6
On Monday, Avery joined a gym. He’d been meaning to for a while. He’d tried running, but the best place to run was the beach, and he hated when sand got in his shoes. And he’d tried one of those high-interval training classes last fall, but he’d pulled something in his shoulder so badly, he hadn’t been able to put his own shirts on without Aunt Brenda’s help for a week.
But this wasn’t one of those gyms. This was a plain old boring one with treadmills and weight machines. Old people and teenagers. Yoga classes.
And Linc. Who wore baggy shorts and a T-shirt so tight it might as well have been a tattoo.
“Oh, no.” Avery stumbled on the treadmill.
He did his best not to watch as Linc made his way through the cardio machines toward the weights. Of course he would go there. A guy built like him...You didn’t get that from the elliptical machine. He could probably snap Avery in half. Or bend him over that bench and—
Avery leapt off the treadmill like it had caught fire and stumbled to the water fountain to refill his bottle.
He hadn’t talked to Linc since Saturday. Not after the wholeYou want to go on a date—oh, no, you didn’t mean a date, it’s only that I can’t read basic social cues so I can’t even tell you’re not gay. Linc had been super nice from the beginning, what with the whole some-assembly-required thing, but then, of course, Avery had gone and made it weird.
The thing was, Avery didn’t want to date him. Not really. Sure, Linc was hot like whoa, but that just made anything happening between them all the more unlikely. Because Avery was a red-haired mess who had been a late bloomer in every way that mattered. He wouldn’t even know what to do with a man like Linc. No, hewouldknow what to do. Porn wasn’t healthy sexual education, but in terms of illuminating the possibilities of two bodies together, Avery had some really good ideas. Only Linc would want someone experienced, someone who knew what they liked in bed, and Avery—
Well, shit, Avery was a twenty-six-year-old accountant who hadn’t been naked with another guy since college.
His water bottle overflowed.
On Tuesday, Mrs. Henderson, who owned the flower shop, said she was signing up for Pro-Count. She only reconsidered when he sat her down and explained his idea to increase her business by building better relationships with the local day spas. (Somehow Seacroft had six—Avery had no idea how the town could support them all, but apparently his neighbors really liked their massages and pedicures.) But then Uncle Theo got that look on his face which said he wasn’t happy with how Avery handled it because “That’s not what we do here,” and Avery went home in a funk.
His apartment was quiet. He hadn’t been prepared for how quiet it got when you lived alone.
He turned on his Xbox, slipping the headphones over his ears. The white static before the game’s soundtrack started helped settle him. He brought upWinterlands, which he hadn’t played since the week before. He could play the one-player campaign, but he’d already beat it nine times, so he dropped into the queue, looking for other players.
GatorAbe24.
Avery’s pulse went sparkly. He’d liked playing with Abe.Abe.What a weird name. Like he was eighty-nine years old. His voice hadn’t been old, though. Low. A little husky, but some of that had been distortion. Having him in Avery’s ear had been nice. Almost intimate, in the quiet space of the apartment.
He clicked on Abe’s avatar, then gripped the controller too hard while the little circle spun on the screen as the game connected. He was about to give up and go try the single-player quest again when the message changed.
You are now connected to GatorAbe24. Would you like to proceed?
“Hello?”
The headset crackled, then, “Hello?”
“Abe?”
A pause.
“Avery?”
Even though Abe couldn’t see it, Avery grinned. “Hey! How have you been?”
Another pause, then Abe cleared his throat. The sound coming through Avery’s headset echoed like Abe was talking through a tin can. “Pretty good. You?”
“Yeah, not bad. Work’s busy. Things are good. I joined a gym, I—” he bit his lip, “—I’m talking too much.”
Another crackle.
“It’s fine. You don’t talk too much.”
He sagged against the couch cushions. “Have you played since last week?”
“No. You?”
