#(727)

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The collar was thin and blue and completely incongruent sitting on the shelf in his locker. It had a small little silver bell on it. When he picked it up and turned it over, he found a name tag that said Kitty Cat on one side, and Kraken Hockey Team on the other.

Berkly couldn’t help his little bark of laughter after reading it, and the snickers around the locker room told him some of the others had been watching for his reaction. “You guys are ridiculous,” he said loudly and at nobody in particular. Based on the kitty milk incident, it was probably Matty and Joey who had orchestrated it, though.

He reached up to fasten the collar around his throat, since it was clearly big enough for him to do so. It was surprisingly soft on the inside, and he turned around with a shit eating grin to face the rest of the room, giving a little shoulder shimmy as he did so to make the bell jingle.

More laughter bounced between the guys, followed by a few—pun intended—cat calls. “Looking good, kitten!” “Make it jingle for us!” “Where’s your kitty milk?”

Berkly rolled his eyes and ribbed a few of them back, even as he sat down to start pulling on his under gear. Or at least, he reached for his compression socks, but paused when a shadow fell over him. When he looked up he found Ebs standing over him, his mouth twisted slightly in amusement. Jordan wasn’t a particularly expressive man, but not in the slightly intimidating way that Adam was. Just quiet, calm, intent. A real role model, or so Berkly had always thought. Other than that faint quirk to his mouth, Jordan’s face gave nothing else away.

Tongue drying up the way it always did when he was too close to his captain, Berkly opened his mouth to stay something.

Jordan beat him to it. “Cute,” he said, quiet enough only the closest guys probably would have heard. Judging by the increase in noise around them though, they’d gone back to their conversations.

“Uh,” Berkly managed.

And then Jordan lifted his hand and slid it under Berkly’s jaw. It took him longer than he’d like to admit to figure out what was happening, his brain was short circuiting so badly.

But Jordan. His captain. His childhood hero. The hockey god Berkly had spent so long emulating. Was scratching him under his jaw like he was a cat. His fingers moved rhythmically, softly, his nails short and blunt, his skin so warm and calloused and good and-

Berkly didn’t realize his eyes had closed until Jordan was laughing at him and he had to snap them open again. Jordan’s smile was bigger now, eyes creased gently with it. “You really are a cat,” he said, moving to scratch up behind Berkly’s right ear. “You look blissed out, kitten.”

The name wasn’t so funny and ridiculous coming from Jordan’s mouth. From the guys it was eye-rolling. From his captain? Berkly’s tongue felt glued to the bottom of his mouth and his breath was coming in short pants. Worse, his cheeks felt so incredibly hot, and he knew how badly his blushes showed. He probably looked like a tomato.

He wanted to thank Jordan for some weird reason, but his slack lips refused to even attempt to form words. Instead he just leaned into his captain’s touch, eyes falling into slits.

Jordan laughed again and ruffled Berkly’s hair. “Be cuter if you could purr. C’mon, change out or you’ll be last out on the ice, kitten.” And with that he turned and went back to his own locker.

Without his touch Berkly felt adrift and he swayed where he sat, trying to figure out what the fuck had just happened. Was he…a quick glance down showed him he was in fact half hard. Fuck. Had that awoken something in him? He hoped not. That was humiliating.