatpants down, and then pauses, tracing his fingers over a dark bruise that’s blooming on Scott’s hip. 

“I saw you take that hit,” he says, thumb running gentle over purple skin. “I’m not going to miss that at all.” 

“God, me neither.” It had been a bad game, hard-fought and nasty, the players taking their frustrations out on each other as they’d battled, tied, towards the end of third period. 

Scott toes off his pants and socks. Kip gestures for him to get into the bath. The tub is huge, big enough for two grown men. It takes ages to fill. Knowing that Kip had been setting this up for him warms his bones more thoroughly than the water ever can. He settles back against the edge of the tub with a sigh, stretching his legs out into the warm water. He feels the water rock as Kip climbs in beside him. Their legs touch beneath the bubbles. 

“You know,” Scott says, cracking an eye open to look at Kip in the dancing candlelight. “If retirement is like this every day, it’s not going to be so bad at all.” 

Kip smiles at him and then leans over, water displacing gently around him as he kisses Scott softly. 

“Retirement can be whatever you want it to be. It’s yours. On your terms. You’ve earned it.” 

Scott kisses him back. They stay like that for a while, the bubbles crackling softly and popping around them as they move together. It’s not sexual, not yet, but it is deeply comforting. Kip’s mouth is soft and wet against his own, his fingers a damp, light touch against Scott’s cheek. Scott shifts, pulls Kip closer to him, trails fingers wet along his collarbone, down his chest. Kip sighs into Scott’s mouth, and kisses him again, a little harder. 

Eventually they pull back. 

“Where’d that champagne go?” Scott asks, leaning over the edge of the tub and reaching for the bottle. 

“Oh, shit, I forgot the glasses,” Kip says, making to get up.

“Don’t need ‘em,” Scott says, a hand on Kip’s shoulder. “Relax.” 

Kip gives him a heated look, and then leans back into the water. Scott grabs the champagne and twists off the musulet. He eases the cork out with a pop that echoes around the bathroom. The bottle mists and fizzes. Scott takes a swig right from the bottle. It’s crisp and sharp. He holds the bottle out to Kip’s lips, and Kip grins at him. He opens his mouth and lets Scott pour champagne onto his tongue. 

“Good,” Scott says, his voice a little rough. He puts the bottle down with a dull clink at the back of the tub, and then reaches for Kip with both hands, gripping his head and kissing him hard, chasing the taste of champagne on his tongue. Kip groans and turns in Scott’s arms, turns into him and crowds him up against the edge of the bath, their legs butting together under the water, unseen. 

“Is that how you want it?” Scott asks, low. 

“Mhmm,” Kip nods, reaching for the champagne bottle. 

The bath has a low step at one end, and Scott eases up onto it, his chest and torso emerging from the water. He leans back against the edge of the bath, mindful of nearby candles. Kip snags the champagne and crawls after him, kneeling in the water between Scott’s thighs. Scott leans back, and Kip takes the bottle pouring a little of the champagne onto Scott’s chest, then chasing it with his mouth. Scott groans, dropping his head back at the soft, wet trail of Kip’s tongue as it licks over his pecs. 

Kip takes his time. More of the champagne ends up in the bath than anywhere else, but they don’t care. Kip laps champagne from the hollow of Scott’s shoulder, licks it from the column of his throat. He sucks at Scott’s nipples, chasing bubbles, and licks it from his navel. He drinks it from Scott’s cupped hand, licking along his palm and sucking Scott’s fingers into his mouth one by one. Kip swigs from the bottle and lets the liquid fall from his parted lips into Scott’s open mouth, presses fingers against his throat to feel Scott swallow. Scott feels anointed, bathed and blessed by Kip’s tongue, washed anew in the heat of the evening. 

Scott takes the mostly empty bottle from Kip’s hands and places it back beside the bath. He leans in and kisses Kip on the mouth, trying to put into the kiss and his gratitude and desire and love that he feels right now. It must work, because Kip is tugging him by the hips back into the water and pressing up close, so close he can feel Kip’s hard-on up against his own. Kip rolls his hips forward, and Scott moans with the pleasure of it. 

“Love you,” Kip says into his mouth. “You’re all mine, now.” 

“Always was,” Scott says, reaching down and getting his hand around both of their cocks under the water. He keeps his grip loose, lets Kip thrust shallowly into his hand and along Scott’s cock. “Ever since that first moment.” 

