Chapter 19 #2
“But he kissed you,” Finn said quietly. “He made the first move.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s significant. That’s him choosing to take a risk.”
“I know.” I leaned against the back counter, exhausted from the emotional whiplash of the last few hours. “I know it’s a big deal, guys. I don’t know what it means yet, any of it. For him or me or . . . for us.”
Finn nodded, his expression softening. “What did you say when you left?”
“That I’d text him after my shift. That we’d figure things out together.” I smiled despite myself. “He asked me to stay. Not to . . . I mean . . . he made it clear he wasn’t ready for anything physical beyond what we’d done, but he didn’t want to be alone. He wanted me to stay.”
“And you had to come to work,” Benji said, his voice laced with tragedy. “While Kevin Costner and his wolf friends were playing in the background and the man of your dreams was asking you to stay, you had to come to work.”
“Someone has to restock the ice.”
“The ice can go to hell, Jacks! This is love! This is fate! This is—”
The front door swung open, letting in a blast of early evening air and the first customer of the night, a regular named Doug who always ordered the same IPA and sat in the same corner seat.
“Hey, Doug.” Benji’s customer-service voice clicked on. “The usual?”
“You know it.”
And just like that, the shift began.
For the next hour, we were busy enough that further interrogation was impossible.
Customers trickled in. It wasn’t the flood of a game night, but it was enough to keep us moving. I threw myself into work, grateful for the distraction.
Stock the cooler. Wipe down tables. Run food. Repeat.
But during every lull, every quiet moment between orders, Finn or Benji would appear at my elbow with another question.
“So when he brushed the hair off your forehead,” Benji asked while I was slicing limes, “was it, like, tender? Or intense? Or tender-intense?”
“I don’t know. Both, maybe? Neither? It was . . .” I couldn’t find the right words. “It felt like he was terrified, like he was jumping off a cliff and didn’t know if there was water at the bottom.”
“Was there water?”
“I think so. I hope so.”
Later, while I was restocking the napkin dispensers, Finn sidled up with faux casualness.
“Did he say anything? About what this means for him? His identity, I mean.”
“Not really. He said he was scared and that he didn’t know what he was doing.” I straightened a stack of napkins that didn’t need straightening. “I told him we didn’t have to figure everything out tonight.”
“That was good. That was the right thing to say.”
“Was it? I have no idea what I’m doing either, Finn. I’ve never been someone’s . . . sexual awakening, or whatever this is. What if I mess him up? What if I push too fast or not fast enough or—”
“Hey.” Finn put a hand on my shoulder. “You can only control your own actions. Be patient. Be honest. Let him set the pace.”
“And if the pace is glacial?”
“Then you buy a warm coat, enjoy floating on the ocean, and wait.”
Around eight o’clock, the rush died down, leaving the bar in that strange mid-evening lull between happy hour and the late-night crowd. A few tables were occupied, but nothing demanding. Benji cornered me yet again by the dish pit.
“Okay, but I need more details about the actual kissing,” he said. “Was there tongue? There was tongue, right? Please tell me there was tongue.”
“Benji.”
“What? I’m invested now! This is better than any reality show. Fuck, this is Horny Rivals right here in our bar! This is real-life gay hockey romance, and I need to know if there was tongue.”
“Yes,” I admitted, my face burning. “There was tongue.”
“I knew it! How was it? Scale of one to ten?”
“I’m not rating his kissing.”
“Then I’ll assume it was a ten. Was it a ten? Blink twice if it was a ten.”
I blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Benji clutched his pearls. “I’m going to die. I’m going to die of vicarious romantic fulfillment. Put it on my tombstone: ‘Here lies Benji. He died because Jacks got a ten-out-of-ten kiss from a professional athlete.’”
“You’re being dramatic, which is saying something for you.”
“I’m being appropriately dramatic for the circumstances!” He grabbed my arm. “Jacks, my sweet summer child, you have been pining over this man for weeks. Weeks. Now he’s kissed you in his apartment for hours while cuddling. That’s not nothing. That’s everything.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because you keep acting like this is some temporary thing that’s going to disappear, like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
I didn’t have a response to that.
Because he was right.
Part of me was waiting for the other shoe, waiting for Skyler to wake up tomorrow and realize he’d made a mistake, that whatever he’d felt was confusion or loneliness or the strange intimacy of text-based friendship that didn’t translate to real life.
“I’ve been here before,” I said. “Not this exact situation, but close enough. I’ve been with guys who say they want something, then change their minds or guys who like the idea of being with a man but can’t handle the reality. I don’t want to get my hopes up only to have them—”
“Crushed?”
“Yeah.”
