Chapter 5
DASH
“Good book?”
I nearly drop my phone as I turn to see Gavin, standing by his bed, apparently back from his study group meeting. The man is like a cat. A really well-built cat.
“What?” I say, sitting up and navigating away from the reading app I was in.
“Oh, sorry, I just... You were reading something and flipping pages. I thought it was a book?”
He throws his backpack down on his bed. Gavin has been surprising all the way around.
Not only is he not raging with toxic masculinity, he also spends way more time studying than I would have expected for someone here on an athletic scholarship.
And he’s both surprisingly friendly toward me and surprisingly perceptive.
I could do without that last one right about now.
“Oh, uh, yeah. Yeah, just something a friend recommended.”
“That guy you’re always sitting with at practice?” he asks, pulling his sweatshirt off over his head.
Shit.
“Uh, yeah.”
I wait to see if there’s going to be more, but he just strips down into his t-shirt and boxers while I politely avert my eyes (not that he’s actually ever shown any discomfort about it). He climbs into bed. “Cool.”
Okay then. Nice, I guess I’m off the hook. I check the time. It’s only eleven, but I didn’t realize it had gotten that late. Gavin has super early practice. “Am I gonna bother you if I stay up? I can go to the lounge if you want.”
“Nah. Your room too, man. As long as you don’t blast music or anything, I’m good.” He rolls over to face the wall.
I watch him for a minute, but his breathing is already starting to slow. So I pick up my phone again, open up the app, and go back to the holy-fucking-shit-are-you-kidding-me level hot scene I was just reading in this freaking MM hockey romance.
I mean, I was curious.
After everything Caleb said at the rink, I decided I’d check this out for myself. I’m not much of a reader, and I definitely haven’t been reading romance novels. So I guess I didn’t really know what to expect, but… holy crap, I had no idea.
First, I just sort of looked around online. There are so many of these things. And some of the covers… Let’s just say they made me extra curious.
Even though I don’t use it a lot, I do have a library card, so I dug around the digital book collection and found a few I could access that way.
I flipped through the ones I checked out, just trying to figure out what they were all about.
A lot of them seemed to be mainly about the sort of scenes you’d only get in a TV-MA sort of show. Which, hell-o…
But then, then, one of those scenes kind of grabbed me with the dialogue and the characters and how they were relating to each other.
I started wondering about the story, so I went back to the beginning and.
.. Well, now I’m halfway through this thing.
And I mean it is hot. It is very hot. I’m not totally inexperienced, but maybe I should take some notes.
But it’s not just that. I’m completely invested in these characters. Like, I don’t think I can go to sleep till I finish this, and also I might have teared up a little earlier. Before Gavin got home, thank God.
I start reading again, and right away I get pulled back into the story.
God, I hope these guys end up together. They have to, right?
I’m going to be so pissed if they don’t.
Then I get to a scene where one of the main characters finally, finally tells the other one it’s not just physical.
That he has feelings for him. That he never thought love was something he could have, but now he doesn’t care. He wants it anyway.
Shit. This is too much. I’m legit choking up.
I can totally see why Caleb reads these things.
Jesus, and now all I can think about is baby Caleb, maybe fifteen, trying to figure himself out.
Maybe scared, like so many of us are when we haven’t come out.
Hell, I knew since I was about five, and I knew my friends and family would be cool.
Coming out was still scary. And there’s nervous, quiet Caleb, on his own in some tiny town library.
And he finds this. Or, well, something like it.
It had to be a lifeline. Just knowing it exists.
Just seeing other guys getting to be happy as they are.
Even if they’re fictional. Even if they are, of all things, hockey players.
I laugh to myself in bed, quietly, so I don’t wake Gavin.
No wonder Caleb has a thing for hockey.
I shake my head.
Then I go back to my book.