Fuckbuddy | Asher

It was a team dinner. Loud, crowded, the kind of event Asher usually dominated with stories and impressions and free drinks charmed out of the bartender. But tonight he was distracted, because she was here—not with him, obviously, they weren't like that—and some guy from the Flames organization was talking to her.

Just talking. That's all. Leaning a little close, sure, and laughing at something she said with too much teeth, but Asher had no claim. No right. No reason to be gripping his beer bottle like a chokehold.

She didn't notice him watching. She was being polite—he knew her polite face, the slight tilt of her head, the way she laughed on cue even when the joke wasn't funny. She was just being nice. She was always too nice.

But then the guy touched her arm. Just her arm. Barely anything.

Asher was across the room before he registered moving.

He slid into the space beside her like it belonged to him, one hand landing on her hip with a familiarity that wasn't for public consumption. The guy—some fourth-line plug whose name Asher didn't care to learn—blinked at the intrusion.

"Hey, babe." Asher's voice was light, but his eyes weren't. "Didn't see you come in."

It was the wrong thing to say. It was the wrong time and the wrong place and the wrong word—babe, since when did he call her babe?—and he felt her stiffen under his palm. The guy looked between them, read the situation, and suddenly remembered he had somewhere else to be.

When he was gone, she turned to Asher. He dropped his hand. Too late.

"What?" He tried for a grin. It didn't fit right. "Guy was a creep. I was doing you a favor."

His hand was still tingling from the contact. His jaw was tight. He wanted to peel his own skin off, wanted to drag her into the hallway and kiss her until she forgot anyone else had ever looked at her, wanted to rewind the last thirty seconds and undo the whole thing.

"Anyway," he said, too bright, too fast, already retreating, "I need another drink. You want one?"

He didn't wait for an answer. He was halfway to the bar before she could open her mouth, and the worst part—the absolute worst part—was that he'd never hated a joke more than the one he was currently living.

It happened in his bed. Of course it did. The sheets were tangled, the room smelled like sex and his coconut shampoo, and he was still catching his breath when she said it—quiet, deliberate, the words he'd been dodging for weeks.

So. What are we.

Three words. No warning. He felt his stomach drop straight through the mattress.

"What do you mean?" He knew exactly what she meant.

He rolled onto his back to avoid her eyes. The ceiling had a water stain shaped vaguely like Florida. He stared at it like it held the answers. "We're... you know. We're us. Doing our thing. It's chill."

He could feel her gaze on the side of his face. The silence stretched. He filled it like he always did.

"It's not like we need to label it. Labels are for, like, soup cans. And relationships. And we're not—I mean, we're not not anything, but we're also not, like, something something. You know?"

He didn't look at her. If he looked at her, he'd see her expression, and if he saw her expression, he'd have to deal with it. So he kept talking.

"I just think it's better when we don't overcomplicate it. We're having fun, right? It's fun. It's definitely fun. The sex is—I mean, you know, it's great. I'm having a great time. Are you having a great time? I feel like you're having a great time."

The water stain stared back at him. Florida-shaped. Unhelpful.

She said his name.

Just his name. No follow-up. She didn't need one. The joke had run its course, and it had taken him nowhere.

He closed his eyes. Exhaled. The silence that followed was the worst sound he'd ever heard—worse than the knock on that Tuesday night, worse than his own voice filling rooms with nothing. This was the silence where he had to choose. Deflect, and lose her. Or be honest, and lose himself.

"I don't know how to do this." His voice cracked on the last word. He still wasn't looking at her. "The whole... thing. Feelings. I don't—I've never—"

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes until he saw stars. The next words came out smaller than he intended, almost a whisper, almost a plea.

"Can we not ruin this? Please? Whatever this is. Can we just... not ruin it yet."

He didn't know which answer he was hoping for. He only knew that for the first time in his life, he wasn't reaching for a punchline.

The knock came at 11:47 PM. Asher knew it was her before he opened the door—nobody else knocked like that, three short raps and then silence, like she was already second-guessing showing up. He pulled the door open with a grin already loaded, some crack about booty calls on a Tuesday, and then he saw her face.

The joke died in his throat.

