Page 56 of Melting the Ice

It helped today, too. Focusing on something he loved banished some of his bone-deep exhaustion, even.

His brain added,and that used to be hockey. But Brody shut that thought down hard and fast, because he didn’t have the energy to deal with his bigger problems today.

Except it turned out that they came up anyway.

They were halfway through the lab—smearing their unwashed fingers across agar plates and doing the same after some intensive scrubbing with surgical soap—when Gina said casually, “I didn’t know you had a new boyfriend.”

Brody nearly dropped the glass slide he’d just prepped. “What?”

“I saw you two in Sammy’s the other night. Looked awfully comfy with him. And he’s big, isn’t he? I didn’t know—”

Before Gina could say,I didn’t know you liked guys like that, Brody interrupted her. “That’s Dean. My new roommate.”

“Oh.Oh.Sorry.” Gina flushed. “You just looked . . .uh . . .very cozy with him.”

They’d been on opposite sides of the booth, but Brody thought back to that night and he could see it. He’d probably been gazing at the guy like he was the answer to questions he hadn’t even asked. All things considered, he really couldn’t blame Gina for wondering.

“We’re . . .” Brody stopped and started over. Gina was a friend, and queer, too. He could trust her. “I’m . . .I think I might . . .”

Of course that didn’t really make it any easier to say out loud.

“Hey, you know it’s okay, yeah?” Gina said softly, encouragingly.

“Yeah. But I’m just such a mess . . .ugh,sucha mess. This whole Dean thing. And then I know I’m gonna need to decide if—” Brody stopped again. He didn’t want to say itout loudtoGina, who was already on the premed track, that he was seriously considering not playing pro hockey. That might make it real. He swallowed hard. “The only time it doesn’t feel like a mess is when I’m with him, and I screwed it up, right after we kissed and hooked up, and now I don’t think he wants what I want. It’s all just a disaster.”

Gina looked at him steadily then after his outburst, reached over and grasped his arm, squeezing it gently. “You don’t have to have all the answers, you know?”

“That’s what Ramsey said,” Brody said. It still baffled him that Ramsey had been the one to give him good advice, but it was undeniable he had. Why hadn’t he listened? Well, Brodyhad, but it was so much easier to hear the words than to actually take them to heart. To accept them for himself.

“Well,God, now I’m gonna lose my shit. Me and Ramsey agreeing on something. Onanything,” Gina said with a bark of laughter.

“I know,” Brody said, and to his surprise, he was laughing too.

He couldn’t believe it, but he actually felt better now—not even worse. It had helped to get that out. To admit, at least, that everything felt terrible and unsure and new and different—except when he was sitting with Dean and they were just talking. That with him, at leastsomeof this stupid self-identity angst disappeared.

“How do you know he doesn’t feel the same?” Gina asked when they finally stopped chuckling.

“I . . .well, he’s straight.” That was the easiest answer. Of course, it wasn’t really true.

Dean hadn’t had a big gay freakout; that had beenallBrody.

“He told you that?”

“In as many words,” Brody said.

He really didn’t want to go into the experiment. He wasn’t proud of how he’d acted after. Or how Dean had avoided him after.

You freaked out. Of course he avoided you, after.

But surely, if hewasinterested, it wouldn’t have been so goddamn hard to convince the guy to even be friendly.

“Ah. Well, come on, let’s finish this lab. And then you can run by the coffee shop. Maybe you can’t have the guy, but you can have an iced latte with an extra shot,” she teased.

Brody nudged her. “You gonna come with me?”

“I can spare a few minutes. Koffee Klatch?”

“Sounds good,” Brody said. “So next week we need to check these under the microscope and examine for differences in the bacterial growth?”

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