“Nuh-uh,” Aleks interjects. “Sour and I will move your mattress back upstairs. You don’t need to risk it.”
“The therapist today literally said I can start jogging in the mornings again. And I’ve been weight training on my leg. It was just a hamstring strain, and I’m almost back to one hundred percent.”
There’s a muffled smack, and Tahegin lets out a short cry. I can clearly imagine Aleks hitting him with one of the many throw pillows in Tahegin’s game room. In fact, I can imagine them there in the oversized chairs, one facing one wall with a TV connected to a gaming console and the other facing the other wall with another TV. Though they are facing opposite directions, the chairs are still lined up in a way that they can look over at each other and share a bowl of popcorn or a two-liter of soda. I know all this because Tahegin and I have done it before, and I feel an ache in my gut that wishes I was there with him now, not Aleks. I want to be sitting beside him and peeking at his screen when we’re playing against each other because he is so much better at video games than me that I have to cheat.
I want it so bad I’m scaring myself.
My entire life, I have been this closed-off, independent person, but after not even a year of knowing Tahegin, all that has changed. I’m no longer touch starved, yet I’m craving his embrace. I have friends who hug me—a huge change from the me before—but all I want to do is hold Tahegin. Have these past three weeks been awful? Not necessarily, no. I’ve done plenty of things, like hang out with Micah, work out at the training facility, and spend time with Tahegin and Aleks and sometimes with the other guys on the team when we go out for lunch or dinner with them. Still, the desire remains to spend my days and evenings and mornings and midnights with Tahegin.
What does it mean? It was never like this with a girl I liked or when Micah and I became close—well, as close as I’d allowed us to be. No one has ever made me feel like this. It’s frightening, yes. But it isn’t awful. The only issue I have with it is that I haven’t been able to spend more of my time with him.
“Rix? You there?”
I realize my character in the game has gone idle, so I wiggle my thumb on the controller and shake my head to clear my errant thoughts. “Yeah, let’s do this mission.”
Doing my best to stay focused, I go through the motions and ensure our goods are delivered, but my thoughts continue to stray so badly I tell the guys I’m going to take a nap and sign off.
Alone in my apartment, I ponder everything going through my head.
Tahegin’s injury is healing, which has been my main concern. Now that’s in the positive, I can think about other things, like how quickly my feelings for Tahegin have grown. Last June, I hated—hated—him. Then, something changed when he had to go and be all kind and sweet to me. I saw the real him, and I’ll be damned if it isn’t the exact same him the media knows. Except . . . more. Yes, he’s the most generous and caring person I have ever met, but he’s also insecure and has a past that has shaped him into being the man he is now.
I’ve never loved in my life. The foster parents never kept me long enough for that bond to grow, the other children never stayed long enough, and I never had anyone else. The closest person before Tahegin was Micah, and even then, I kept him at an arm’s distance. It was only after Tahegin managed to get through my stubborn emotions that I started to rely more on Micah. Now, I can say I love him as a friend or a brother.
Tahegin, on the other hand . . . There is nothing platonic or friendly about my feelings for him, and that scares the shit out of me.
Because I can admit I care for him, that I like him as more than a friend, but the fact I feel more for him is something I don’t think I’m prepared for.
The fear in my chest isn’t like walking through a haunted house or waiting for bad news at the doctor’s office. It’s different. It bounces giddily inside me, like a kid in a candy shop. It makes me want to run full sprint across the miles separating our houses just so I can spend the night with him. Hell, I’d do it just to kiss him good night.
Fuck. I’m in deep.
I can only hope he feels the same way.
CHAPTER 26
HENDRIX AVERY
Nearly a month later, it’s like Tahegin’s injury never happened.
I watch as he rides another wave, standing confidently on board as if he’s a native Los Angelean and not some sweet-tea-loving bumpkin from a Texas city without a single beach near it. It’s mid-March now, and the weather is uncharacteristically good for surfing. Tahegin called me this morning and said the reports were coming in that the waves, temperature, and wind would be coming together for an epic surf day, which appears to be the truth. It also seems most of the other locals also heard the news. The beach is packed, but that hasn’t stopped Tahegin from racing wave after wave, Aleks only a few feet behind him.
Me? I am begrudgingly lounged under a large shade umbrella, sunglasses darkening the too-bright sun and sand creeping in every crevice of my body. The beach, the people—not my thing, but relationships are all about compromise, so here I am.
