Chapter 2
{C} {C}
A week passed before Eric saw Sam Miller again. And in that week, Eric did a whole lot of nothing. He let more piles of clothes gather on the floor; he ordered more takeout and left the majority rotting in the fridge because he found the combination of beer and vicodin was thoroughly suppressing his appetite.{C}{C}
He was reluctant to have to get dressed again when the lawyer told him he was coming by with the new retainer agreement for him to sign. He had not enjoyed the company on the last visit, mainly because he didn’t enjoy company, and also because Sam had not seemed the least bit perturbed by what Eric thought of as his most standoffish attitude. But at least he hadn't been overly cheerful or bubbly; that would have been one hundred times worse. No, he seemed pretty even-keel and unexcitable, which fit in nicely with the gray life Eric was currently leading.
He’d woken up that morning with a splitting headache and had downed several pills with a bottle of beer, wondering to himself what would happen if he went against every precautionary tidbit along the label of the painkillers. Maybe that was why, though, when Sam showed up he wasn’t feeling completely in control of his faculties.
He opened the door for him that afternoon and Sam was in another one his trendy suits. This time he seemed to have the colors of his shirt and tie reversed; the shirt was striped shades of eggplant while the tie was a pale and plain lilac. Maybe purple was his favorite color, Eric mused, and maybe that did say something about him . . . but he was too tired to try to figure it out.
“Mr. McNally,” Sam greeted him.
Eric shook his head. “Don’t call me that. It freaks me out. Just call me Eric.”
“Okay.” Sam appeared puzzled for a moment, but then he flashed a quick smile that showed off his dimples. “Eric, I have the retainer agreement here for you to sign--”
Eric interrupted him. “Coffee?” he asked. He was feeling ridiculously drowsy. Maybe a caffeine burst could help him combat the effects. Not that he had any particular need to be awake.
“Uh, sure.” Again Sam blinked with that peculiar caught-off-guard expression. He sat himself down at the kitchen table and pushed aside a dirty plate.
Eric nodded and headed to the kitchen cabinet, reaching for the last two clean mugs he had and quickly pouring from the pot he’d left brewing that morning. He glanced down at the filled cups for a moment, realizing that he wouldn’t be able to carry both with one hand, and belatedly wished he hadn’t filled them up so high. After grabbing one with his free hand he then bent over awkwardly to bring his casted arm to counter level so he could grab the second. The arduous task completed, he turned around and started to walk over to the table a little too fast.
“Do you need some help?” Sam shot up from his seat.
Eric glanced over at Sam’s concerned face and somehow lost his grip on the cup that he held leaning against his stomach. It tilted precariously for a moment before sloshing out over the bottom of his shirt and falling to the floor.
“Fuck!” he cried out, slamming the other mug down on the island in the kitchen. “Fuck that’s hot.” He pulled at the hem of his shirt to retract the heat from his skin.
“Jesus, are you okay?” Sam asked, rushing over to him.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” Eric tried to back away. What a fucking idiot, he thought. He’d been trying to prove he could still do things on his own, but had only managed to fuck them up spectacularly. Had the lawyer not been there he probably would have grabbed some scissors and cut himself out of the stained shirt, or at perhaps just let it dry on his skin and then worn it around for the next few days.
He yanked at the hem and began attempting to squirm his way out of the ruined clothing.
“Here, let me help you,” Sam said. Before Eric could protest Sam had taken hold of the shirt and with one quick move he pulled it up over Eric’s head and off of his good arm, and then with slow and careful consideration he maneuvered it down and over the cast.
The cool air touched his skin where the coffee had wet it and gave him a slight chill. Sam stepped back a little and his eyes traveled the length of Eric’s body now that it had been revealed.
Self-consciously, Eric attempted to tighten his abs. In his first week out of the hospital, before he’d gotten it through his thick head that he would never play pro again, he’d done his best to keep up his physical training, but ab work was hard because it jostled his broken shoulder too much. He still had some definition, but not as much as he’d had several months ago.
“Did . . . did you get burned at all?” Sam asked. He reached out and barely brushed his fingers over the abs in question before retracting his hand quickly with a furious blush.
“No . . . I’m okay,” Eric said. The blush had not gone unnoticed. He scrunched his eyes up in concentration, his mind still fuzzy from his liquid and pill breakfast, as he wondered if he and Sam had something in common after all.
Eric would have hated it if anyone had asked him-and denied it with his last breath-but today that was not going to stop him from putting someone else on the spot. He figured he could chalk it up to his asshole persona should anyone question why he’d decided to assault his new lawyer with the next words out of his mouth.
“Are you gay?”
Sam’s face turned visibly green. “I . . . I’m sorry if I’ve made you uncomfortable, I . . . I can come back at a better time,” he stuttered, backing away. He clutched at his file and quickly stuffed it into his briefcase as he headed off down the hallway.
