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It was a dream. Ithadto be. There was no way my online best friend had turned out to be Tanner Jeffries, and there was absolutely no way in hell Tanner Jeffries wanted to kiss me.
But we’d taken a quick selfie on the way out of the restaurant. We’d agreed not to post it, though if anyone saw it, they’d just think I was a fan who’d run into a hockey player who was willing to take a photo.
Except itwasreal. Gazing at the image on my phone in between sips of coffee in the teachers’ lounge the next morning, I vividly remembered the conversations before and after we’d snapped the selfie. I remembered how he’d tried so hard not to stretch his lip, but he’d kept laughing and smiling anyway. At thingsI’dsaid. Atme.
And then he’d wanted to kiss me.
Hesaidhe wanted to kiss you,that stupid voice in my head chimed in.So convenient that he couldn’t, and now he can ghost you and never have to make good on—
I shoved my phone in my pocket and shoved that voice into the back of my mind. I had no idea if Tanner was lying or what, but the thing I kept circling back to—the thing my rational brain kept reminding me when my ex’s voice chimed in—was that Tanner hadn’tneededto fake anything. We’d gone into last night with no expectations beyond friendship. Attraction or romantic feelings—those would be a bonus if they happened, but neither of us had made any noise about going that route until after we’d met.
Until after he’d seen what I had to offer.
He’d been the one to approach me.
He’d been staring at me across the table as if he were the one who should be starstruck.
And he’d been the one to tell me how much he wished he could kiss me.
Maybe that meant the voice in my head really was a liar. No, I had no idea what Tanner could possibly see in me, but did I need to? He had nothing to gain by faking interest in a guy like me. Not unless he was a complete psycho who liked playing games with people’s heads, but I didn’t imagine he—
A hand waving in front of my face startled me so bad I almost dropped my coffee.
“Isaiah?” Darren stared at me, expression full of concern. “You here?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” I shook myself and laughed, sure I was blushing. “Just, uh…” God, I didn’t even know how to explain away my distraction.
He eyed me. “Were you up until two in the morning watching hockey highlights again?”
“No, I wasn’t.” I brought up my coffee for another sip. “Just, um… didn’t sleep very well.”
“Uh-huh. Because—wait.” He stood straighter. “You were meeting your friend last night, weren’t you? The one from online?”
There was no point in denying it. Not when I was most definitely blushing. “Uh…”
Darren’s lips parted. “Dude.” He glanced around, probably making sure we were alone. Then he dropped his voice to a whisper. “Did you hook up with him or something?”
I laughed. “No! I didn’t… It wasn’t like…”
You see, he wanted to kiss me, and we probably would’ve hooked up afterward, but his mouth is out of commission because of that puck that hit him the other night, because the thing is, he’s Tanner goddamned Jeffries.
Darren stared at me. “What happened? Because from the look on your face, it either went really well, or it went really badly.” His eyebrow rose. “Which is it?”
“It went well,” I said quickly. “It… oh, man, it went well.” I laughed. “It went really well.”
Both eyebrows were almost in his hair now. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’ll, uh… I’ll fill you in later.” I gestured at the clock. “Gotta get to class.”
He glanced at the clock and frowned. “Ugh. Yeah.” Reaching for the coffeepot, he said, “And you better fill me in.”
“I will. I promise.” I started toward the hallway, but paused and turned around. “Oh, hey, you want to go to the game tonight?”
He seemed to think about it, then shrugged. “Sure. Grab tickets and let me know how much they are?”
I nodded. “Will do.”
I continued out of the teachers’ lounge and down the hall to my classroom. First period didn’t start for another fifteen minutes, and students were just starting to trickle in. Plenty of time.
