CADEN
Chapter Seventeen
“What does it even mean to date someone?” I asked. My boot crunched the thin layer of ice in a puddle in front of the Thinker. My breath was so misty I felt like a dragon on the cusp of adulthood.
Noah lifted his index finger. “According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary…”
Sawyer grabbed his finger and pulled it down. “I don’t think that’s what he meant, baby.”
“Oh.” A look of understanding washed over Noah’s face. His cheeks were pink with the cold air biting him and his smile was awkward, but hearty.
We entered the tavern at its most empty hour.
There were a couple of girls in one corner and a couple on their visibly first and possibly last date in the middle.
The guy was very elaborately describing the experiments that anyone could perform to prove the Earth is not round. The girl was justifiably on Tinder.
We each ordered various flavors of coffee at the bar, picked them up, and settled at a tucked-away table in the darkest corner of the industrial brick walls of the tavern. “All I asked was how your dating life’s been going. It’s up to you to define it.”
“That’s not how defining something works,” Noah muttered. “But I’ll grant you that it’s subjective in this context.”
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. “We’re not dating. It’s…complicated.”
“So you keep saying, and yet it looks like dating to me.” Sawyer leaned back in his chair and threw his arm over Noah’s shoulders.
I snorted. “You just want it to be true because it means you called it first.”
“Hey, when you learn what’s good, you want your friends to have it, too.” His fingers idly played with the hair on the back of Noah’s head. Noah seemed to enjoy it more than a sleepy kitten would have.
“First of all, I shouldn’t even be talking about this. It makes him uncomfortable. I have no right.” I blew on my coffee, then sipped it and burned my tongue. “Damn.”
“What do you mean it makes him uncomfortable?” Sawyer asked with a little frown.
I folded my lips guiltily. “I said too much already. Ah, just let it go.”
We did. For a short while. “I told Avery this morning. He approached me in the hallway and asked if I would be staying over tonight again. I said I would and the fucker smiled. I’m not even kidding.
His lips physically stretched. Do you even realize how much joy is necessary to make that happen?
So I told him everything. He didn’t smile then.
He gave me a solemn nod and said, ‘You gotta do what you gotta do.’ I felt like I was launching a nuclear warhead. ”
“So…it went well?” I asked, confused.
Sawyer gave an exaggerated shrug. “Who’s to say? I think so.”
“You know him better than anyone,” I said, as Noah nodded his agreement to that.
Sawyer enjoyed a sip of coffee before answering. “I think he’s dating someone, too. I don’t know why we’re all shrouded in secrecy like it’s the sixth grade.”
“I’m not even dating him,” I pointed out, back on the same topic. “We sometimes spend time together and it’s fun.”
“And sometimes you take long walks at dawn,” Sawyer said.
“Dude, drop it. It’s been a month. I couldn’t sleep that night.” I rolled my eyes and hid my face behind the oversized mug.
“And he so sweetly escorted you around the city. That’s romance, Caden. That’s not your casual boy-next-door hookup.” He looked to Noah for confirmation.
Noah ogled us both. “How the hell should I know?”
I then remembered that they had discussed this once at an aftergame party.
Noah had never been with anyone before Sawyer.
I leaned in. “Did it ever worry you that you’re missing out because you’re dating your first guy?
” I asked. Even as I formed that question, I realized how badly I needed to know.
Would Beckett’s answer be the same? Would mine?
I had never had a boyfriend beyond my trusted hockey stick.
Was I even ready to really date someone?
“Dude,” Sawyer challenged me jokingly. “Are you trying to tell him there are other guys out there?”
Noah laughed and playfully slapped Sawyer’s shoulder.
“Seriously, I need to know,” I said, my desperation concealed under a layer of humor.
Noah shook his head. “Why would it bother me? I’m lucky I found the perfect guy on my first try.” Sawyer melted into a heart-shaped puddle, but Noah went on. “Unfortunately, Mr. Ryan Gosling was taken, so I figured anyone else would do.”
Sawyer leaped off his chair and buried his face in the crook of Noah’s neck, growling like a zombie in search of a fresh brain. He made the poor guy squeal and my eyes rolled at his dramatics.
