“You’re so sexy,” he murmurs.
My eyes droop and I know I need to clean us up, but I really just want to feel his body heat sink into me.
“I didn’t mean to come in your mouth,” he says after a minute.
Humming, I tell him, “I can still taste you. I don’t hate it.”
He grins, turning his face further into me. I can feel his skin heat. I love how shy he is. It’s sweet and beautiful. “Sleep, qin ài de.”
Felton’s sigh of contentment fills me and I think I smile all night as I hold him.
TWENTY-NINE
FELTON
Outside of hockey,I’m not sure I’ve ever been so content. There’s no better feeling than going to sleep and waking up with Ren. I love the way he treats me. How he talks to me and looks at me. I feel special.
I don’t think I’ve ever felt special or important to anyone—like I’m wanted.
A few months ago, I would have said that the way my ReachMe fans think about me, and their comments on my posts, were the best feeling. I was never letting them down. They enjoyed me and there was never any disappointment except if they wanted more. Which still felt like a big compliment. It felt like I was doing something good.
I’m surprised to admit that I was wrong. It was definitely a good feeling. One I still love and kind of miss. But this with Ren? It’s better. He sees all of me. All the dark corners and bruised edges I’ve tried so hard to hide over the years. I think I did pretty well hiding them too.
Until I didn’t.
Now we’re sitting on the couch—just the two of us. His family left early this morning for their long flights home. This may bethe first time in my life that I’m going to miss someone’s parents. They were so kind to me and accepting. No matter what I told them about myself when they asked questions, even if it was something like what I want to do after hockey and I didn’t have an answer, they never acted like I was a complete failure for not having my shit figured out.
Not going to lie—I nearly burst into tears when I said I didn’t have a plan yet and Ren’s father said, “There’s still time to think about it,” with no judgment, no disappointment, no glare. No double meaning or sarcasm. Just acceptance.
“Do you think they liked me?” I ask, probably for the twentieth time since meeting them, and at least the fifth time since they left.
Ren smiles, turning his attention to me. With a hand on the back of my neck, he brings me to him, pressing his lips to mine. “Yes. They like you.”
He adjusts us on the couch so we’re laying down; once again, I’m sprawled on top of him. It makes me really self-conscious because I weigh like eighty hamburgers more than he does. But his arms wrap around me and his leg hooks over my thigh.
With a sigh, I slowly let my weight come down on him. His fingers run soothingly through my hair and, before long, my eyes begin to droop.
“Just a short nap if you’re going to sleep,” he says. “We have plans tonight.”
I smile and nod. Once his parents left, Ren turned on my phone. The number of notifications made me cringe, I was a tense bundle of nerves by the time they stopped dinging.
Ren didn’t give me my phone, though. He went through all the notifications and messages first. By the time it was in my hand nearly twenty minutes later, there weren’t any, but he told me to check my messaging app and email.
There’s no proof that my father had tried to get in touch. Or that anyone else from my family had. It’s a strange feeling of relief and sadness. The relief I understand immediately, but maybe I’m sad that I didn’t hear from anyone else. At least if they tried to get in touch, I knew they were thinking about me.
Unless they did, and Ren got rid of them all.
He once told me that my father might be the abuser, but literally everyone else were enablers. Telling someone to stop and they don’t but letting them get away with it year after year doesn’t give you have a free pass because ‘well, I tried.’ Putting in the bare minimum effort isn’t really considered trying.
The emails I had were from the franchise and Imry’s office. I knew about the ones from Winnipeg because Ren told me about them. Those from Imry’s office were an update and then a notification that they were on holiday until January 2.
Most of the notifications were from my friends. I’d talked to most of them on my tablet with the messaging app. But there were a few random texts here and there that appeared to be spam. Since I generally use a messaging app to communicate with nearly everyone except family so my phone number isn’t out in the world, most of the text messages I get are junk.
Since I hadn’t looked at my tablet in a couple days, there were a few new messages. One from Azure asking if I wanted to do dinner after our game on the second—Winnipeg vs. Vegas. He’s a weird, scary guy, but I enjoy his company, so I asked Ren if it would be okay.
The second set of messages were from Willits and Dasan asking if I wanted to do something for New Year’s Eve. Tonight.
Yesterday with Ren’s family, we talked a lot about the New Year’s celebration in China and it sounded so magical. Ren pulled out a flying lantern from his closet this morning before we went out for breakfast and promised we’d release it tonight atmidnight. It’s appropriate because they’re often let off at the end of the Chinese New Year festivities with the Lantern Festival.
