Page 119 of Breakaway Goals
Fuck everything, they were not doing this. They werenot.
Morgan gathered himself and prayed he didn’t sound like a lovestruck,dick-struck, idiot of a caveman in the next thirty seconds. “I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re out and I’m not. I don’t care. I don’t care if everyone in this restaurant takes a photo of us and spends the next week of their lives speculating on . . .Instagram. Or Tok or whatever.”
“TikTok,” Hayes said, the corner of his mouth beginning to tug into what Morgan hoped was going to be a very big smile.
“Whatever,” Morgan said, waving a hand. “I don’t give a fuck. I really, really don’t. I want to be here with you. I want to take you out. Spoil you. Treat you the way you deserve. And that includes romantic dinners. It probablyalsoincludes beer and wings at some point. But not tonight.”
“You really don’t care?” Hayes said. And there was the smile Morgan had hoped to see.
“I really,reallydon’t care,” Morgan said. Didn’t know how else to prove it other than the fact that he was here, right now, and they weren’t hiding that they were about to enjoy a pretty romantic dinner.
But Hayes didn’t seem to need more proof. He smiled again, more gently this time, and it was he who reached out and squeezed Morgan’s forearm. “This is honestly so great. I didn’t . . .I didn’t expect it, and that makes it even better.”
“Stupid.” Morgan smiled back at him. “Youshouldexpect it.”
Hayes tilted his head. “Guess you aren’t afraid of setting the bar too high.”
He was actually sweating about it, already, but he wasn’t going to tellHayesthat. “Of course not. Have I ever been afraid of setting the bar too high?”
He knew what Hayes would think; that Morgan was the same about this as he was about hockey. But he was not. He was absolutely fucking not.
Hayes actually giggled, clearly delighted. “Never.”
“Exactly.”
He wanted to say,actually, you scare the shit out of me, because I’ve never aced you, not like I’ve always aced hockey.
Morgan would, someday, but not tonight. He picked up his menu. “So what’s good here?” he asked. Even though he’d spent the hour after assembling the conversational topic list examining the online menu and trying to decide what would be the best “first date” entree to order.
This was actually why he hadn’t told Danny, because Danny would tell him that he was a freak and that he couldn’t control everything.
But so far, he was doing a pretty good job of it, and Hayes was smiling, still, lit up from within, and if Morgan could make him look like that at least seventy-five percent of the time—one hundred was an impossible standard he knew not to wish for—he would take it.
“Oh, the mahi-mahi’s really good, and so is the sea bass,” Hayes said. “Do you want to get wine?”
“Are you going to get wine?” Morgan had done his research. Despite his behavior the other night at the party, he knew Hayes rarely drank during the season.
“Probably not, butyoucan,” Hayes offered generously. “I was going to suggest some pairings, if you wanted to get the fish. I know a few of their whites are good.”
And this right here was why Morgan had gone out of his way to plan this date. If he hadn’t, if they’d done the same shit they had back six years ago, hockey and beer and sex, he’d never have known this about Hayes.
He wanted to knoweverythingabout Hayes. Not just the obvious things. Not just the things that everyone else knew.
“Sure,” Morgan said, even though he wasn’t really a big wine guy. He just wanted to hear Hayes ramble on about it.
And he did, for the next five minutes, sounding knowledgeable enough that Morgan was both charmed and took one of his suggestions, ordering a glass of the sauvignon blanc from New Zealand when the waiter arrived.
Morgan also ordered the shrimp cocktail and regretted it when it arrived, because watching Hayes de-tail it with his fingers and then lick them clean of cocktail sauce made his pants tight.
Made him wish that he hadn’t been quite so quick to declare they weren’t going to be having sex, especially when he caught a glimpse of Hayes’ pink tongue, darting out to lick sauce off his thumb.
Morgan remembered, a little too well, exactly what that tongue felt like.
He couldn’t regret it too much, though, not when this dinner seemed to be going so well. After its inauspicious start, they’d actually had no trouble talking. Morgan had told himself firmly, when he’d compiled his conversational topic list, that he wouldn’t focus too hard on hockey. And they did talk about it, both Morgan’s work with the media, and the Sentinels, but it felt natural. Right. Avoiding it would have been weirder.
It had been going so well, Morgan had almost gotten lulled into a state of complacency.Almost.
Then, after they finished their dinner, Hayes took a long drink of his sparkling water, pinned Morgan with the most earnest look in his green-eyed arsenal and said, “I guess you didn’t ghost me because you were afraid of looking too gay, then.”