Eric paused a moment, considering his options. His body had needs; needs that hadn’t been fulfilled by anything other than his working arm in quite some time. When he’d been pro, he’d found relief with the other closeted players, but now that he was no longer a member of the group, that bridge had been burned. He was much too scared to find relief in a seedier way, and much too closeted to search anywhere else. So even though it was a risk, and even though Sam wasn’t anything like what he thought he’d want-that is, if he ever really bothered to listen to his desires-he knew that this could be a rare opportunity.
So with the aid of medicinally-lowered inhibitions, he made up his mind and ran after him.
************
This was certainly out of character for him, Sam mused as he stood in the kitchen holding a sopping wet brown mess of a t-shirt. He’d been caught off guard relatively soon after he’d arrived, from Eric’s demand that he refer to him more casually to his somewhat friendly offer of coffee. He thought he’d figured it out-the dilated pupils gave him the notion that McNally was more doped up than he’d been on his previous visit-and he’d hoped that meant things would be easier for him or would at least involve less caustic barbs about the nature of lawyers.
But things had certainly taken a turn for the bizarre now. He dropped the soiled shirt to the ground, which wasn't something he normally did, but given the state of the place it seemed like a normal affair around there. He’d been staring into the well-defined abs of an athlete only to be torn away by Eric’s narrowed eyes and the unexpected demand to know if he was gay.And while high school was basically a distant memory, he’d had enough run-ins with homophobic jocks to feel a bite of instinctual fear gnawing inside of him, as much as he hated to admit it. Eric’s jaw was set squarely but his expression was unreadable.
Sam hadn’t been asked outright all that many times, as most polite people tended to wait for him to offer up the information. Perhaps three quarters of the people who’d asked had been genuinely curious, while the remaining fourth had wanted to know if they should be disgusted by him or not. It was true he liked to dress nicely, and kept himself well groomed. He liked to have things neat and had a fondness for decorating, but he refused to believe that those habits had anything to do with his sexuality. But perhaps Eric McNally thought differently-or perhaps he’d just caught him staring at his abs like a lovesick teenager. Sam decided his best course of action would be to remove himself from the situation, so he stuttered his pleasantries and made a B-line for the front door.
He was more than a little concerned when he heard Eric pounding after him, and his heart jumped as the man grabbed him and backed him up against a wall. Eric’s expression was still indiscernible, but it didn’t seem like he was gearing up to do bodily harm. Instead he was pressing into Sam, pressing deeply and studying him with those blue eyes. He was so close Sam could smell his breath-it smelled of beer-and he could feel those deliciously defined abs slowly pushing up against him.
A jolt of lust made its way though Sam’s system, the familiar pangs causing their physical reaction in his body. It had been far, far too long since his last sexual encounter, and his body knew that.
“Shit,” Sam whispered, glancing down. His erection was starting to show, pushing up at the dark folds of his suit pants.
But Eric smiled, and the smile transformed his features from brooding and saddened to excited and youthfully boyish, a look made all the more captivating by his deep dimples and blue, blue eyes. He shifted his weight and Sam gasped when he felt the reciprocal hardness.
“Oh . . . shit . . .” Sam said again as the realization hit him. Eric reached up and pressed his hand roughly against Sam’s chest and then began to drag it slowly downwards.
Despite the fact that he felt his heart might pound out of his chest, and despite the fact that his body was evidently completely on board, Sam found his sanity long enough to object. “I don’t think this is a good idea,” he said breathlessly. The logical side of him often took control in tense situations, an adaptation borne of his years of studying law. Eric McNally may have thought the discovery of their shared sexual proclivities meant it was time to jump into the sack, but Sam was not wired that way. “I’m your lawyer, and you’re my client . . .”
“Oh.” Eric backed away quickly as if he’d been stung. “You’re right . . . I’m sorry . . . I don’t know why I did that . . . I mean, I know why I did that . . . shit, I’m sorry.” His eyes drifted to the ground, and with all of his rough pretenses stripped away he looked like a lonely and miserable child caught misbehaving. His blush of shame had spread so far even his chest was burning red with embarrassment.
It was such a pathetic sight that Sam felt the instinctual urge to comfort him. “It’s alright,” he said, reaching out to gently rub Eric’s arm. “I, uh, didn’t really think you liked me all that much, though, from the way you were treating me before,” he smiled warmly to let him know he wasn’t really upset.
“Yeah. Sorry.” Eric shook his head, withdrawing even further and folding his body over as if he wished he could cave in on himself. “You can go.”
Sam looked away and nodded, swallowing down the lump of nervousness in his throat and shaking his right leg slightly to straighten himself out. But before he could turn to leave Eric lurched forward again, grasping haphazardly at his tie. It was one last attempt, evidently, and his eyes shone with a near-desperate plea for attention.
Sam placed his hand over Eric’s. “Are you sure . . . are you sure you know what you’re doing right now? I mean, I know vicodin can make you a little loopy,” he whispered.
“Pretty much all I’m sure of right now is that I’m horny,” Eric said with an apologetic smirk.
