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Isaiah:You didn’t pay attention?
Tanner:Not unless they were talking about hockey. Which they didn’t.
Isaiah:How rude of them.
Tanner:Seriously. At least my teachers in Canada were more into it, but they still expected me to give a fuck about, like, math and shit.
Isaiah:Well, that’s just inhumane.
Tanner:Right? One of my teachers said that I needed to study for a real career because only like 0.001% of hockey players actually go pro.
Isaiah:Oh, if she could see you now!
Tanner:She can. I sent her a letter with a print of my draft photo.
Isaiah:What did she say about that?
Tanner:She sent back the letter with a bunch of corrections and a B- at the top, but congratulated me on getting picked.
Isaiah:LOL That is SAVAGE.
Tanner:I should’ve learned back in school—mess with Mrs. Blendheim at your own peril.
Isaiah:Seriously. And you spell just fine in your messages.
Tanner:My sweet summer child, autocorrect is doing a LOT of heavy lifting over here.
I laughed aloudas we kept bantering back and forth. I loved that we still had the same vibe we’d had before the other night, except that I could hear Tanner’s voice and imagine his face as I read his messages. No, he didn’t look or sound like the image I’d painted in my mind of Nick, but that was fine by me. This was one of those rare instances where reality wasfarbetter than the fantasy.
Then the conversation shifted in a direction I’d both expected and couldn’t believe:
Tanner:So hey, we’re flying out soon. 2-week road trip. Any chance you want to meet up tomorrow night?
DidI want to meet up with him? Was he kidding?
Except there was, of course, that avalanche of self-doubt. The certainty this was just lip service. And how convenient it was that his lip was stitched so he didn’t have to make good on any of his flirting. And how this could just be a chance for him to let me down easy in person because now that he’d thought about it, yeah, he totally could do better.
I closed my eyes and swore. Couldn’t I, just this once, take someone at face value?
Maybe if that someone weren’t a rich, hot athlete who could do a million times better than me.
On the other hand, he was also my friend of four years. That was the only expectation I’d had when we’d met up. Why would he initiate something more if he didn’t actually want it? Not unless he was a complete psychopath or something, and I’d encountered enough of those over the years to have noticed the signs by now.
Which meant that, besides my own past and my battered self-esteem, I couldn’t come up with a logical, rational explanation for this beyond… he actually wanted to see me. He was actually attracted to me. Didn’t matter how or why. He was.
And I was attracted to him, too, so what the hell was I waiting for?
Yeah. WhatwasI waiting for?
So I ignored my demons and wrote,I’d love to see you. Any time after four. LMK.
I was just getting ready to get into bed when he replied withSee you tomorrow whenever you’re free,followed by a winking emoji and an address.
Holy shit.
We were doing this.
Chapter 10
