My breath leaves me. He feels it too. Thank god he feels it too.
And I can’t help teasing him. “Different in that you think I’m only good for a hookup?”
He rolls his eyes. “Sure. We just spent the evening talking about our childhood, our dreams for the future, and our compatibility. That’s what I do with every guy I just want to hook up with.”
These aren’t just butterflies in my stomach right now, they’re full pterodactyls doing aerial stunts and possibly spelling outTHIS IS ITin skywriting.
I take a step into his space, tilting my head up to meet his gaze. “Well, from my perspective, I think we just had the best first date ever. But I’m definitely open to discovering if there are ways to make it even better back at your place,” I say.
And his smile has me composing my own post for QueerWaystoFallinLove.
I’d seen this cute guy in a coffee shop for a few weeks but had been too nervous to approach him. But then one day, he came over to where I was sitting.
In a twist, he wasn’t asking me out for himself. He was asking me out for his brother. I agreed to go on a blind date with his brother.
And from the moment I walked into the restaurant and saw his brother, I just knew he was the guy for me.
Luckily, he felt the same way about me.
CHAPTER SIX
TRAVIS
RIP Cynical Travis
Time of Death: 7:32 p.m.
Place of Death: Garden Table restaurant.
Cause of Death: Hazel eyes and a smile that should require a permit.
I don’t want to think about how many people I’ve got to apologize to for doubting their insta-love stories.
If it’s not insta-love, this thing with Devin is definitely insta-something. Insta-attraction. Insta-connection. Definitely insta-realizing-this-is-something-different-from-anything-I’ve-ever-had-before.
Brocker criminally undersold how good-looking Devin is. He’s one of the most attractive men I’ve ever met, with stunning hazel eyes framed by long eyelashes that brush his cheeks when he blinks.
When our gazes first met, he just…lit up. Like I was exactly what he’d been hoping for.
Nobody has ever looked at me like that.
And I’ve never had such a physical jolt like the one I had the first moment I touched Devin’s hand. Like a defibrillator to a heart I didn’t realize had flatlined somewhere in the last two years.
Three hours in and our conversation hasn’t faltered once.
He’s not put off by my snarky humor. Instead, he seems to relish in it, bouncing it straight back to me with interest.
We’ve got so much in common, although our personalities are quite different. But in a good, complementary way. That’s a common theme I’ve picked up in QueerWaystoFallinLove. Finding someone who complements you, who challenges you to be a better person, who turns your weaknesses into strengths just by being there to balance them out.
And we seem to have this chemistry that operates on multiple channels simultaneously—one is a conversation with words, one is with looks, and one our bodies are conducting entirely without authorization from our higher brain functions.
Now, we’re heading back to my place and there’s a frisson of anticipation between us.
Please, please let us be as compatible in the bedroom as we seem to be in every other variable we’ve tested so far.
But if we aren’t, it’s something we can work on. I refuse to dismiss the perfect guy over a single data point.
Besides, that’s what practice is for. Extensive, repeated practice.
