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Right then, Adamo’s eyes widened. “Oh. Dude. I just realized.” He gestured at his upper lip. “You went on a date while—ha!” He cackled as he leaned in, peering at my face. “Any popped stitches? I think there’s—”
“Oh, fuck you.” I threw a pea at him, hitting him square between the eyes. “No, I didn’t pop any stitches, and yes, having my face sewn back together sucks when I’m on a date with—”
“Hold up, hold up.” Bens shot me a look. “So you’re saying itwasa date? All this time you’ve been telling me he’s just a friend, but now—”
“He was just a friend.” My face was on fire, and of course my lip was throbbing right under the stitches. “We were just meeting as friends. But… then last night…” I half-shrugged and couldn’t help the stupid dorky smile. “It turned into a date.”
Immediately, all three of my teammates were cackling with glee, which drew the attention of some of the other guys. Next thing I knew, the whole team was hearing about it, and I couldn’t decide if I wanted to crawl under the table and die, or if I wanted to smile until my stitches hurt.
What could I say? Yeah, I was a giant dork when it came to Isaiah. And yeah, I was into him in ways I had absolutelynotexpected to be. If my teammates teased me about it? Oh, well. We all teased each other about everything.
And I decided that there were worse things in the world than my team chirping at me for being all stupid over Isaiah.
Because I fuckinglovedbeing this stupid over someone.
Chapter 9
Isaiah
Whenever I stoodby the glass for warmups, I always got an adrenaline rush. It was cool to watch the players up close as they went through their routines. What could I say? It was hard not to be starstruck when Jett Davis or Sven Nilsson were literally two feet away with nothing but a sheet of Plexiglas between us.
Yeah, I know. I’m ridiculous.
Tonight, I was even more of a dork, because instead of twenty-some-odd hockey players skating mere inches away from me, it was twenty-some-odd hockey players… and Tanner Jeffries.
Tanner Jeffries, who’d been the man behind Nick all this time.
Mindstillblown.
I barely even noticed the other players tonight. I just tracked him, trying to reconcile the focused skater in a black-and-gold jersey with the man who’d sat across from me last night. The man who’d been on the other end of all those DMs for the past four years, and who’d confessed—while we’d been sitting in his fucking Ferrari—that he wanted to kiss me.
How was this my life?
I was, as I sometimes did, holding up a sign. I kept it against the glass right at the bottom so I wasn’t blocking anyone’s view, and that put it just about eye level with the players. The team rarely paid much attention to the signs, and they didn’t usually react unless something was particularly unique and funny. Or, more often than not, if it was a kid holding a sign asking for a puck.
Tonight, one player in particular skated a slow lap past the glass, clearly looking more closely at the signs than they usually did.
His gaze landed on mine, and then those dark eyes flicked up, and his impish smile made my balance waver.
Tanner skated up and tapped the glass right in front of me with his stick. Then he scooped a puck onto the blade and sent up the glass. It caught in the net and came back down, but after two more tries, he got it over the lip, and it fell into my hand, sending some snow down my sleeve.
I held it up and grinned, and he gave me a mock salute with his glove before skating off to rejoin the usual routine.
“Holy crap,” Darren said beside me. “That actually worked?”
I tugged my sign back from the glass and peered down at it. “What? You didn’t think it would?”
He rolled his eyes. I just chuckled as I rolled up the sign. No, under normal circumstances I did not expectCan I have a puck to make my students jealous?to work. But unbeknownst to Darren, I could’ve written absolute gibberish or something and Tanner still would’ve tossed me a puck.
I felt weird, keeping the truth from Darren. I trusted my friend, and I was dying to tellsomeone, but I… hesitated. To protect Tanner’s privacy? To keep from jinxing this whole thing?
Or maybe because, even with a puck in my pocket and my sleeve wet from melted snow, I still wasn’t quite convinced this was real?
I didn’t know. But I kept it up my damp sleeve for now. Once I told Darren or anyone else, I wouldn’t be able to take it back.
Not yet, then. When? No idea.
Just… not yet.
