Page 57 of Wingmen

The picture Bennet sent was his face, very close up, on its side on the pillow. His eyes sleepy and hair falling into them. He’d turned off the light and it was blurry again, but that was fine. Elliot lay on his side with the phone in his hand and looked at it for a long time before he went to sleep.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dustin

He deleted all the dick pics. Having them on his phone made him feel like Jeffrey Epstein – he really needed a nickname in his head for Elliot that wasn’t ‘the kid’. Something that didn’t make him feel like the FBI might burst in at any moment and confiscate his laptop.

He told Elliot to do the same: delete everything. Because even if the FBI didn’t care about them, the NHL certainly would.

They hooked up by accident three times the following week.

On Wednesday, Dustin suggested another wingmen night. They completely failed the objective and ended up in his car.

The next day, he was pulling into the parking lot at Force when Elliot walked out. Neither of them said anything as Elliot got in the passenger seat and they put their hands in each other’s shorts.

On Sunday, he ran into Elliot at Elaine’s after the gym, and invited him to the farmer’s market because the kid was complaining about living on hotel food. They ended up parkedby the river making out in the backseat and never made it to the farmer’s market.

He was having to clean the car a lot.

Dustin couldn’t get his head around what was going on. Was this something that had always been inside him, or was it just a fluke? Did it only apply to Elliot, or would he also enjoy looking at photos of other dudes’ dicks?

He went to Reddit to find out.

It turned out, he did. He found a lot on Reddit that was pretty intriguing, actually. It got him thinking about what else they could do.

He thought about bringing this up to Rodriguez, but it was obvious Elliot was pretty shy under all the dumb machismo. Which was honestly adorable, but it made Dustin feel like he was walking a fine line between initiating communication and harassing the kid. So after the farmer’s market he waited for him to make the next move.

It happened the following Wednesday while Dustin was at the gym.

He wasn’t in a great mood: The knee hadn’t improved and he’d finally been forced to tell Tom about basketball, and that it had felt ‘off’ ever since. Dustin’s nuts had been swiftly and deservedly kicked, and Dr. Wu had been called immediately, triggering a frantic twenty-four hour blitz of X-Rays, MRIs and CT scans. It all came back normal – which was honestly more frustrating than if it hadn’t, because now all he was allowed to do that week was agonizing force-plate tests and ride the stationary bike with electrodes strapped to his quads while they tried to figure it out.

So the text was exactly what he needed.

what are you doing?

Dustin had the phone on the bike in front of him, and sat back in the seat as he picked it up, smiling.Gym. You?

The shrug emoji. Still not quite putting anything out there. Still shy. Still cute.

Dustin sent,Why?

He waited a long time for the reply to come:Maybe we could meet up

Dustin looked around to see how busy the gym was.Can I call you?

Elliot told him to wait five minutes and he would call. When the phone lit up Dustin smiled and put it to his ear. “Hey.”

A long silence. “What’s up?”

“Not much.” Dustin shrugged, pedaling. “Nice to hear your voice.”

Elliot said nothing, and Dustin imagined him blushing. Or hoped he was, maybe. “You want to hang out? What did you have in mind?” he said.

“I dunno,” Elliot mumbled. “Maybe just like…not in the car.”

Something about that went straight to the middle of Dustin’s chest. “Okay. We could get dinner. My place?”

He surprised himself with that. Elliot had never been to his apartment and ‘dinner at my place’ sounded uncomfortably close to something like a date. Orwasit uncomfortable? They’d been weirdly orbiting each other for a month now. It made him pretty nervous; he wondered if Elliot would go for it.