Theboyfriend. Like I could have a boyfriend! I have no idea where I’ll be in a few months. I could be anywhere: from some NFL team at the other end of the country to a dingy apartment struggling to make ends meet.
My heartbeat picks up at that thought, my hands sweating, so I try to wipe them on my shorts discreetly.
Mike shrugs. “Is it working?” he wants to know, causing me to hide my smile behind my coffee cup. He’s a nice guy, a real-life teddy bear with his huge eyes and brown curls. I just can’t imagine kissing him or folding him in half as I did with Linden against the side of his car and in his bed. The thought of Mike undressing me sends a cold shiver down my spine. I instinctively scoot back a step.
I settle on a soft “maybe”. I don’t want to disappoint him, even when my head screamsno.
“I should’ve known. It wasn’t like Davenport. That’s why I didn’t suggest him to Mia. His family’s kinda…intense.” Mike picks our conversation back up.
“Yeah? You know them?” My fingers trace the rim of my cup.
“A bit. My dad coached one of his brothers, Roman, during his time in New York.”
Right, his dad. I’m such an idiot—Coach Ted Whitaker was the only reason I agreed to this, and now I've forgotten all about my goal. Suddenly, I’m not even sure I want to be on that man’s radar. I know nothing about him.
What if he’s a total asshole?
“Does your dad know that you’re…?” I trail off because I’m not sure how Mike identifies.
“Bi?” he fills in, then shrugs. “No. I’m not even sure myself yet. But I’ve always been interested in guys. Like, I can’t help lookingat them and stuff? They’re on my mind just as much as girls are. I figured that, sooner or later, there’d come a chance to act on it, but it feels like I’m running out of time here, and once the draft comes around…you know.”
I nod along because I do know. It’s exactly what I talked about with Mia—time running through our fingers like sand. There’s a twinge in my chest when I think back to the Woodrow farm and how it seemed to work differently at that place. The days were slower, filled with work and laughter.
And Linden.
My heartbeat doubles when I think of the upcoming season and how fast the weeks will go by, a cold sweat breaking out on my skin.
I have seven months left until the Combine.
Nine until the draft.
Ineedto ask about his dad again, but my mouth goes in a completely different direction.
“So you haven’t had any experience with other guys yet?” I press on, and he shakes his head, a soft blush coloring his round cheeks. He still carries a bit of baby fat in them, and I want to reach out to pinch them.
“No, none. Just girls. I mean, I totally hit it off with a guy on Grindr last fall, then he suddenly ghosted me and…I’m just glad you know what you’re doing. But I don’t”—he glances around before taking a deep breath—“I don’t know how much…I mean, if we hit it off, that’s awesome, but I don’t plan on anythingbig, you know? I just want to see what it’s like to…touch and maybe kiss…another guy? If you’d be okay with that?”
He says those words so carefully, sosoftly, I have to clear my throat several times to find my voice again.
Oh God, I can’t do this. Ican’tbe that guy. The thought of handing myself over to him, allowing him to do all these things—I just can’t.
And yet, like in a complete out-of-body experience, I hear myself laugh. “Yeah, that’s no problem. Let’s take it easy. I’ll be all yours to experiment on for that night.”
I give him a thin-lipped smile together with that promise. In the end, I’ve done all of that and more—and I feel totally ridiculous for it now. Of course Mike doesn’t expect much from his first time with another man, especially not a pornstar-esque performance. There was no need to extensively practice my blowjob skills or take Linden’s virginity!
As Sasha told me, I should have been honest with Mike about my situation.
But I knew that before.
However, being so openly confronted with the needlessness of our actions makes it much harder to explain them to myself.
I didn’t have to reenact a whole romance book with Linden—but I wanted to.
And I’m not sure I can stop wanting it now.
Linden, July 27th
Life at the Nook starts back up like an old computer. Sputtering, but eventually running. Still, I feel like everyone’s putting on a show—including myself. I’m on the eighth consecutive day of avoiding Micah and our new roommate. Not because I’m afraid of Vince’s judgment. I simply have no idea what to say to him. Every time we run into each other, I want to crawl out of my skin. Politely correcting his assumption about being Micah’s boyfriend was the sensible thing to do, no matter how much it stung. And that’s why I’ve been avoiding my…I don’t even know anymore.
