Page 32 of Skating to Him

I hadn’t even noticed he’d put it there. Was mine on the floor, maybe? I’d sort of abandoned it in favor of kissing him and doing…whatever it was we’d just done. Heat flared in my cheeks. I rinsed my underwear, rolled them up, and set them in the corner of the kitchen counter. I’d put them in the hamper later. As I strode to my couch, I eyed my water under the table. Yep, it had fallen.

Crouching, I picked it up and slid my ass onto the couch next to him. The big question was… “So what’s next? Are we going to continue this?” I scraped my teeth over my bottom lip, my pulse ratcheting up. If he said no, I’d want to crawl into bed for the rest of the day. Fuck class.

Furrowing his brows and studying his water bottle in his lap,he said, “I don’t want you hooking up with another guy, so I guess we should continue this.” His gaze flicked to mine.

My heart did a happy dance, and a smile broke over my face. “Yeah?” I shifted closer to him, the heat of his body shivering up my side. “How do we do this?” I wanted all the deets.

“I guess it sort of depends on you.” He snatched my hand and twined our fingers together over his thigh. “How are you feeling right now? Did it feel weird to get off with a guy?”

With a shake of my head, I said, “No. It felt good. It, uh…” I freed a stuttered chuckle, my shoulders shaking. “I was a little surprised by how much it turned me on.” I rubbed my thumb over the back of his hand. It was big and a little callused, a hockey hand. I’d never held a man’s hand before. Not like this anyway.

His brows twitched as he watched our hands. “I think we should take this slow. I don’t want a repeat of?—”

“I’m not going to pull any bullshit on you, Tyler. I want this, and it’s not just for fun. This is serious.” I had to make him see I wouldn’t break his heart. Sure, you never knew what the future held. But I would do right by him.

With his lips parting, his gaze wound to mine. “I’m going to trust you on that.”

“I won’t let you down.” Leaning in, I pressed a lingering kiss on his mouth. “Slow is good. We should probably keep this on the down-low too. Don’t you think? I mean, we’re D-line partners. I don’t know what Coach will think.” I cringed. Was I sounding like the asshole football player?

His gaze darted between my eyes. “You might be right. You know about Mason Hopkins and Jett Jarvis on the Coyotes, don’t you?” He pressed his lips together.

“The center and winger who got together?” I thought through it. “Mason is one of your friends, right?” He’d been one of the squad when he was still at ASU.

“He is. They’re keeping it professional on the ice, and the coaches are letting them continue playing together as long asthey can keep their personal lives out of the rink.” He squeezed my hand and shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know, maybe it sets a precedent for us if we choose to come out to Coach.”

Did I want to come out? But we’d barely gotten started here. A knot formed in my stomach. I wasn’t ready for all that. “This is new for me, Tyler. Can all the coming out stuff wait for now?” Was I already letting him down? Fuck.

Worrying his lower lip, he hung his head. “Yeah, sure.”

“My friend Teddy knows though.” I had to give him something. I edged in closer to him, my side flush with his. “Tyler, do you want to tell your friends? They’d keep it a secret if we asked them to, right?” They all seemed like upstanding guys, and they understood what it was like.

“Let’s see where this goes first.” With a chuckle, he shook his head. “They’re already teasing me about it.”

“They are? Why?” I lifted the edge of my lips. They must have sensed what had been going on between us.

“They know I think you’re hot. So, of course, they assumed I was trying to get in your pants on the road.” With a soft smile, he shook his head. “Little did they know it was the other way around.” His gaze met mine.

“It was. You have no idea how hard it was for me to hold back as long as I did. Especially when you were upset about your mom.” I released his hand and draped my arm over his shoulders. “How is she doing? Is she out of the hospital yet?”

“Yeah, she called me yesterday. She says she’s pretty much back to normal.” He slumped into my side, resting his cheek on my shoulder. “You have no idea how much you helped me that day. I’m so glad you were there.”

Warmth burst in my chest, and I kissed his head. “Did they ever figure out what type of MS she has?” The exact diagnosis might take a while, but maybe she was lucky.

“She said the doctor thinks it’s the most common one.” He sighed. “That’s good, right?”

“So, relapsing-remitting, and yes, if she’s going to have it,then that type progresses the slowest.” Unlike what my mother had. My chest pinched. But this wasn’t about me right now. I glanced at the clock on my stove. I could spend the rest of the day with him, but I did have another class.

He lifted his head and peered at me. “Time for you to go?” His gaze fell to my mouth, and he wet his lips. “I won’t tell Ace and Myles about us yet. Let’s make sure this is going to work first.”

“It’s going to work.” I planted a kiss on his mouth. Funny, here I was kissing a guy, cuddling a guy, like I’d been doing it my whole life. “But yeah, let’s not go out and announce it right now.”

With a nod, he straightened off my side and stood with his water bottle. “Study date then?” His gaze cut to my backpack. “Do you still need help with geology?” He sipped from his water.

“I do.” As a smirk crept over my mouth, I said, “How about tomorrow night? You free?”

“I am.” He planted a hand on his hip. “We can study here. Then Ace and Myles won’t bother us.”

“I’m good with that.” My dick perked up. I was pretty sure we’d be doing more than studying. I set my bottle of water on the table and rose. “I’ll see you out. I should probably get started back to campus.”

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