Benji’s expression softened. “I get it. I do. But Jacks, think about it. He came to find you at the bar, that first time, and then again, and again. He texted you every day for weeks. Then he kissed you, unprompted, after spending weeks building up to it.” He squeezed my arm.
“That’s not a guy who’s confused. That’s a guy who’s falling for you and finally grew balls big enough to do something about it. ”
“What if his bravery doesn’t last?”
“Then you’ll deal with that if it happens, but you can’t protect yourself from every possible hurt by refusing to let yourself be happy now.” He grinned. “Trust me, I’ve tried. It doesn’t work.”
Finn stepped up with a tray of dirty glasses. “Benji, table six needs another round. Stop philosophizing and let the boy do his job.”
“I was providing emotional support.” Benji pouted.
“Provide it later. Drinks first.”
Benji sighed but bounced off to take care of the table, leaving me alone with Finn.
“He might be the founding member of the Glitterati, but he’s not wrong, you know,” Finn said, loading glasses into the dish rack. “About letting yourself be happy.”
“You’re the one who told me to be careful.”
“I did, and I meant it, but being careful doesn’t mean being closed off.
” He paused, choosing his words. “When I met Chase, I was terrified. I’d been burned before, and I had a million reasons to keep my walls up; but at some point, I had to decide: Was I going to let fear run my life, or was I going to take a chance on something that might be real? ”
“And it worked out.”
“It did, but it might not have. That’s the risk.” He met my eyes. “The question is whether the potential reward is worth the potential pain. Only you can answer that.”
My phone buzzed in my pocket because Skyler had ESP and probably knew every word that was said to me all day. I pulled it out, my heart rate spiking at seeing his name on the screen.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Is it weird that I already miss you?
I blinked at the message, something warm and terrifying blooming in my chest.
Finn, who’d leaned over my shoulder to read my phone, asked, “PuckingSkylerShaw is his name in your phone?”
I shrugged. “It’s his Insta handle. It suits him.”
“It suits you both.” Finn chuckled. “Go on. Answer him. Give yourself a chance, Jacks. You deserve that much. You both do.”
When the weight of Finn’s chin settled onto my shoulder, I knew I had no choice. Not only did I have to reply, but a certain redheaded barkeep was going to watch me do it.
Me: Is it weird that I was thinking about you?
PuckingSkylerShaw: Probably. We’re both very weird.
PuckingSkylerShaw: How’s work?
Me: Slow. Finn and Benji won’t stop interrogating me.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Did you tell them?
Me: Was I not supposed to?
PuckingSkylerShaw: No, it’s okay. I figured you would. They’re your people. Just . . . ask them to keep things quiet until I get my head sorted, okay?
Me: Of course. Finn’s solid, and amazingly, Benji can keep a secret when threatened with bodily harm.
I smiled at the screen, that warm feeling expanding.
Me: They’re very excited. Benji may be dying.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Tell him to hang in there. I need him alive to keep making those glitter drinks.
Me: He’ll be honored to know you care.
PuckingSkylerShaw: I care about a lot of things these days.
I read that last message three times, trying to parse its meaning, looking for subtext that might or might not exist. Finn sighed in my ear but didn’t move. It felt like having an Irish parrot perched on my shoulder.
Me: Skyler Shaw getting sentimental on me?
PuckingSkylerShaw: Must be something in the water.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Or maybe it’s something else.
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Appeared again.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Thank you. For today. For being patient with me. For not freaking out when I ambushed you.
Me: I wouldn’t call it an ambush. Ambushes don’t usually involve kitchen doorways and Kevin Costner.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Fair point.
PuckingSkylerShaw: When can I see you again?
Me: I’m off tomorrow night.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Come over? We have home games every night for a week after that. This’ll be our last normal night. I’ll even cook . . . And by cook I mean order food and put it on plates and pretend I made it.
Me: Sounds perfect.
PuckingSkylerShaw: 7:00?
Me: It’s a date.
I hit send before I could second-guess myself.
The dots danced.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Yeah. I guess it is. For real this time.
PuckingSkylerShaw: Night, Jacks. Don’t let Benji give you too much grief.
Me: No promises.
Me: Night, Sky.
“Look at you,” Finn said. “Taking a chance on something that might be real.”
“Don’t make it a thing.”
“It’s already a thing, Jacks.” His presence lifted from my shoulder, and I turned to find him smiling—a rare, genuine smile that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “It’s been a thing for weeks. You’re finally letting yourself see it.”
I wanted to argue.
I wanted to point out all the reasons this could go wrong, all the ways I could end up hurt, all the obstacles standing between us and any kind of real future.
But instead, I smiled back.
Because despite everything—despite the fear, despite the uncertainty, despite the very real possibility that this would all fall apart—I was happy.
For the first time in a long time, I was genuinely, stupidly, recklessly happy.