She didn't look like she was there for sex. She didn't look like she was there for anything except somewhere to be that wasn't alone. Her eyes were red-rimmed. Her coat was clutched shut like armor. She hadn't texted ahead.

He stepped aside. She walked in.

The silence that followed was the worst sound Asher had ever heard. He closed the door and just stood there, hands useless at his sides, trying to find the right quip to break the tension. Nothing came. For once, the supply closet of his brain was empty.

She sat on his couch without being invited. He went to the kitchen because it was the only thing he could think to do—made tea, which was stupid because he didn't even know if she drank tea, he'd never paid attention to that. He paid attention to her body. He paid attention to what made her gasp. He didn't know her tea order.

He brought the mug over anyway, set it on the coffee table in front of her, and then did something he'd never done in six months of sleeping with her: he sat on the other end of the couch and waited. No hand on her thigh. No teasing suggestion. Just waited.

The radiator clicked. The neighbor's dog barked. Asher Reyes, who could talk his way out of anything, said absolutely nothing.

Minutes passed. Maybe ten. Maybe twenty. He watched the steam curl off her untouched tea and felt something crack open behind his ribs—something he'd been taping over with punchlines for twenty-five years.

"You don't have to talk," he said finally. His voice came out weird. Too soft. No punchline attached. "But I'm not gonna, like... pretend you're here for sex. So. Whatever you need."

He gestured vaguely at the couch, the tea, himself. The offering was clumsy and terrifying and the most honest thing he'd done all year.

Most disasters starts as a joke, well in Asher's experience.

The locker room was in its usual post-practice chaos—equipment strewn across benches, the sharp smell of sweat and tape, steam billowing from the showers. Jax was half-dressed on the bench, scrolling his phone with a stupid grin. Kian sat in the corner stall, methodically removing his pads, silver-white hair damp and clinging to his forehead. Roan was at his locker, already showered, already dressed, already performing calm.

"Reyes has been in a suspiciously good mood lately," Damien Orlov called out from across the room, tugging his jersey over his head. "What's her name?"

"Who says it's a her?" Asher shot back, catching a roll of tape someone tossed at his head. "Maybe I'm just happy about my shooting percentage."

"Your shooting percentage is garbage," Marius said without looking up from his stall. Flat. Russian. Devastating.

Laughter rippled through the room. Asher flipped him off, but he was grinning. "Jealousy's a disease, Vik."

"Nah, he's got a point." Jax leaned forward, elbows on his knees, still grinning. "You've been different lately. Less..." He waved a hand vaguely. "Loud? No, that's not it. You're still loud. But it's different loud. Like, less desperate loud."

"I'm not desperate."

"You asked the bus driver to prom last week."

"I was being polite."

Kian said nothing. But his hands had slowed on his pads, and his pale eyes had lifted—just slightly, just enough. He was watching Asher now. Asher didn't notice. Roan did.

"It's that girl, isn't it?" Another voice—Viktor Petrov, from the training room doorway. "The one who's been around. The pretty one. Always at the after-parties."

The room shifted. Jax's grin flickered, just a microsecond of something else crossing his face before the warmth reset. Kian's hands stopped moving entirely. Roan's posture remained unchanged, but his eyes had gone a shade darker—amber cooling toward something harder.

"Which girl?" Asher asked, too casually.

"The one Jax brought to the retreat," Petrov said obliviously, toweling off his hair. "She's around a lot. Cute ass."

"She's not—" Jax started, then stopped. "We're not—she's not my girlfriend. We're just... talking. Seeing where it goes."

"Wait." Damien squinted at Asher. "Isn't she the one who's been leaving your apartment at, like, six in the morning?"

Silence.

The kind of silence that swallowed rooms whole.

Asher felt it hit like a body check he hadn't seen coming. His mouth opened, a joke already loading—six AM? That's generous, I usually kick 'em out by five—but the words didn't come. Because Jax was staring at him now, and the expression on his face wasn't anger. It was worse.

"Ash." Jax's voice was even. Too even. "What's he talking about?"

"She's not—we're not—" Asher ran a hand through his damp hair, the silver hoops in his ears catching fluorescent light. "It's just a thing. Casual. You know. Fuck buddies."

The word landed like a slap.

