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“I wasn’t sure if I was invited.” He looks between us, and then clarifies just in case any of us are confused about the legal drinking age. “Since I’m not old enough to drink.”
“They serve soda at bars.” Von replies, kindly. “And you’re definitely invited. You should get to know the guys better if you are considering signing with us.”
Corwin agrees to go and I inwardly groan. All week I’ve been wrestling with the uncomfortable fact of his existence. He isnothinglike I expected him to be, and I’m apparently being punished for something I did in another life because my body has decided it isveryattracted to his body. Being sexually interested in a man isn’t a problem for me, but that man being a teammate is. Not to mention he’s practically a child, barely eighteen years old and a full ten years younger than me. I’m going to fire up a dating app tonight, find a blonde, older man, and then fuck his brains out. And I’m not going to think about Corwin Sanhover while I do it.
???
The bar is crowded, all of us squeezed together in a way that usually wouldn’t bother me except for the fact that I’m sitting directly across from Corwin and his leg keeps brushing mine. Every time his knee bumps me he apologizes, and it’s setting my teeth on edge. I wish he wasn’t seated where I could touch him, or where I had a full view of his face and he had a full view of mine. Every time I look over at him, I find him already staring at me, mouth pinched in one corner like he’s biting the inside of his lip. He’s doing it now.
“Is there something on my face?” I ask.
“No, it’s perfect.”
I raise an eyebrow at that. Not exactly the turn of phrase I was expecting. The other guys aren’t paying attention, too caught up in their own conversations or whichever puck bunny has their attention tonight. I lean toward him over the table and he mirrors the movement, as though I reached out and pulled him in by the front of his shirt.Has be been staring at me because he’sinterested?
“Not looking to get laid tonight?” I ask him, gesturing with my beer to the barroom, crowded with beautiful women. He hasn’t moved from his barstool all night, despite being approached several times.
“I’m fine.” He says, slowly. Beneath the table, his knee bumps mine again and I trap it between my legs. He gives a surprised jolt.
“You are.” I concede, and his eyes widen in surprise. “Which means you wouldn’t have any problem finding someone to go home with you tonight. Or any other night, for that matter.”
I don’t know why I’m playing with him like this. I should leave the table and go find someone to distract me. Maybe multiple someones. But it’s hard to pull my eyes away, and his leg is warm against mine, and now I’mcurious. He looks around, as though concerned someone might be listening in.
“What about you? Are you…” He trails off uncertainly. I let him flounder for a moment before I fill in the blanks.
“Am I interested in getting laid tonight?” I lean closer to him over the table. “Definitely. I’m thinking this might be what I’m in the mood for.”
I open up a gay dating app, clicking on the profile of Paul, one of my regular hookups. Flipping the phone around I slide it over to him, watching close as his gaze falls to the screen and holds there. I can see his jaw working as he chews his lip. Finally, he looks back up at me, a very faint blush coloring the top of his cheekbones.
“Oh.” He says, and gently slides my phone back over to me. “So, you like men?”
He says this so quietly I have to read the wordmenon his lips, like he’s muttering a curse word in front of his grandma. He looks behind him again, as though suspecting the entire bar will be hanging over his shoulder, eavesdropping.
“Sometimes, yeah. Depends on the man.”
Somehow, this earns me a smile, the first smile I’ve seen from him all week, and it’s startling what this does to his face. My stomach clenches in desire—I want to taste that smile.
“Okay.” He says, nodding, smile already gone. He’s looking at me hard, blue eyes bright in the dim bar. I can hear the wordsme tooin the way he stares at me; in the way he’s been staring at me all week. Suddenly, my world realigns.Corwin Sanhover is gay.
I feel as though I’m standing on the edge of a precipice—one I want so badly to jump off of. A thousand scenarios are spinning through my head; I want to run my hands through that thick hair, and pull; I want to make him smile again; I want to take him home and mess up my sheets.Fuck.
A notification lights up the screen of my phone, breaking our eye contact. We both look down and see a message alert from Paul, and are both watching as a second comes through a moment later. I raise my eyes to Corwin’s face, his expression blank except for a slight divot between his brows as he frowns down at my phone. That lock of hair has fallen over his forehead again, and I have a sudden insane urge to reach across the table and wind it around my finger.
“Are you going to get that?” He asks, and though he says it quietly I hear him as distinctly as if he spoke the words directly into my ear. We are the only two still seated at the table, cozy in our pocket of intimacy while the bar becomes rowdy around us.
“Should I?”
If I wasn’t watching him so closely I might have missed it—the way his chest expands slowly as he takes a deep inhale, and the way his fingers tighten on his glass of Coke.
“No.” He says, and his hands slide from the glass and flatten on the table, long fingers splayed. In answer, I swipe the notification away, deleting it, and push my phone into my pocket. One of my teammates calls out to me,Saint!, from across the room and I wave a hand vaguely in their direction. Below the table, I give Corwin’s leg a squeeze with mine, and he clears his throat, looking away.
This is a bad idea. Whatever is happening right now is such a bad idea. I should send him back to the hotel, or tell him to go play pool with some of the guys. What I shouldn’t be doing is eye-fucking him in the middle of a crowded room; a crowded room that’s full of my teammates who know nothing about my sexuality and even less about his.You don’t even like him, I remind myself, sternly.
“Do you prefer people to call you that?”
“What?” I didn’t hear him, my only indication that he spoke coming from the fact that I was staring at his lips and saw his mouth move.
“Saint.” I stare at him, nonplussed. “Is that what you like to be called?”
