Chapter 10 Jake
JAKE
I hadn’t intended to start my afternoon schedule by being interrogated by my best friend, yet here we were.
“You what now?”
“I went inside.”
“Dude.” The look on Carson’s face would have been funny under other circumstances, but being the object of his “you fucking dumbass” expression wasn’t as nice as seeing it levered toward other people.
“You were in his car, kissing the hell out of him, ready for more, and then… you went into your apartment. Alone.”
I nodded.
“Why, though? Oh.” Incredulity gave way to understanding. “Were you weirded out by the kiss?”
Weirded out by it? A little, but only insofar as the hottest fucking kiss of my life had come from a guy.
Up until now, it was solely the women I’d dated who’d been interested in kissing.
The few guys I’d been with had been way more “hands on and pants off.” Kissing them had never even crossed my mind.
“Ethan’s a great kisser.” Eager, hungry, and the fact I knew he saw more to like about me than my six pack was nice.
“So it’s not the guy thing?”
I shrugged. “It’s maybe, kind of the guy thing?
Like, if I invited him in to my place, would we just…
I don’t know. I just know I don’t really want to rush this.
” I wasn’t sure what constituted a rush, but I knew I didn’t want to fuck things up with Ethan.
He was fun, he was funny, he was kind but he didn’t put up with assholes… there was a lot to like about him.
“That’s fair.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“But you didn’t leave him hanging, right?” Carson pressed, and for the love of God, it felt like talking to my therapist for a moment.
“No. We’re going to figure out our next date after his session today.” Actually, this was something good to run past Carson. “I was thinking of taking him to a smoker, if there’s one coming up soon.”
Carson leaned back on his hands. “Huh, is boxing okay?”
“Boxing would be fine.” Better than fine; I didn’t know a hell of a lot about boxing, which made it easier to relax and just enjoy the fight instead of analyzing every little thing about it. Although, judging from how Ethan and Marek got with hockey, maybe that was what he preferred.
I’ll know more than him about boxing, at least.
“Because I think Miguel is having a smoker this Friday at his school. You know he’s handed over most of his teaching because he’s traveling for fights, right?”
I nodded. Miguel was a welterweight champion boxer in two different organizations now, and he was working his way up the ranks both nationally and internationally.
His gym was a mix of boxing and MMA, but since Carson had moved over to Beth’s place full-time, Miguel had focused his own school more on boxing.
I’d met him a few times and seen him fight live once; he was a fucking sniper.
“Well, his head student is prepping for his own run at going pro, and that means getting that time in the ring. I think they’re going to have around ten fights—just three three-minute rounds apiece, so they’re going to be fucking feisty—and he’s got a few kickboxing matches in there, too.
Not Thai style, but it’s still going to be fun.
Just… ” His lips tightened for a moment.
“Be aware that some of the students there are assholes.”
“Asshole” was a code word for “homophobic” between Carson and me.
“Yeah, I figured,” I said.
“I’m just putting it out there because if you start making out in the gym, someone will give you shit for it.”
“I get it. I’ll let Ethan know.” He could decide whether that was something he wanted to put up with or not.
“Miguel’s a good guy,” Carson added after a second. “And his wife, Camila, will absolutely cut a bitch if she finds out they’re talking shit about who you’re with. Her sister is lesbian, and those ladies are tight. Just… you know, you’re never going to get rid of all the jerks.”
“Yeah.” I thought for a second about my own family, who both supported me financially and were also very happy to never have to see me face-to-face except on calls at Christmas.
I’d given up on having a genuine relationship with them a long time ago, but it still hurt to reflect on the fact I wasn’t the son they’d hoped for. “I know.”
“Aww, what is this look?” Carson reached out and squished my cheeks between his palms. I smacked his hands away, and he laughed. “Don’t be sad, I still love you.”
“I know,” I said. I was grateful to have Carson in my life; him forgiving me for giving him a career-ending concussion was more than I deserved. “You jackass,” I added, because this was getting uncomfortably mushy.
“Right, well, good talk.” He got to his feet and pointed at the pads. “Hold those for me while I punch my feelings out.”
I shook my head, but got up and went to get one of the big pads anyway. “Why do you need to punch your feelings out?”
