Sasquatch to the Moon

25: Progress

"Holy fuck." It slips out of my mouth before I have a chance to stop myself. He turns around at that, looking at me.

"What?"

I pick my chin up off the floor, shutting my mouth. "Nothing." I run my hand through my gross hair.

"They're going to wonder where we are if we don't show up sooner or later." He's pulling a shirt on and I'm watching the fabric cover up his skin, one of my red marks lies on his chest still, lingering. I know I've got scratches on my side and one mark on my stomach.

"Yeah, yeah." I need to change my shirt, so I fumble and pull my undershirt off, getting the other one over my head as fast as I can. I glance behind me, catching his eyes on me the same as mine on him.

Then his hands are on my sides, finishing pulling down the shirt. My throat closes and suddenly I'm terrified of our situation right now.

"I didn't think you'd keep the braid, I'll be honest."

My breathing is choppy and I'm foggy in the head. "Yeah, I, I like it." I spin around in his arms, my hands coming to his chest. "You want to come over tonight?" I blurt.

"What?"

"We've got to work on you and at this rate I need it to happen fast as fuck." I wrap my fingers around his wrists and pull them off my sides, using every ounce of self-restraint I have not to slam my lips into his.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Yeah. I'll come over, when?"

"Right after we're done here. Go home, shower, then mine for dinner." I back slowly off him. "Hell you're fucking attractive." I whisper under my breath.

"God, Rocket," He puts his hands on his head, chewing the inside of his mouth, his eyes on me. "Just, we just need to go upstairs, we need to not be alone together."

"Yeah, yeah." I pick up my phone off the bench and earbuds. He follows me out and up the stairs to the weight room where we break off and go our separate ways to work out.

"Fuck my life." I grumble, watching his few warm up reps.

"Why?" Nico is standing right there and I flush all the way up to my ears.

"Can, can I talk to you about something? I've been meaning to, but," I try not to look too embarrassed. "It's nothing big, just a question."

"Yeah, what is it?" She stands up off the machine she's leaning on, and takes a step closer. "Is this like a private thing, or you can say it here."

"Uh, yeah, no, private I guess." She nods at this response and I follow her back down the stairs and into the break room.

I'm still in the door and she's by the sink.

It takes me a long minute to calm myself down enough to try to scramble the words together in my head. One of my hands is knotted up in the back of my sweaty hair, touching the braid that Håkon gave me.

I take one last breath as she watches me. "Would you kill me if I said I was gay?" I rush.

She raises her eyebrows. "No, why?"

"Thank god." I laugh it off, sagging in utter relief. 

"Jeez, Rocket," She taps her pen on the top of a clipboard. "You had me scared there."

"What did you think I was going to say?" I walk to the counter and get myself a glass of water.

"Don't know. Definitely not that." She lets out a sharp breath, almost laughing. "Wow."