CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE NICK #2
Stripping my polo off, I flop onto the comfortable bed and pull my phone out, my fingers itching as I navigate to the text thread I have with Dean.
His contact photo is a cropped image of his laughing, surprised face from when he broke his couch, and seeing it sends a bolt of warmth to my chest and a pang of longing into my stomach.
hey
what’s up
Just got back from the gym
(PICTURE RECEIVED)
Yow. He sent a mirror selfie from his hallway. He’s wearing a dark blue tank top, and I can tell from the sick pump he’s got that today was chest day. Like clockwork, I stick a hand down my shorts, fisting my dick while I take the picture in.
Fuck, I miss him. All of him.
I send him the eggplant emoji, followed by a question mark. Holding my breath, I wait for his reply—I don’t need to sext with him, but I’d be just as happy with him cooling things down for now as I would be if he sent a shirtless selfie.
Very tempting
But can we just chat and catch up first?
I miss your cute face
Smiling, I withdraw my hand, slip into a team T-shirt and flop down on the bed and hit the call icon next to Dean’s contact, and his handsome face, hair falling in front of his forehead, pops up on my screen.
“Holy shit, Nick!” My boyfriend recoils, grinning.
He’s shocked by something, but at least he isn’t, like, puking at the sight of me or anything.
“What?” A nervous smile spreads across my lips. I have no idea what he’s getting at, or what could have spurred his surprise—
“You got tan. Jesus.”
I force out a chuckle. “You fucking scared me. What did you expect? I’m training outdoors in the middle of the desert.”
“Yeah, sorry. But talk about a surprise. Sheesh. You need to wear sunscreen.” He’s being serious, but I can see right through his restrained smile.
“You like it,” I say, not getting a denial from his end of the line. “Hey, I’ll start working out shirtless so that by the time you visit me, you can sink your teeth into my tanned, toned, meaty—”
He groans sensually, dragging a hand across his jaw. “Stop making me horny. I mean it.”
Does he? Dean’s smiling way too much to be serious.
“Okay, fine,” I say, stretching an arm behind my head and double-checking to make sure my flexed bicep is visible enough to be distracting for him. “Tell me what’s new. Is it still cold and gray back in Graniton?”
“Oh yeah. You know how dismal it was when you were here, and now that you’re gone…”
If I didn’t know Dean missed me, that sentence makes his feelings very, very clear. I don’t—
Fuck, I don’t deserve him.
I shake my head, clearing the creeping insecurity that’s about to materialize.
“Now that I’m gone, I’m soaking up the sun, training hard, and missing Daddy,” I say, hoping to bring the mood up.
He scoffs, holding back a laugh and rolling his eyes. “You’re such an ass. Do not call me Daddy.” Still chuckling, he grits his teeth. “You know what? I’m moving back to China now. You have frightened me to the core and my only solution is to flee the country and never return.”
“You’ll miss me too much,” I fire back, and he shakes his head.
God, we’re so insufferable. Do all couples end up like this?
“Not if you keep calling me ridiculous names.”
I smirk back at him. “Okay, Daddy.”
I hold back a laugh for all of a second before snickering at Dean’s cute, grumpy face.
“Fine, fine,” I continue. “Anyway…” I trail off, debating whether to move this call into more sobering, serious territory. “Did you hear back from the master’s program?”
That gets Dean’s face to fall. “No, and I’d rather not talk about it.”
“I talked to one of the Detroit team owners today,” I supply.
“Oh, yeah? That’s cool.”
“It was. I found out he’s cousins with the Washtenaw University president.”
Dean chuckles—it’s a weak sound, but it still manages to make my heart squeeze. He’s got such an adorable laugh. “See if you can get him to grease the wheels for me a little. I’d love a fat scholarship and a six-figure housing allowance.”
“He says he can’t.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m dicking around.” His relaxed face firms up again before softening moments later. “Is the team still being nice? Tell me about practice.”
So I do. His face lights up when I tell him I’m fitting in and how Solomon is taking care of me and Jax. The way my boyfriend’s expression goes all soft at me is tugging at my heartstrings, filling my body with the kind of achy, painful longing I’ve never felt before.
I guess this is a side-effect of growing attached and then spending months basically glued to each other by the hip.
The amount of my stuff I accumulated at his place was way more than I thought, and if that isn’t evidence of how fast we fell and how strongly we clung to each other, I don’t know what would qualify otherwise.
I know it’s only been a few months, but holy hell, I’m obsessed. Being treated like I’m not defective is nothing short of refreshing, and holding on to an amazing guy is natural.
But as usual, a dark, intrusive thought rears its head.
What if we don’t find a way to get back together? How long can we realistically do long distance, even if Dean manages to come back to the US for grad school? If Washtenaw is as incompetent as Calvin made it out to be, who’s saying they’d act on Dean’s application, let alone accept him?
Dean isn’t like me. He says he wants to stay together, and that I’m not holding him back from anything, but when I really think about it, I kind of am. He’s said he didn’t want to get with someone until he settled somewhere, and him going home…would mean he could settle there.
And then instead of living some kind of normal life with some kind of normal relationship, he’d be stuck doing something over video call with someone on the other side of the world while trying to re-join me by signing up to a master’s program. That’d drain his finances even more.
But when I return my eyes to Dean’s soft, smiling face on the screen in front of me, those thoughts lighten a little. Being with him gives me comfort. It remains to be seen if he’s getting as much out of this as I’m taking, and how long he can put up with me.