“Because I’m trying to figure out how to propose to Marek and it’s got me so nervous I can barely keep from spilling the beans to him the second I see him.”
I dropped the pad. “Wait, you’re what?”
Carson shrugged. “Ethan didn’t tell you?”
“No!”
“Oh, I thought he would. I got his advice last night on how I might be able to propose on the ice. It’s probably going to be during a practice, not an actual game, but—”
“You’re going to propose?”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “You got a problem with that?”
I stared at him for a second as the news really sunk in. Carson, the guy I’d met in high school, the skinny, twitchy kid with a preternatural gift for grappling and a personality like sunshine, was going to propose. He was going to get married—Marek would never say no to him.
He’d become a fully-fledged adult, and I’d missed so much of it.
“No, man,” I finally managed around my own stupid emotions. “That’s great. It’s… just kind of amazing, I mean. That you’ve found someone you love so much, you want to marry him.”
Carson’s icy distance melted away in a second, and he went back to being a bouncy puppy.
“I know, right? I never thought I’d be the marrying type, but Marek is.
He likes stability and commitment and the white picket fence stuff, and when I’m with him, I like that too.
” He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I used to think I’d be happy to travel the world, never settle down, just fight and teach and explore new places.
But settling here in Vegas and being with Marek has been the best thing I’ve ever done. And I want him to know that.”
Holy shit, that was adorable. “I’m sure he does know.”
“He will once I put a ring on it.” Carson broke into a bad version of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” dance, and I threw the pad at him. “Don’t be so mean, Jake!”
“Get over here and punch me.”
We trained, and Carson waxed rhapsodic about how he wanted the proposal to go, and then we buckled down and taught four classes together—the noon lunch class for the professionals who couldn’t fit evening workouts in, the after-school class for kids 4-7, and the afternoon class for kids 8-14.
I let Carson take the lead with the older kids, but he happily gave me more face time with the littlest ones.
It was a weird but true fact of life that the younger kids were less intimidated by my size, probably because they all wanted to climb me like a jungle gym.
It was easy to put together a fun class that would wear them down and teach them something at the same time, and they were adorable.
Their parents appreciated the fact that their kids were slightly less hyper when they picked them up, too.
Then there was the six o’ clock class for adults, which Carson co-taught with Beth while I stuck around to be a training partner, and then at seven Ethan arrived.
The moment we made eye contact, he blushed. I smiled; I couldn’t help it; he was so cute. He took his shoes off—I’d taught him well—and walked over to me. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I decided to make it easy on him. “How was practice?”
“Shitty. I was super distracted the whole time.”
Uh-oh. “Why?”
Ethan bit his lower lip. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
Now it was my turn to blush. Hopefully I was too ruddy from practice for it to be noticeable. “You had that much fun walking me through the hockey game, huh?”
“I had more fun with what came after. But! It’s fine that we stopped when we did, I just went home and took care of myself, and—” He stopped and slapped a hand over his mouth. “Shit. Just stop me from talking, okay?”
“Okay.” I couldn’t help but be pleased, though. It was nice to be memorable. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t jerked off the second I was back in my apartment. “Let’s start with a review, then we’re going to work on counterpunching.”
Ethan grinned. “Finally I get to punch!”
“Counterpunch,” I corrected him. “Your priority is still going to be protecting yourself. Counterpunching requires a lot of practice and patience, but combined with good footwork and a strong blocking game, and you’re not going to get thrown on your ass again so easily.”
“You had to bring that up,” he muttered.
“It’s the whole reason you’re here,” I said.
Ethan looked me in the eyes and said, very clearly, “Not anymore.”
Aaand I was cooked. “Do you want to get dinner after this?”
“Yes,” he said instantly. “Where?”
I’d finally figured out how I felt about letting him leave after just a kiss last night, and I’d settled on “regretful.” Yes, I didn’t only want to hook up with Ethan, but he’d already shown me he was willing to go to lengths to make me comfortable.
Making out with him in his car last night had been burning hot, but when I’d said goodnight he’d said, “See you tomorrow.”
Now I wanted to take him home. “My place?”
“Fuck, okay. Can we go now?”