He’s never had anyone just seehim,not the person they thought he should be. Not the things he could do for them or the people he’s bound to by blood.
But I see him. Or, at least, I’m starting to. And every little piece of himself he slowly reveals, I really like. Probably more than I should allow myself to, even with the way things went lastnight.
Those thoughts have my gaze dropping from his eyes to his mouth, and I find myself speaking before I can think better of it.
“Can I kiss you?”
His lips twitch into a soft smile before he whispers, “I think we’re way past the point of you needing to ask, don’t you?”
My returning grin is instant, and without thinking twice, I pull him in for a tongue-sweeping, toe-curling kiss. Right there, with a snowball war waging around us.
And even in the midst of all that chaos, I’ve never felt more at peace.
Twenty
Camden
January
The new year means hockey picks right back up again, and the team heads out for a small stint of away games over the first weekend of the new semester. We played Fall River earlier this evening,and I’m damn near dead on my feet by the time we’re back at the hotel after the game.Getting wins on the road are often the most rewarding ones—outside of kicking Blackmore ass, that is—but damn if away games don’t come at a cost. Namely, not getting to sleep in my own bed at night.
Or spending hours making out and rolling between the sheets with Logan.
But instead, here I am, God knows how many miles away from Chicago, with the wrong guy in my room for the night. Though, I could have a worse bunkmate than McGowan.
He’s currently in the shower—again, despite having taken one back at the arena—because this team and their superstitions know no bounds. But more power to him, I guess. I’m not about to risk the winning streak we’ve been on by saying something.
If anything, it gives me a bit of time to listen to the historylecture I missed this morning, thanks to our travel schedule. But at least my professors allow me—or one of my classmates, when I’m gone—to record the lectures, thanks to my letter from the disability office. It sure as hell makes it easier to catch up on the material, especially now that we’ve hit the second-half push portion of our season.
My phone dings where it rests on my stomach when I’m a few minutes into the lesson, and I lift my head to check the screen.
Logan: You played great tonight. Fall River didn’t stand a chance with you in the crease.
My lips curve upward, both from him trying—and slightly failing—to use hockey slang correctly, and also the dirty thoughts that enter my mind because of it. Though, it’s the latter that has me typing back my response.
Me: Too bad it isn’t the crease I wanna be in.
Three little dots appear, only to disappear a second later when he stops typing. That process happens a few times over the next couple minutes before another message finally pops through.
Logan: I’m trying to be supportive, and you’re over there throwing out innuendos.
I blink a couple times, having trouble processing the last word. Changing my phone’s default font to the dyslexic one helps a lot with texting, but not when he uses words like that. All the vowels jump around too much, and I’m sure the sound of my professor droning on in the background isn’t helping either.
Pausing the audio, I do a quick Google search of the word, and once I hear how it’s pronounced, my smirk turns into a full-blown grin.
I’m about to type out another dirty reply when another message from him pops up.
Logan: I saw what I did, and don’t you fucking dare.
Me: I wasn’t doing anything. You’re the one talkingabout creases and being in my end-o.
God, I hope I spelled that right.
A few seconds go by before his response comes through, but this time, it’s in the form of a voice message rather than a text.
I’ve noticed he does this sometimes, swapping from text to voice in the middle of a conversation. At first, I thought it was just out of convenience, like his hands are busy and simply talking is easier. But sometimes, I think it’s got more to do with him accommodating my dyslexia: knowing that listening is easier for me to understand what he’s saying rather than trying to read it. That, or he’s unwittingly choosing to feed the kink I have for his voice, and in either case, I’m not gonna complain.
Unfortunately, the second I go to listen, McGowan chooses to pop out of the bathroom, finished with his dual-cleansing ritual. He’s paying me no mind, but I still try to be as inconspicuous as I can when clicking the volume buttons on my phone to the lowest setting and lifting it to my ear.
