Charlie eyed him.“Seriously?”
“Try starting with three times a week,” Phil suggested.“Figure out what you like.You might hate doing weights.The important thing about exercise is finding something that works for you and that you enjoy doing.”
“Do you listen to this music every time?”
“Hey.Don’t knock the classics.”Phil knew at least a dozen hockey players who would protest calling Dr.Dre a classic, since the word “classic” could only be followed by “rock” in their world.But if it made Charlie think he was uncool, too, maybe Phil should spend some time listening to newer music.He’d have plenty of time if he had to retire.
“Okay.Whatever.”Charlie sprawled onto the mat.“I’m just going to die here; don’t mind me.”
Kids these days.Phil finished up his workout and stretched before getting to his feet and grabbing his crutches.
“You too dead for dinner?”
Charlie opened an eye.“What are we having?”
“Well, since you’re interested in getting fit, I was thinking we’d do a high-protein salad.”
With a groan, Charlie dropped his head back onto the mat.
“I’m kidding.Wanna order pizza?”
Phil didn’t dare check his phone until later, after Charlie had gone to bed.When he did, he found Ben had texted twice, an hour apart.
There are so many things I want to do with you.
I want to lick your thighs.
The message sent a spiral of heat licking down into Phil’s belly.It was so personal.He wasn’t sure anyone had ever wanted to do something so strangely intimate and raw before.
Camille liked it when he sent her topless selfies from the road—the staged kind where he took the picture right after working out, so his abs stood out.In person, she appreciated him cleaned, groomed, and media-ready.Her appreciation didn’t intersect with their sex life.She never tried to lick or touch his abs during sex, no matter how much she wanted to look at them.She gave the kind of blow jobs that could have been shot on film and released on VHS in the 1990s, her full, made-up lips wrapped tight around his cock, looking up at him while she did it.Phil had been into it, no question.But he’d always felt as though at some point on the way to the bedroom, things had become about him wanting her rather than the reverse.
There was plenty to want, and Phil had enjoyed every minute with her until he didn’t anymore.But his experience with her hadn’t prepared him for the possibility of what Ben put on offer with a few desperate kisses and horny text messages.
The difference between her methods of seduction—coy, teasing, implying more than saying what she wanted to do to him or have done to her—and Ben’s blunt desire was striking.
By which Phil meant he felt as if he’d been struck with a two-by-four.
Ben wanted to lick his thighs.Not his smooth, waxed, photoshoot-ready thighs.His sweaty, hairy, mid-workout thighs.
The thought made Phil’s head swim.
Enough so that he looked down at himself, two beers in, legs spread on the couch, and had a really stupid idea.He squirmed deeper into the cushions, let his shorts ruck up under him, and shot a photo.
Before he could second-guess himself, he sent it off.
He threw his phone face down into the couch and tried to ignore how his cock had begun to swell under the polyester.
After about three minutes of the ESPN retrospective on the Kansas City Harlequins, he couldn’t stand it anymore and had to check his messages.
Ben had sent a photo back.
Phil opened it with trepidation.He had no idea how he’d feel about receiving a dick pic.Would it make him harder, get him squirming on the couch?Or would it turn him off?
Phil had seen a lot of dicks in a lot of different states over the course of his life, having spent so much time in locker rooms.The Sea Lions’ room tended toward modesty as far as these things went, but communal showers were still communal showers.Phil had also spent a lot of time thinking of men’s bodies in carefully neutral terms.Much like with the knee he’d known was threatening to give out, the words “not gay” had haunted the corners of his mind for years now.People, Phil knew, didn’t generally define their sexualities by what theyweren’t.It had simply struck him as a problem for later.Or, during his marriage to Camille, never.
Now, faced with a potential dick pic from a man he very muchwantedto want, Phil found himself suddenly pulled in the opposite direction: What if he’d repressed so hard he’d forgotten how to want other men?What if his teenage experimentation really had just been a phase?What if he disappointed Ben?
Better he found out now, when Ben couldn’t see him react.Phil took a deep breath and peeked at his phone screen.
