Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 51902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51902 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 260(@200wpm)___ 208(@250wpm)___ 173(@300wpm)
I should have asked Malcolm to tutor me instead. Let him teach me something instead of insisting that I had all the answers.
Don’t quote me, but I think that right there was the source of all my problems. According to my dad, I was contrary to the point of being borderline self-destructive. Maybe it would prove to be a fatal flaw, but in the meantime, it was a stupid trait that made life confusing as fuck. ’Cause now there was a geeky physics genius out there with glasses and freckles and a sweet body and—
Okay.
Fine.
Are you happy?
You got me.
I was attracted to Malcolm Maloney. Attracted with a capital A.
He was cute and intense, and he persevered no matter how nervous he got. He didn’t like hockey, but he showed up at the rink. He probably didn’t even like me, but he sought me out. He was driven and passionate and…did I mention that he had really pretty eyes? Kind of green with flecks of gold and—
Shit. This wasn’t good.
Yeah, a few people knew I was bi, like Ty and a couple of close friends from home. Oh…and my family. My mom and siblings knew and didn’t care.
My dad was another story. My sexuality was one of those things he didn’t want to hear about. He’d met my initial coming out in my senior year of high school with a cool, “Everyone is bi these days. Let’s leave that alone until you’re older, Jett. And by the way, don’t tell Randall.”
In other words, shut up and get comfortable in the closet.
And here I was, nearly five years later, itchy and occasionally miserable in said closet, harboring weird-ass crushes on guys who would never in a million years go out with me. Like Malcolm.
I wished he hadn’t told me he was gay. I’d kind of thought he might be, but now that I knew…yeah, maybe that was what was messing with me. This vague niggling idea that maybe, just maybe, it wouldn’t be weird for us to hang out together. And talk about science. And hockey.
I wished I hadn’t uttered that stupid line about this being fate.
Fuck. What was wrong with me?
Now I just had to keep my head clear of static and not wonder if he was in the crowd tonight. We had a game to win.
“First line,” Coach Beekman bellowed.
I jumped over the boards and glided to the face-off circle, tapping my stick to Langley’s before taking my position opposite Trinity’s right winger, Nick the Prick Berdell.
“Yo, Bears. You ready to lose?”
We didn’t take the bait. Only dumb shits and amateurs would let schoolyard taunts get under their skin.
Langley ignored him and of course, won the puck.
I’d like to claim it was the beginning of a great start, but our rhythm was off. Our passes were sloppy, and the penalties were adding up. Trinity scored on a breakaway in the first period, but we connected in the second. I faked a pass to Brady and shoveled it to Oleski, who lobbed it over the goalkeeper’s head, looking as surprised as everyone else when it dropped into the goal. The stands went wild.
I hugged Oleski and tapped my stick to his before letting my gaze wander the screaming crowd. There were always a few familiar faces sitting in their usual seats, decked out in Bears’ blue and red with homemade signs. Our fans were enthusiastic and loyal. I spotted Madison from the diner, my English Lit professor, and—
And Malcolm.
Yeah, that was him. Midsection to the right of our bench, sitting next to a tall girl with short dark hair and colorfully inked arms. I stopped at center ice and shamelessly stared. But it wasn’t weird. Malcolm was looking at me, too.
He waved and I smiled. That was it.
The problem was that I couldn’t stop smiling.
Ty poked my ribs. “Who is it? Not Tara…it can’t be. She hates your guts.”
I rolled my eyes, wiping sweat from my brow. “Who’s Tara?”
“The girl you strung along at Langley’s a couple of weeks ago,” he replied matter-of-factly.
“Heads up. We’ve got a fuckin’ game to win, boys,” Coach griped.
“Yes, sir.”
It wasn’t pretty.
Whatever corrections and adjustments we’d made were forgotten. We played safe, as if we were protecting a win we had yet to secure.
Now, with one minute left in the third period, we were still tied. Frustration ate at me, and I could almost feel the wheels in my head churning in the wrong direction, overanalyzing every shot I took. And then there was Malcolm. He’d never watched a hockey game, and this was the one I’d insisted he should come to?
No problem. There was still time to make something happen. Anything.
We won the face-off. Ty fed me the puck and I was off, thundering along the outside lane with two defenders on my tail. I spotted Brady on the left wing and signaled for him to speed up. My pass was clean and thankfully, he didn’t bobble it. He raced for the goal, scanning for an open player. He was so damn obvious, it was painful.