“Cute,” I commented, but my worries were no less soothed. All I knew was that it was possible to be with the first person you seriously dated. But then, we weren’t even dating, right?
After our regular practice later that day, I took my time showering.
My muscles burned from the drills, tension fading under the hot water.
I had feared I would lose my stamina with all my late-night activities, but after a rocky few days, it had improved.
It was like having an extra hour of conditioning every night.
And Beckett was as greedy as me. I thought of this while I showered, the other guys leaving the locker room one after another.
He was with me nearly every night. And when he wasn’t, he was in my DMs. One evening, holed up in his room to study with Jordan for an exam the next day, he kept taking bathroom breaks to sext me, and I hadn’t had such a mind-blowing orgasm all by myself like that in ages.
He was very much a guy I couldn’t stop wanting.
But to imagine going to the cinema with him, God forbid taking his hand in mine, seemed impossible.
I’d even put it to the test just two days ago.
I’d told him about this indie movie starring Caleb Ellison that I wanted to see, but Beckett fumbled for excuses lamely, ranging from not really liking movies to not wanting to miss out on all the fun we could have inside.
We had fun inside, of course, because I couldn’t resist the fucker’s sexy, challenging smile.
When I finished showering, I entered the nearly deserted locker room. One person was predictably lingering behind. Beckett zipped up his duffel and sat on the bench as I pulled the towel from my waist. “Nice cock, Jones.”
“That’s called sexual harassment,” I said, slowly dragging my underwear up my legs.
“I don’t hear any complaints,” he said, smirking like the devil himself.
He hung his duffel over his shoulder and approached me.
His open hand pressed against my bare abs.
It turned me on instantly, but I resisted the urge.
Even if it was a fantasy of mine to do it in the locker room, I knew Beckett would never risk that much for sex.
His limits were becoming more evident every week.
I set that thought aside. Living in the moment and all that. “You are correct,” I teased.
He grinned. “I might come by later tonight, test your boundaries a little.”
I laughed. “No shit. That’s what they call a plot twist.”
Beckett hooked his fingers inside my underwear and yanked me toward himself. Our bodies slammed together and he kissed me on the lips, then pushed me away. “How’s that for a little preview?”
I winked at him. “You know where to find me.”
His face lit up, but he didn’t say anything else.
He waited for me to get dressed, then followed me out.
Occasionally, we walked back to the house together.
Sometimes, there were others with us; sometimes, we were alone.
But we always walked like two dude friends would.
There were no displays of affection. And I was kind of sure I missed them.
The fact that they were so sternly off-limits made me long for them.
What if I sometimes wanted to scratch the back of his head like Sawyer did to Noah?
What if I wanted to toss my leg over his lap in the basement when other guys were around us?
What if I ever got sick of spending all my nights in my room?
I had partially stayed in the closet for years after coming out to my parents.
In my mind, I had come out to those who mattered to me.
I hadn’t known the things I was missing by keeping my sexuality to myself in college.
Would I want to take this step back into the closet for the sake of fantastic sex?
Would I want to give up a chance to go out and try each other’s pastries over the festive season?
Would I not want to light up at the smear of hot chocolate over his upper lip and kiss it clean, not caring who the hell might be looking?
My heart murmured with despair as I shut myself in my room.
I was exhausted from drills, but I knew how necessary they were.
We were playing against the Vikings in a couple of days.
We needed every bit of an advantage that we could get.
Though the Breakers were our closest rivals, the Vikings were our bane.
We had had a string of losses against them for the last year and a half.
Even Riley’s razor-sharp focus failed against their internal harmony.
Those guys were mean brutes one on one, but they moved like one.
They made me think of Roman cohorts and the uniform way they functioned in battle, banding together as an indestructible unit and slicing through their enemies like knives through butter.
The pressure was high. The challenge was to keep the spirits up when the entire team had a sense of foreboding.
We can’t win this, we all secretly thought.
I could see it in everyone’s eyes. Even Beckett, who would never admit such a thing, looked worried when he slipped into my room.
He found me hunched over my notes around midnight.
“Is this a bad time?” he asked.