Page 25 of Offside

“Shh,” Thayer cut in, putting a hand up at Ash.

“I just…I don’t know–I guess I was lonely,” I confessed. “I pretty much instantly regretted it and was going to delete it, but then one of the people messaging me was like…funny–I guess. I don’t know–he was the only person I responded to and…then I just kind of kept responding.”

My eyes peeled open, only to find both Ash and Thayer completely invested in my tale. I had both their attention on me, on the edge of their seats.

“We’ve been talking every day for over a month now,” I mumbled, real unease seeping in now. “Just friends and stuff–we watch movies together and eat together, but like only over text…and then he messaged me while I was, uh…busy with myself, and it just kind of…happened.”

“So,” Ash started slowly, seeming calmer than I'd seen him in a while. “You and the guy did it together? Like picture, picture, message, message, kaboom?”

Kaboom?

Sometimes Ash was a real piece of work.

My body felt tense, but not in the way I thought it would. I thought the part I’d feel weird about would be admitting it all to Ash, but it wasn’t that.

I felt weird telling Ash about Knight at all.

Like he was mine, and telling Ash made him community property, even if it wasn’t like that for Ash–he wasn’t interested in Knight.

“Kind of,” I mumbled, pulling out my phone and unlocking it for him to read through himself. “Don’t scroll too far up–it’s just stuff about our day and the movie we're watching later–”

“Shh,” Ash hushed me, waving me off as he showed the screen to Thayer, scrolling through.

It was a very exposing thing to be showing Ash, but I needed his help.

I stared at that last message from Knight for a while before coming up here, and I only did because the only response I had was about to be begging to see him. The only things I could type were messages that asked more questions he wouldn’t answer, or telling him that I was also just into him for some reason, and that I didn’t want to watch it float by this time.

Like I did with Sarah.

I hadn’t felt this in almost ten years, and the last thing I wanted was to go another ten wishing I'd just said or done something now when I had him.

But then again, did this even work outside of our current bounds?

And was I willing to accept the social fallout of dating a man as a professional athlete? Ash almost seemed built for it, but was I good enough to carry that kind of baggage with my name?

Didn’t matter anyway–Knight wasn’t out and said he couldn’t be, maybe ever.

So, was all this just overthinking and a fruitless conversation to be having with Ash?

“Nice dick,” Ash mumbled, smirking at me when I snatched my phone back. “Come on–you can’t hand me that and expect me not to look. Nice dick, man–and your man has a nice one, too–love the piercing–”

“Okay, calm down over there,” Thayer grumbled, taking hold of Ash’s neck. Ash straightened up almost instantly. “You seem awfully invested in the guy already, Sam–are you just freaking out because he’s a guy?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly, locking my phone and ignoring the pang of guilt for leaving Knight on read again. “I think I’m freaking out because I’m not freaking out–shouldn't this be a whole universe-altering thing for me?”

“Wasn’t for me,” Ash offered, settling in comfortably to Thayer’s side on the couch. “I mean, I guess I had some lead-up feelings to work through, but I wasn’t against the idea of being into a man–it just hadn’t happened before. By the time it did, it just felt too right to be wrong for me, so I didn’t freak out.”

“And that's how it is for a lot of guys–unless you come from a background that predisposes you to thinking it's wrong–it doesn’t have to be a freakout thing. Just a new thing about you,” Thayer offered, kissing the top of Ash’s head quickly.

And I didn’t.

My parents had always been a one-love type of accepting household. They wanted me to do whatever I wanted in life, hence why my brother was a college-educated DJ–something Landon had asked about quite a bit, honestly.

And it was fair–that was weird.

I had no issue with being into men–it just felt so out of nowhere.

Like, why now and why not with the hundreds of guys I’d met over the years? Why wasn’t showering with my team all these years hard for me, and why was I unaffected by Knight’s profile picture when we met, but had been gawking at it since I woke up?