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)
Andrew hadn’t noticed me up here.
He’d be able to spot me if he looked up and toward his left, but he wasn’t used to me being here, or anyone being here during practices.
I felt even more incognito than the times when I’d watched over him early on, when I’d practically gone stalker-mode over him.
I bit the inside of my cheek, watching as they opened up the duffel bag.
The guy pulled out a big stack of copies of the TNU Weekly.
Fuuuuck me.
I no longer felt “incognito” at all.
Suddenly I felt exposed, as all of the football players passed around copies of the Weekly, the pages fluttering a little in the breeze, all of their eyes trained downward. They were still breathing heavy from their practice, but the focus was all on my article now.
Andrew’s face was the sweetest.
He looked like a kid, waiting to receive news about whether or not he was accepted somewhere.
After a couple of minutes, other guys on the team started smiling, high-fiving and fist bumping each other.
I slowly began to walk down the stands, taking the long way around before making my way down to the grass.
When I approached Andrew, his eyes were wide when he looked up and saw me.
And then I saw the thin sheen of tears in his eyes, too.
“You didn’t do it,” he whispered.
“Do what?”
“Ruin us.”
He reached up a knuckle to wipe away a stray tear that had rolled down his cheek.
“Peach,” I said.
The other guys were already going about the rest of their days, grabbing drinks or continuing to stretch. A couple of them came over to give me a slap on the back, thanking me for the article.
Peachel let out a sigh, closing his eyes and leaning his neck back to face the sky for a moment.
“I didn’t let myself believe it could be true,” he said. “Not yet. But I wanted to trust that this could happen. That you’d write… Gray, you wrote the best fucking thing you’ve ever written.”
A mirror of his same guilt formed in my stomach.
The truth was, I felt a shred of the same thing.
Until this moment—and tonight, when he played his Homecoming game—I’d been holding myself back, too.
Not knowing if I could trust.
Trust that Andrew could really want me, or that all of this could continue once the article was out in the world.
Andrew and I did fit together like two pieces of the same cocky puzzle, yes.
But sometimes an ego was bigger than you could see on the surface.
How deep did it go?
How deep could this go?
Andrew dropped the paper onto the field below us and wrapped his arms around me in a sudden hug.
My heart pounded in my chest, and I even heard some members of the Tempests going “oooh-wee!” in the background, watching us hug.
“I agree with Peachel,” I heard Coach Ennick say nearby. “The article is incredible, Gilman. I knew you could do us proud.”
When Andrew leaned back from the hug and kissed me, I gasped a little against his lips.
“Ayy! Peachel’s getting that smart-guy dick!” Jacob called out again, and a lot of the other guys hooted and yelped as they saw.
“Fuck, Andrew,” I murmured against his lips.
When he pulled back, I saw the biggest smile I’d ever seen come across his face.
The morning light, making his big, brown eyes look golden.
His freckles.
All of him, right here, willing to kiss me in front of every teammate.
“Gray,” he said, his eyes dancing across my face. “Is this the first time I’ve made you blush?”
I could feel the heat on my cheeks, radiating in the light. I wasn’t as much of a blusher as Peachel was, but apparently, given the right conditions, I was capable of going cherry-red.
“Hey,” Coach Ennick barked over at us. “I don’t care who you kiss, Peachel, keep it off our field. Okay? Today is Homecoming, and we don’t need any more distractions.”
“Yes, yes,” Andrew said.
He reached out to give me a squeeze on the hip.
“Although I don’t blame you,” Coach Ennick said as he walked off. “For an article that good, I’d kiss him, too.”
Before I left to go take care of a few things before the Homecoming game, Andrew walked over with me to my car.
“You didn’t make it into a puff piece,” he said, still seemingly flabbergasted by the article. “It was deep. You went into personality types for a few of us, saying why we worked so well together. Even the part about me and Luke… you made us seem like brothers, not some sort of gossipy bullshit about are they fucking each other.”
I nodded. “Everything I wrote was true.”
He pulled in a slow breath. “You said I was the glue of the team,” he said. “Do you really believe that? I transferred in before summer, and I didn’t even know if I’d fit in, at first.”