Kieran’s socked feet padded softly across the faux wood floors. It was quiet, so quiet. Should he have turned on music? Would that have made this weirder than it already felt?
Pulling a deep breath in, letting it expand his lungs, his chest, Kieran hesitated for only a moment before swinging the door open.
Sammie was there, waiting, a tote bag slung over her shoulder. She was dressed casual, comfortable, just as Kieran had instructed. A cropped white band t-shirt, several sizes too big. Gray sweatpants, rolled down on her hips, showing off a sliver of her soft belly that he could already imagine his fingers gripping, indenting the skin there. Dark hair pulled back into two french braids.
“Hi.” She smiled at him, but it was strained. Her knuckles were white where she gripped the straps of her bag.
“Hi.” Kieran stepped aside, waving her in. He could smell that same strawberry scent as she passed him. “Come on. I’ll show you the setup.” He figured this was another rip the bandaid off moment, might as well get it over with.
Sammie followed him through his small apartment. It was so strange, leading her to his bedroom. And for the life of him, Kieran still couldn’t figure out what made it so different from leading anyone else there. He stepped into the room first, Sammie right behind him.
“Oh.” She froze in the doorway, eyes wide, glued to the tripod set up across from the end of his bed.
The room itself was nothing special. Kieran preferred neutral tones. His bedroom furniture—consisting of a queen size bed, a single nightstand, a small bookcase, and a dresser—were all matte black. He’d been feeling adventurous when he’d picked out his comforter set after moving back from Seattle, opting for a gray that wasalmostblue. A stormy blue, that he suddenly realized he’d seen recently.
Sammie’s storm cloud eyes turned toward him.
“This is it then?”
Kieran didn’t have an elaborate setup. A tripod for his phone, which recorded in high enough quality for his needs. A cushy, gray chair in the corner, because in the past he’d… had a thing for watching.
And a mirror, behind the tripod and directly across from the foot of the bed, that Sammie’s gaze was now glued to.
“I’m not fancy.” He shrugged. He could see the question forming before her lips parted to ask. “The mirror helps me know how I—we—will look in frame.” And, well, hereallyliked to watch.
“Oh. Of course.” Sammie nodded. Her eyes scanned the room once more, snagging on the bookcase. She crossed over to it, scanning the books neatly lining its shelves.
“You only read… romance novels?”
The tension in the air seemed to lift as Sammie snatched up a small, tattered paperback. Its cover featured a woman in a flowing red gown, her cleavage on full display. Sammie was grinning as she flipped through the pages.
“That one’s great.” Kieran moved across the room, stopping beside her. “You can borrow it if you want.”
“I mean, yeah, I definitely want to.” Her grin spread wider as she looked at him. “Kieran McCullough, one of the top players in the men’s national volleyball league, poster child for boring white men everywhere, readsromance novels.”
Kieran frowned. “You think I’m boring?”
Sammie laughed, gesturing with the small book. “This means you are decidedlynotboring.”
He reached past her, grabbing another one with soft shades of blue, white, and pink staining the edges, two men cuddled together on the cover.
“Take this one too.” It had been a recommendation from one of his cousins, Kellan, who had come out as trans four years earlier and had recently told Kieran he needed to read more diversely. He’d always had great taste in books. Kieran shoved the book into Sammie’s hands. Scanning the shelf, he snatched up another. If he remembered right, Sammie liked fantasy novels best, so he added a romantasy favorite to her stack as well.
“Oh my god.” Sammie’s eyes were wide, her expression one of shock and deep amusement. “This is the best thing I’ve ever learned about you.”
“I was visiting my cousin”—Kenna, Kellan’s older sister, because for some reason their parents had wanted them to all have confusing K names—“in Louisville a couple years ago. She took me to a local bookstore, they only sold romance novels and I’m easy to peer pressure. Now,” he paused, waving a hand at the shelf. “I can’t seem to stop reading them.”
Sammie looked delighted by this information, and Kieran’s stomach swooped at the open and happy expression that melted across her features.
“So.” Despite the fact that Kieran was already making a list of more books he wanted her to borrow, they were here together in his bedroom for a reason. “Do you have your lists?”
Sammie nodded, hefting her new stack of reading material. “Actually, can we not do this part in the sex room? This feels more like a kitchen kind of conversation.”
And just like that, the bubble of mortification popped. Sammie was chuckling at herself, and Kieran felt a smile of his own tugging at the corners of his mouth. Acknowledging what they were about to do out loud, even as a joke, zapped away most of the tension that had been holding Kieran tight.
Mostof it, anyway.
“Do you want to read them out loud or…” Sammie sat her bag on his counter, pulling out two sheets of lined paper, the edges torn as though she’d ripped them hastily from a notebook. Kieran leaned back against the cabinets across from her, trying to look casual even as butterflies still flitted around in his gut.
