But ever since he’d gone into the program…
Ever since we’d started spending so much of our available time together…
The itch to text him or FaceTime him had me squirming on the bed. I needed to see his face. Talk to him. Even get a few lines of text from him.Something. I couldn’t make sense of it, but I also couldn’t ignore it.
Eh, fuck it. What was stopping me from reaching out to him? What was the worst that could happen?
I’m chilling at the hotel for a bit. FaceTime?
He wrote back almost immediately.
On my way home right now. Give me 20 min?
Take your time.
Even as I wrote the words, I silently pleaded with him to step on it. I felt ridiculous and stupid and more than a little pathetic, but what could I say? I wanted to see his face, even if it was on a screen.
About fifteen minutes later, he sent the FaceTime request, and I was a little embarrassed by the intense relief that rushed through me when he appeared on my phone. He was lounging on his couch, I thought, his hair wet and stringy as if he’d recently showered.
“Hey, sorry.” He smiled as he tucked his arm behind his head. “You caught me on the way out of the training facility.”
“Oh yeah? Skating?”
“Not today. I needed to get out of my home gym, so I was working out there.”
“Ah, okay. I don’t blame you—that facility is nice.”
“Right? It was great before, but after they renovated it a couple of years ago?” He whistled. “I spend more time there than in my home gym.”
“I don’t blame you. You don’t have to clean or maintain any of the equipment there.”
“That’s a very, very nice bonus. Is that why you use it all the time too?”
I shrugged, neither confirming nor denying, and I was rewarded with an adorable laugh.
“It kind of felt like the off season today,” he said after a moment. “Usually there’s trainers and teammates around, but today…” He shook his head.
“At least then you didn’t have to worry about anyone forgetting to rack their weights.” I narrowed my eyes. “Unless you’re the one who doesn’t rack his weights.”
“What? Me?” He put a hand to his chest and batted his eyelashes. “I wouldnever.”
“You better not,” I muttered. “Ugh, the other day, someone must’ve leg-pressed every forty-five-pound plate in the building. Did they take them off the machine?No.”
“For fuck’s sake.” Avery tsked. “They probably left crotch sweat all over the seat, too.”
I made a face. “Eww, I didn’t even think of that. It was dry by the time I got to it, but… eww.”
He laughed. “You’ll think about it next time, won’t you?”
I gave him the finger, which only made him laugh harder.
The conversation continued in that vein for a while, mostly just shooting the shit over whatever, before I had to log off so I could head to the team meeting.
“It was good to talk with you,” Avery said, and he sounded like he meant it. “We should do this again.”
The excitement that swelled in my chest caught me off-guard, and it also didn’t surprise me at all. Of course I wanted to talk with him again. I just hadn’t expected to be so enthusiastic about it.
“Sure! Yeah!” I smiled. “We’re on a pretty tight schedule, especially with two back-to-backs, but definitely.”