He leans back and takes Kip’s weight, runs his other hand up the wet muscle of Kip’s back. He kisses Kip hard, open-mouthed, their tongues sliding together as he strokes their cocks in tandem. Kip’s hands are on Scott’s hips still, and he pulls back from the kiss, looking at Scott with dark eyes as his thumb seeks out the bruise on Scott’s side. He kisses Scott hard, just once, and then draws back again and presses his thumb into the bruise. 

“Last time,” Kip says. 

Scott wants to say that he’s sure he’ll get bruises again in his life, and that Kip can do whatever he wants. But it’s true—the last bruise hockey will give him. The last pain he’ll take from the game that never loved him as much as he loved it. The last part of his body he’ll sacrifice for the sport. Kip always hated these bruises, would push and them and dig his fingers in to own them somehow—to remind Scott of the better things that could lay claim to his body.

Scott’s mouth drops open on a moan as Kip presses the bruise harder. His head drops back, and Kip sucks at his neck, nipping with his teeth, leaving a newer bruise—a better one. The pain on his hip is a dull ache, and Scott feels it flood his body, works his hand more tightly on their cocks, stroking them faster now. Kip bucks against him, digs his thumb in, his other hand clawing at Scott’s shoulder. 

“God, yes,” Scott breathes. “Baby, baby, please.” 

Kip sinks his teeth into the muscle where Scott’s neck and shoulder meet. Everything is too much, too hot and too slick, the curve of Kip’s mouth too perfect as he sucks a kiss onto marked skin. 

“Mine,” Kip whispers up the length of Scott’s neck, his tongue on Scott’s ear. “Come for me.” 

Scott does, spilling into the lavender-scented water of the bath. Kip kneels up, his cock jutting hard and wet and red-tipped. He wraps his hand around himself and strips his cock in fast, firm strokes. 

“Mine,” he says again, and then shakes and gasps, his head dropping forward and eyes screwed closed as he comes, shooting streaks of white up Scott’s chest and neck. Scott feels it, the warm splash of it, the claiming of it. 

“Yours,” he says, the word echoing into the candle-lit room. “Kip, I’m yours.” 

 

 

 

They shower off and tumble into bed together, spent and loose-limbed. 

“I really am very proud of you,” Kip says, tucking himself into Scott’s side. 

Scott wraps his arm around Kip’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t be here without you, you know.” 

“No, don’t say that.” 

“No, not like that. I mean, I would have run myself into the ice for my career, you know? I would have been forty-two and held together with surgical screws and sports tape and dragging myself out for another season, if they’d let me. I couldn’t imagine anything better for myself.”

Kip squeezes Scott tight and kisses him on the cheek. 

“When we first met,” Scott continues, “I said the best I could hope for was to fade away. I’m not doing that now. I’m stepping out on my own terms. Into my future. Because of you.” 

“Not because of me,” Kip reminds him. “But with me.” 

“With you,” Scott agrees, bringing his other hand up to stroke the side of Kip’s cheek. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” Kip says. And, for now, it’s as simple as that. 

 

 

Chapter 6

Retirement feels good. Scott starts biking, buying a ridiculously expensive road bike that Kip complains cost more than George’s car—so, to right things, Scott buys George a new car, too. Kip seethes until Scott reminds him that it’s a gift from both of them because what’s mine is yours, babe, and Kip grumbles in the back seat the whole time while George drives them out to Riis Beach.

“Scott and I are both retired now,” George says, hands at ten and two. “And we deserve to get cruised by trade to remind us that we’re still young.” 

Scott chokes on his protein water. Kip groans and puts his head in his hands and says, “Please, don’t say cruised by trade, Dad, I don’t care if you’re the president of your local PFLAG chapter, you absolutely cannot do this to me.” 

They have a nice day, all the same. 

The retirement party is a hit. They rent out a beer garden, have an open bar. The cake is a hit, even if Scott and Kip both go a little pink when Elena compliments them on the flavours. Matti Jalo flies in, one face among the dozens of old and current Admirals filling the bar, and Kip elbows Scott at one point in the afternoon, nodding over to where Matti is standing and chatting to Maria, leaning into her as she plays with her hair. The rookies get too drunk and Scott lets Carter shepherd them out. Afterwards, Scott takes Kip home with the leftover cake and fucks him on the dining room table again, the cake safely put away in the fridge and the table’s wood groaning under their combined weight. 

