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And the dangers,but I didn’t mention those. I hated talking about them, and I was enjoying this conversation too much to go downthatdark road.
Isaiah:I wouldn’t trade this job for the world.
Tanner:Good. That’s how it should be.
I was aboutto start a response, but a second message came through.
Tanner:Dammit. I have to run. Team meeting. (skull emoji)
Perfect timing—theoven timer went off right then.
Isaiah:Sounds good. I need to eat anyway. FaceTime later?
Tanner:Going to dinner after. I might be back kind of late. Don’t want to keep you awake on a school night.
Isaiah:No problem. We can chat tomorrow. Have a good night.
Tanner:You too. See you soon.
That last partactually made me stop in my tracks. Hewouldsee me soon, wouldn’t he? Because he wasn’t just Nick, my faceless online friend anymore. Far from it. He was… Tanner. And when he got home from his road trip…
I shivered at the thought. How the hell was this my life now?
At the same time, we still felt like… us. Like Nick and Ian, talking about whatever, even if we were a lot more open about our lives than we’d been before. As I settled in to eat my dinner and I thought about our conversation tonight, I felt good. It was refreshing to talk to Tanner about my job and my students now. I’d been hesitant to tell him what I did for the same reasons he had. Burner accounts existed for a reason, after all. But now we were texting directly. We could talk freely about things, and I liked that.
I’d thought before we met that I might miss the mental image I’d had of Nick. After all, no matter who he turned out to be, odds were he wouldn’t look anything like I’d imagined him. That face I’d had in my mind for four years would be gone, and on some level, I’d expected that to make me sad.
But the face that replaced Nick’s was Tanner’s. And where there’d been some mystery before, there was pure chemistry now.
Goddamn,I thought with a smile.I am so glad Darren talked me into meeting him.
Chapter 14
Tanner
Tanner:I fucking hate these early flights.
Isaiah:But this one means you’ll be back in Pittsburgh sooner than later.
Tanner:Ok you make a valid point.
Isaiah:LOL.I can’t wait to see you. Not sure how I’m going to actually teach today.
Oh,I could feel that one. Hockey had been a struggle lately, despite my usual superpower of being able to concentrate on playing even when I had something desperately trying to distract me. Apparently that didn’t work when my distraction was a hot man who wanted to fuck me, and apparently Isaiah was having the same problem.
Tanner:You’ll be fine.At least you won’t lose an edge and make an ass of yourself on national television.
Isaiah:LOL It wasn’t that bad. The commentators were so busy talking about the other goalie, they barely mentioned you.
Well,that was a relief. I’d kind of felt sorry for the other team’s goaltender last night. He hadn’t been able to rely on his skaters for defense, and he’d been having a terrible night himself. So I wasn’t all that surprised he’d taken the spotlight off me. Players blew tires all the time. When a goalie gives up six goals in the first thirty minutes, especiallytwothat were direct results of him leaving his crease at the worst possible moments, no one gave a fuck about the forward who fell on his face.
At least I hadn’t reinjured my face. That thought had actually crossed my mind in the heartbeats between realizing I was going down and when I’d hit the ice. Because so help me, if I’d ended up getting my mouth stitchedagainthe night before I’d finally have Isaiah in my bed, I would’ve fucking cut someone.
His texts went silent, so he was probably starting his class. Hopefully he had a better hold on his dignity and his concentration than I did. Fans were brutal. Middle schoolers? I wasn’t even religious and I suddenly had the urge to cross myself.
I put my phone facedown on the tray table and stared out the window at the not-Pittsburgh far below us. Gah. Were we there yet? Could this plane maybe fly alittlefaster?
The best/worst part of the past two weeks was that it had given us a chance to really dive into all the things we enjoyed in bed. We’d sprinkled little hints into our conversations, and sometimes even delved into the subject, both to spin each other up and make mental notes of things to do (or not do) once we were together again.