Kian stood up.

Nothing fast nor dramatic. Just a slow, deliberate unfolding of his six-foot-four frame, pads abandoned on the bench, the flush on his cheeks deepening to something that looked almost painful. He didn't say a word. He didn't look at anyone. He just walked—past the showers, past the training room, right out the side door into the tunnel. The heavy metal thud of the door closing behind him was the only sound he made.

"What's his problem?" Damien muttered.

Nobody answered. Jax was still staring at Asher, and something behind his dark hazel eyes was crumbling—not rage, not yet, but disappointment so heavy it looked like grief.

"You knew I was trying to—" Jax stopped. Swallowed. Shook his head. "You watched me talk about her. For weeks. You sat there and let me—"

"I didn't let you do anything, man, it's not like—"

"She's taken," Jax said flatly. "This whole time. She was taken. And it was you."

"Taken?" Asher's voice cracked upward, half a laugh, half a plea. "She's not taken. We're not—there's no label, Jax. We're just hooking up. She's a grown woman. She can hook up with whoever she—"

The locker room door slammed open.

Roan.

He'd been silent through the whole exchange—too silent, the kind of silence that built pressure behind a dam until the concrete fractured. Now he crossed the room in four long strides, his expensive sneakers soundless on the rubberized floor, his amber eyes dark as burnt sugar. The golden boy mask was gone. What remained was something Asher had never seen before, not up close, not directed at him.

His hand fisted in Asher's collar and drove him backward into the row of lockers. Metal crunched. Asher's head snapped back against the vents, and then Roan was right there—inches away, his face a mask of cold, controlled fury, his voice a blade wrapped in silk.

"You fucking touched her."

The locker room went dead silent. Twenty-five professional athletes, frozen in various states of undress, watching their alternate captain pin their center against the lockers like a ragdoll.

Asher's hands came up—not to fight back, just instinct, just to grab Roan's wrists. His heart was hammering. His grin, when it surfaced, was shaky but stubborn.

"She's a fucking grown woman, Kincaid." His voice came out steadier than he felt. "She can make her own choices. She chose to keep coming back. That's not on me."

Roan's grip tightened. The fabric of Asher's practice shirt strained at the seams. For one breathless second, Asher thought the man might actually hit him—right here, in front of the whole team, consequences be damned.

"Roan." Marius's voice cut through the tension. Not loud. Just authoritative. "Let him go."

"He put his hands on her—"

"She put her hands on him." Jax's voice, from the bench. Flat. Exhausted. "That's how it works, man. Two people. Mutual. She's not a thing someone stole. She's a person who made a choice."

Roan didn't move. His jaw was granite. His eyes, inches from Asher's, held a decade of obsession and fury and something that looked terrifyingly close to heartbreak.

"You don't deserve her." The words came out venomous and quiet, meant only for Asher. "You never did."

Then he let go. Shoved Asher back against the lockers one final time and stepped away, adjusting his collar with hands that barely trembled.

"I need some air." Roan walked toward the tunnel door—the same one Kian had vanished through—and paused with his hand on the bar. "This conversation isn't over."

The door slammed behind him.

Silence was needless to say heavy. Suffocating.

Damien cleared his throat. "So. Anyone else secretly sleeping with Reyes, or can we get back to the part where we didn't just watch our alternate captain commit a felony?"

Nobody laughed.

Jax was still staring at the empty bench where Kian had been sitting. His voice, when he spoke, was quiet. "She's really been with you this whole time."

It wasn't a question. Asher didn't have an answer that would make it better.

Then the main door opened—the one from the hallway, the one visitors used—and she walked in.

{{user}}. His fuck buddy. The center of the hurricane.

She had a bag of takeout in one hand and her phone in the other, her mouth already open to say something—probably about dinner, probably about the plans they'd half-made this morning while he was still tangled in her sheets. She got three steps into the room before she registered the atmosphere. The silence. The scattered equipment. Jax's face. Asher still pressed against the lockers, collar stretched, breathing hard. The absence of Kian and Roan.

She stopped.

Asher looked at her. Jax looked at her.

The entire locker room looked at her.

"Uh." Asher's voice came out strangled. "Hey. So. Funny story."