Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
His face softened, and he looked at me with almost a little bit of pleasure, as if he was realizing something for the first time.
“I see,” he said. “You clearly don’t read all of my articles.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I wrote about my journey discovering my bisexuality three weeks ago, Peachel,” he said. “Maybe because it was the final summer edition, you didn’t catch that one?”
I felt like my world had just tilted a little on its axis.
He wrote about something having to do with exploring sexuality and I hadn’t caught it?
It sounded like a joke, but it was true: usually I’d fuckin’ know about something like that.
Since transferring into TNU, I’d become more and more outspoken about being openly gay with every passing day. I paid attention to LGBTQ+ events on campus, attended plenty of them, and never hid my sexuality as a football player. How had I not heard that Gray had publicly written about being into guys?
I realized something like I’d just been hit in the face with one of Luke’s missile football passes.
Gray Gilman infuriated me, yes. But there was something else.
Goddamnit.
I wasn’t just nervous around him because I was intimidated by his book-smarts or his sharp articles.
I actually did want to fuck him.
CHAPTER 2
GRAY
There was nothing worse than a guy like Andrew Peachel.
Baby-smooth skin, big, kind brown eyes, and a way to charm every single person around him like he was a Golden Retriever who just did a trick.
His trick was football.
And yes, he was good at it.
But Andrew was also the kind of guy who had always gotten what he wanted.
And tonight?
I was pretty sure he wanted to fuck.
From the moment Andrew first got to the bar, I could tell. He was scanning the room, looking at any guy who crossed his vision that might be interested. He wasn’t really good at hiding it, and the drunker he got, the more he looked over at me.
He didn’t like me, and he hated the idea of me writing an article about him or the team.
But he’d lost his game tonight.
He needed a win.
I knew he would happily take me as a conquest, deciding I was worth a hate-fuck the moment that tequila in his blood moved along from tipsy and cocky and became drunk and desperate.
The thing is, Andrew could have just about any gay, bi, or curious guy on campus…
Other than me.
Denying him was going to be the highlight of my fucking year.
Andrew seemed to have always gotten what he wanted in every aspect of his life. Not just from his parents, who were apparently some of the wealthiest donors to the TNU campus in the last fifty years, but from Coach Ennick too, who clearly treated Andrew like some sort of athlete prince.
And Luke. The Tempests quarterback seemed to butter Andrew up at every chance he could get.
Right now, he had an arm draped over Andrew’s shoulder as the two of them tossed back their fourth tequila shots of the night over at the bar.
I was at a corner table alone right now, after the rest of the guys had broken off to play games of pool, dance near the jukebox, or head to the main, big U-shaped wooden bar.
I was here.
Observing.
The way I always did.
Which felt satisfying on a fucking bone-deep level now that I knew Andrew Peachel hated it.
“Hey, there,” a young bartender in a tank top said as he came over to the table. “I’m Max. Can I get you a refill?”
I’d seen Max chatting with Andrew a couple of minutes ago over at the bar, and I knew they were friendly.
“Gray,” I said, reaching out to shake his outstretched hand. “You’re the Max from the specials menu?”
“That is me,” he said with a little salute. “I make all of the cocktail specials.”
“I’ll try the Poison Ambrosia.”
Max nodded. “You a fan of bourbon?”
“Just a fan of the name.”
“Have you ever been in before?” Max asked. “That sounded like a pickup line. It wasn’t, I promise. I’m very taken.”
“First time,” I told him. “Not exactly a bar-hopping kind of guy.”
“You’re here with the football team?”
I nodded. “Writing the Homecoming article on them for the TNU Weekly.”
“Good luck hanging with the Tempests,” Max said. “You’ll be bro-ing out with them before you know it. Bars were never really my vibe until I found this one, too, by the way. We do it differently around here.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him why that would never happen.
I looked down at the wooden lacquered tabletop that had plenty of dings, dents, and ring stains all across its surface.
It should have been comforting.
But it had been giving me a bad feeling in my blood since the moment I walked in.
Everyone else seemed to treat this place like Cheers, a friendly local bar where everybody knew everybody else’s name.