Still, he had a 3DS. He hadTekken PrimeandMario Kart. He had a basketball, and he was my age.
I walked back to the side-window room and made up my mind. “This one! First door on the left!”
Mom’s footsteps thudded inside. She appeared in the doorway, her eyes bright. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
“All right. Go get some boxes,” she ordered.
I stepped back to the window again because I couldn’t help it.
Keaton was in the room, his eyes fixed on my window. We stared at each other through the glass.
He lifted his hand.
I lifted mine back.
His mouth moved, and I couldn’t hear him, but it looked like he said “Hi.”
I smiled before I could stop myself, then turned away from the window and ran to the front of the house to get all the boxes for my room.
2
Keaton
Twelve Years Later– Present Day
“Last call,”I shouted, starting my closing routine.
It was pushing two in the morning. The crowd had thinned, but a few stragglers were waiting until the very last minute to leave.
The Golden Tavern wasn’t a dive, but it wasn’t trying to be trendy either. It was a simple place where people came for drinks after work or to listen to live music on the weekends. We offered a solid selection of local craft beers, rotating them every few weeks, along with a few signature drinks the happy-hour crowd liked.
I started working there as soon as I turned twenty-one, since the tips were a lot better than what I’d made delivering pizzas at my former job.
As people closed out their tabs, Douglas watched me from the far end of the bar, his elbow propped on the counter. He’dstarted coming in about three weeks ago. The first couple of times, he’d been with coworkers, then he showed up alone. We chatted for a bit, and though he hadn’t said anything, it hadn’t been hard to figure out he was into guys.
Last week, he asked me to hang out after my shift. We went to the 24-hour diner down the street and ended the night at his place. He was cool to talk to and definitely cute, with light brown hair, a trimmed goatee, and an average build, like he cared about his appearance but didn’t live at the gym.
I liked that.
While Titan Elite was the place I felt most at home, I didn’t treat the gym as my personal dating pool. I’d gone for the jock before, and it hadn’t worked out well for me. When I tried again, that one ended too, although not as dramatically. Now, I stayed away from the guys whose lives revolved around the gym.
Douglas worked a desk job and spent his weekends relaxing at home. He seemed like as good an option as any, at least until it came to sex. It hadn’t been awkward or terrible; it just hadn’t been anything to get excited about.
I wiped down the bar top in front of him. “You heading out?”
He finished the final sip of his beer and set the glass down. “In a minute.”
I worked my way down the counter, collecting empty glasses. When I came back, he was still watching me.
“So,” he started. It may not have been awkward before, but I could feel the shift before he finished speaking. “You got plans after this?”
“Going home so I can get some sleep before training tomorrow.”
He chuckled. “You’re always at the gym.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Sort of a requirement if I want to be a professional fighter.”
