AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Christ,” she said. “I get it now. You’refuckedfucked.”
“Now you’re with me. Cal, I’ve been checking my online stories every day to see if he’s still watching them or not.”
“And?”
I sighed. “He’s still looking. He better atleastbe jerking off to my mirror selfie from this morning,” I joked.
She hummed. “I’ve never really heard you talk about someone like this. Even with you-know-who, you were always kind of chill.”
She was referring to my ex, who I’d always had to keep secret.
“I don’t like how it feels,” I said. “I feel like I’ve lost my mind in the course of a couple of days.”
“Welcome to having a crush,” she agreed. “It sucks ass, most of the time.”
“When he’s with me, it feels like he’sright there,” I said. “Like he was made to make me tick, or something.”
“But he doesn’t want a relationship?”
“I don’t even think he wants to admit he’s into a guy,” I said, every word feeling like a nail in a coffin. “I can’t picture him wanting to kiss me in public, let alone ever want more.”
“Kace, after what you’ve been through with your ex, and your family…” Callie started.
I was silent. I knew exactly what she was thinking, and it was the same shit that we’d talked about for hours and hours, over the course of the last few years. I’d told her dozens of times that I wasdoneever hiding my true self again. That I’d never hide away in the shadows. That I’d rather be lonely than try to tend to relationships where people wanted me to act differently.
And I couldn’t picture any “relationship” with Nathan where he wasn’t uncomfortable. Whether he was a hookup or more than a hookup, it was abundantly clear that he wanted to keep me a secret.
A wild little secret, that would be a wild little story, one day.
I reached for my duffel bag and slung it over my shoulder, heading out the back of the locker room and into the parking lot.
“Can you be at my house in an hour? We do movie night, Thai takeout, I cry into a pint of Ben and Jerry’s?”
“You’re not going to like my answer to this one, either.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “You’re already seeing your Mr. Perfect again tonight?”
“Don’t hate me,” she squeaked, and I let out a laugh as I got in my car.
“Couldn’t ever.”
“Who knows. Maybe he’ll be awful tonight, and then all will be right with the world again, and we can be single and miserable together.”
“I didn’t feel miserable until I got hit with a fucking crush like a meteor from the sky,” I told her. “Why do people have these, again? What’s the benefit? Remind me.”
“Because we’re all crazy.”
“Too real.”
“I’ll be there tomorrow night,” she said. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“You ready to see me make an ass of myself on TV?”
“It’s all I’ve read about online, since the trailer came out.”
I blew out a breath of air as I started up my car. “The fans are alreadyrabidfor it. The scene from the trailer where I’m tugging off my shirt and dancing is all anyone can talk about. I do that all of the time on Instagram.”
Tomorrow was the premiere of the first six episodes of theLife of TomlinTV show. It was dropping on one of the biggest online streaming services, but until now, I hadn’t really conceptualized how big of a deal it was going to be.