Summer fades to fall, and Scott audits a couple of classes at Columbia, steering clear of Kip’s lecture halls because he says he doesn’t want to be evicted from campus for lewd behaviour. 

“I’m not saying I’d sit at the back and be unable to control myself, and have to jerk off mid-way through the lecture,” Scott says into Kip’s neck while they make out on the couch one night. “But I’m not not saying that either.” 

He sits in on a class on introductory psychology and loves it, comes home with all new terminology and his eyes bright. 

He tries the sourdough thing until Kip complains that none of his shirts are buttoning properly anymore, and Scott paws at Kip’s middle and thinks mission accomplished, kissing at Kip’s stomach and then down further, distracting Kip in his office chair as he drowns in paperwork and research and grading. 

He spends a lot of time with Eric, too: playing golf, going on a mid-week camping trip that Kip opts out of. He joins the You Can Play board and attends bi-monthly meetings. He works out, goes for runs, reads books. He gets a library card, at Kip’s urging, and the coffee table is regularly stacked with airport thrillers that he reads in the late afternoon sunlight on the couch, waiting for Kip to come home from work. 

In January, they retire his jersey. Scott walks out onto the ice and shakes hands with his teammates and management, and then sees Kip standing there to one side of the lectern, smiling at him with shining eyes. He goes straight to him, kisses him on the mouth, proud and pleased. 

There are speeches and video highlights: rookie Scott at the draft, footage of his first goal, a highlight reel of his long career in Admirals red. Inevitably, his Cup wins, and the first kiss on the ice that changed his life and his legacy forever. He gives a speech himself, about the joys of his career, the highs and the lows, the relationships he’s built—his love for his family, for Kip, for everything he’s been able to do. His pride and his gratitude, to the team, to his parents. Whoever had put together the slideshow has a photo of them there on the screen behind him: Scott in peewee gear, his mom and dad standing proud behind him. He tears up; he can’t help it. But Kip is there, right by his side just a few feet away, real and alive and smiling and that’s his whole future, right there. He weaves it in with his past and comes out stronger for it. 

And then he sees his number hoisted into the rafters—Hunter written bold across the fabric, the pride colours he’d argued for shining bright. Kip and George are there by his side, and the stirring music is playing, and he’s smiling, smiling so hard his cheeks are hurting, watching 21 ascend: his life, his legacy. He waves to the crowd, and bows his head in thanks.  

 

 

They go out for dinner afterwards, a big group of them. There’s steak and too much red wine and Carter gets the check, joking that Scott’s retired now and can’t afford things like this anymore. They hug out on the sidewalk, Carter gripping the back of Scott’s neck. 

“Won’t be the same without you, brother,” he says. 

“Yes it will,” Scott says, even though he knows it won’t be. “You keep taking good care of them, Cap.” 

Carter laughs, nodding. “Still feels weird.” 

Scott shrugs. “Let it. It won’t for long. It suits you,” 

“So you’re just Scott Hunter, civilian, now?” Carter asks. “Feel weird?” 

“Scott Grady-Hunter,” Scott corrects him, because that’s how he introduces himself to people now. A new name, a new era. He can’t wait to meet himself. 

 

 

 

At home, later, shoes left by the door and clothes shucked in a trail, Scott stretches long against the mattress and takes Kip inside him. Kip ducks his head and kisses Scott sweet and slow and full of love. He pulls his knees up around Kip’s waist. Kip gets his hands under Scott’s shoulders, between muscle and the mattress, and fucks him harder. Scott’s heart pounds, his breath quick, Kip’s voice gusting low against his ear. 

“This is it, baby,” Kip murmurs, kissing the soft skin of Scott’s neck. “Welcome to the rest of your life.” 

“Oh, god,” Scott moans, hands clutching at Kip’s biceps. “Like this, like this.” 

Kip keeps going, nailing Scott just right, kissing at Scott’s neck until he’s red and panting. 

“Like that?” Kip asks, reaching down to take Scott’s cock in his hand.

“Yeah,” Scott breathes, everything stretching elastic and possible for miles and miles. “It’s perfect.”