At least he was honest, Sam thought as he deliberated in the moment that followed. He’d never come anywhere near having sex with a pro-athlete before, or rather, an ex pro-athlete, and suddenly, uncharacteristically, it seemed like an adventure worth the moral quagmire. Perhaps he wouldn’t have thought so had his love life currently been on track, or existent, for that matter. But it wasn’t and he couldn’t bring himself to think beyond the cloud of excitement that was steadily clogging his mind as Eric stared at him.
“Okay,” he said quietly.
“Okay?” Eric’s eyes shot open with excitement. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
A second later Sam found himself being pulled towards the bedroom, nearly tripping over a pile of clothes lodged in the hallway in their haste. Once there he stood awkwardly in a corner while Eric fumbled with his jeans, trying to undo the button with one hand and failing. His fingers seem to be groping too wildly and he couldn’t calm them down long enough for the delicate maneuver. He finally gave up. “Can you help me?” he said urgently. Stifling a laugh, Sam moved in to give his aid until Eric was naked in front of him, and Sam was able to see that ex-pro athlete or not, the man was well-built. His thighs were firmly muscled and Sam was captivated by the way they tensed and relaxed as Eric made his way to the bed.
“Your turn,” Eric said, plopping himself down hastily on the bed.
Sam hesitated. He was no athlete, though he did try his best to stay in relatively good shape. But he knew his thin body was nowhere near as muscled, and he wondered whether Eric would even find him adequate. His last relationship had concluded over eight months ago, but it had been filled with not-so-subtle hints about what a few reps in the gym could do to improve his physique. It was only one of the shadows from that experience that still haunted him.
“Now,” Eric commanded, and for whatever reason Sam found himself jumping to comply. He shirked off his jacket and removed his shirt, placing them neatly against the back of a chair. He saw Eric smirk at his painstaking tidiness.
Again Sam hesitated before undoing his belt buckle. Eric was clutching at the tangled sheets on the unmade bed and biting his lip with impatience. It was his last chance to turn back from what they were about to do, but Eric was looking at him with such hopeful eyes that he felt nearly intoxicated with the power of being able to fulfill someone else’s dreams.
So he stripped and folded his pants methodically.
“Not bad,” Eric said.
Sam blushed. “Well I’m no athlete."
“I couldn’t care less,” Eric replied, reaching a hand out towards Sam.
Soon they were both on the bed, Eric leaning back against the pillow and writhing like he couldn’t stand waiting a second longer. Sam had to work carefully to avoid Eric’s injured shoulder and arm cast as he positioned himself over him and began leaning into a series of deep kisses.
“Wow,” Eric said in between the lip-to-lip contacts. “You really like to kiss.”
Sam pulled away abruptly. “Oh, sorry,” he mumbled.
“No, no, it’s okay . . . I, uh, guess I haven’t been with a lot of guys who do,” Eric said quickly. He reached up to Sam’s head and dragged him back into a kiss. “It’s kinda nice,” he smiled. “But don’t tease me too much.”
Sam grinned back and traveled downwards, dragging his mouth lightly along the abs that had evidently led him to this situation. Eric was well endowed, which didn’t surprise Sam as it fit in nicely with the rest of his form, and the moment Sam touched his lips to him he surged even fuller. In the haze of adrenaline Sam finally stopped thinking and let his natural instincts take over as he continued to work on Eric while one of his hands found its way down to fulfill his own needs.
Eric came quickly-almost too quickly-but Sam found that the energy of the release stirred him on as well, and he collapsed down on the bed with surprisingly mindless exhaustion despite how brief the whole act had been. He lay several inches away from Eric so that not a single part of their bodies touched as they both breathed deeply.
Neither of them spoke for several minutes.
The silence was unnerving, and once he’d regained his normal pulse Sam rolled off the bed. The shock of the unexpected turn of events was draining away, leaving him with only a deepening sense of awkwardness and maybe even a little bit of shame at his out-of-character behavior. “I’d better clean up,” he said as he maneuvered around a few empty cartons of Chinese takeout to get to the bathroom. He grabbed some toilet paper and cleaned himself off, then took some more back out into the room to hand off to Eric. But Eric was sopping himself off with a raggedy ripped T-shirt he’d grabbed from the floor, and when he was done he tossed it back to the ground. Sam suppressed the urge to cringe.
“So, uh, I guess I should get going,” Sam finally found himself saying. He was leaning over top of Eric, whose expression seemed to be changing from one of peaceful pleasure to darkening fear.
“You . . . you do that whole attorney-client privilege thing, right?” Eric asked without looking up.
Sam regarded him for a moment. “Yes, of course.” He began redressing himself.
“Good,” Eric said. Then he did look up to capture Sam’s eyes. “Because I’m not . . . I’m not . . . out.”
“Right.” Sam nodded. “I understand.”
Eric smiled at him, a more genuine smile than Sam had seen on him since they’d met. “Thanks,” Eric said. “Toss me the bottle of vicodin on your way out?” He gestured to the pill bottle on top of his dresser.
“Sure,” Sam said as he grabbed it. “I’ll . . . see ya later.”
***********
Next: Chapter 3