The Super Bowl came and went with the Seattle Emeralds and the Baltimore Diamonds as the contenders, with the latter taking home the trophy. In terms of Super Bowl games, this year’s was pretty boring. Each team scored once in the first half, then twice in the second. The Emeralds had a batted-down point-after attempt, so when the Diamonds made a three-point field goal in the last thirty seconds, it was all over. It’s surreal, my first season in the NFL officially behind me. In fact, I should be hearing from Vikki anytime now about a contract renewal . . .
“Oh, Hendrix,” Micah sighs dramatically. He’s sitting beside me on an extra-large beach blanket, and when I look over, I catch him shaking out his cotton candy pink hair and slipping on a pair of nearly comically large sunglasses. “Thank you for being a reasonable man and not running out like an idiot into shark-infested waters!” He yells the last bit at the people currently surfing—more specifically, at Aleks.
Shooting him a scowl because I’m pretty sure he isn’t supposed to be yelling about sharks while on a beach, I shake my head at him.
He brandishes his hands in the air, gesturing at nothing in particular. “What? I’m just saying . . .”
Admittedly, the last few months—really all the football season pretty much—I haven’t been spending as much time with Micah as I should have been. As friends, we’re supposed to see each other more than once or twice a month, though we do message a good bit during each week. Still, just looking at him, I can tell I have missed a lot.
For one, Micah is wearing fake nails. I’m used to him having painted fingernails from back when we were roommates, but they were always his natural, short ones. Now, he has bright iridescent fakes with a bit of length—not as much as our waitress at lunch today, but more than normal for him. Two, he’s wearing makeup. There is a minuscule amount of foundation evening out his pores, contour on his cheeks, glossy lipstick on his lips, and mascara lengthening and darkening his eyelashes. He’d explained all the makeup stuff to me countless times when we lived together, but he never wore it out. Now, though, he is. And I don’t hate it. It just threw me for a loop when I saw him.
“You’re staring,” Micah hums, keeping his face tilted to the sun and not looking at me, so I don’t know how he knows I’m watching him.
“You’re beautiful,” I blurt, and yeah, I probably should have led with something different. No going back now.
Micah turns to me, lowering his sunglasses down his nose to give me a look, one eyebrow raised.
I nervously scratch the nape of my neck. “Uh, what I meant to say was, it’s great that you’re being more yourself out in public. The look suits you.”
“Thank you,” he says but doesn’t return to his sunning pose.
“Are you and Aleks official yet?” I ask.
All the confidence in his face falls, despite his attempt to keep up the farce. “We’re casual.”
Copying his earlier move, I wordlessly stare at him until he begins to shift uncomfortably in his tiny swim shorts. Seriously, they’re, like, baggy Speedos, if that’s a thing. And bright pink. They’re nothing like Tahegin’s aqua-colored trunks that hug his ass and thick thighs all the way to a few inches above his knee. They’re conservative, but goddamn do they look good.
Me? I’m in the baggiest pair of black shorts I could find. In addition to my usual problem fitting into bottoms, I have also begun sporting a semi anytime Tahegin is around, and especially when he’s shredding waves with his muscular calves, bulging biceps, and well-defined abs exposed. I lick my lips, wondering how good his caramel skin tastes with the sea salt coating it and—yeah, no, fish piss and shit in that water. No, thank you.
Sighing, Micah lets his head fall back on the beach chair. His sunglasses go askew, but he makes no effort to correct them. “It’s . . . Fuck, Rix. I can’t tell you. I’m so sorry. I . . . I can’t imagine what you would say, but I can imagine the disappointed look in your eyes, and . . . I can’t do it.”
Disappointed? What would I be disappointed in that might interfere with his relationship with Aleks? “Micah, you are my best friend,” I tell him with total sincerity, voice soft. “Nothing you could tell me would be able to change that.”
Big doe eyes meet mine behind his crooked glasses. They’re watery, and his bottom lip quivers as countless emotions run across his face. Shame, worry, sadness . . . and defeat. He shakes his head, cotton candy pink hair whipping through the air. “You’ll think less of me,” he insists. “You’ll think I’m . . . I don’t know. It isn’t illegal, per se. Just frowned upon, and you already frown so much.”
