Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73094 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
To give myself something that all the self-help books in the world can’t do.
And… yeah. Maybe my friends are right. Maybe it’s not healthy.
I sure as fuck wasn’t going to say any of that to this super hot, super young stranger, though. Hockey jokes made for good banter, but my own life didn’t.
I ran a hand along the cool, smooth bar top and pulled in a breath. I could smell the little metal bowl full of limes sitting behind the bar, and I could tell I was drunk because my body was hot all over and I was too close to saying every last thing that entered my mind.
The truth was that I was just fucking tired of feeling sad. People thought that I’d just been chasing action and running away from my feelings ever since my dad passed away, and they were right that it had been the hardest thing I’d ever gone through.
But they were wrong about me saying “yes” to too many things. Losing Dad had just shown me that I needed to live. Really live. If nothing was promised, and someone as active as my father could die at 58, then I was going to make the most of my life, right now. Whether that was here in Bestens, Tennessee, or anywhere else.
“This is a small town,” I told the stranger instead of giving him my sad story. “I’ve got to make my own fun where I can find it.”
“Tell me about it,” he said. “Hockey keeps me from losing my mind.”
I’d pegged him for being an out-of-towner, maybe at TNU on an athletic scholarship. Now I wasn’t sure. He could be local, and he definitely had a slight Southern accent, though a little less than mine.
I glanced down at his arm again. A few of his tattoos looked fresh—especially a beautifully detailed red bird, right at the top of his forearm.
“Well, as two people who supposedly don’t hate fun, I say we do something,” I offered. “Want to play a game?”
He looked at the bar, grabbing a paper coaster and spinning it between his thumb and middle finger. The lock of his hair that he’d pushed back earlier came back down.
“Listen, if you’re trying to fuck, it’s not going to happen.”
Well, then.
I looked down, backing off in an instant.
He’d been blunt, but there was no venom in his voice. Just honesty.
“Wasn’t assuming your sexuality,” I said. “It’s all good.”
When I looked back up at him, something twinkled in his eyes. “I am gay. Just not in the market. At all.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “Well, you’re in luck, then.”
“How so?”
I took a seat at a bar stool and leaned back. “I swore off sex this summer.”
Would have broken that rule for you, though.
He lifted an eyebrow, leaning to one side. It was so clear that he was an athlete now—even the way he leaned on a bar made his biceps pop, as if even his muscles themselves knew how good they looked.
“I don’t know if I believe that.”
“Why not?”
He seemed amused. He looked me up and down. “Because you clearly do want to fuck.”
“I never said that.”
“Your eyes have been saying it all night.”
I waved him off, but he’d clocked it from a mile away. Apparently he could read me like a book.
“Well, it’s true. I’m having a sex-free summer,” I continued.
“What’s with the celibacy?”
Because a self-help book on “self-love” suggested it, and I need all the advice I can get on that.
“I was having too much of it. Figured I should be a good boy for one season.”
“Do good boys chug cocktails while doing handstands?” he asked. “Hell yeah,” he said, echoing what I’d told the crowd to chant on the patio.
“Sometimes.”
He watched me. “I still think you would have let me fuck you.”
I held his gaze for a moment. Ugh. Are you a mind-reader?
“You’re not wrong.”
He hummed, his eyes dancing from my lips and then back up again. “Good boy.”
My cock throbbed. “That is unfair.”
“Why?” he said, a feigned innocence in his eyes.
“Telling me you’re off the market, then calling me that?” I protested.
“You like the praise?”
“Not from hockey players who just say it to torture me.”
“Seems like you enjoy being tortured, though,” he said, casually looking down at the bar.
Christ, he was infuriating.
And hot.
But still infuriating.
A low rumble of thunder suddenly filled the air. Heads all around the bar turned toward the propped-open doors that led out to the back patio.
I swallowed. “Off the market, my ass,” I said quietly. “You want to fuck someone, too, don’t you?”
He bit his lower lip for a moment. I felt like I was being sized up all over again, like he’d finally decided I might be worthy of his praise or his attention. His pupils flared, just a little, when he met my eyes again.