Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 141425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
I click on the profile.
It’s Tyler.
He doesn’t post much, but this is him. This is definitely him. There are pictures of him with the kids. Laughing. Taking them on a picnic. Visiting an animal rescue. At a hockey game.
And then—nearly a year ago—a photo of him and me the night I performed at a game.
“Big figure-skating fan!”
That’s all he says, and it’s lovely. But that’s not what lights me up. It’s the timestamp on the heart on my video.
From five minutes ago.
Five minutes ago.
When I was in the hall outside his room.
Five minutes ago.
When I heard that grunt.
My stomach flips again. He was watching my video in bed.
20
KIND OF
Tyler
I’m nursing my coffee from the un-St.-Bernard-like mug, making small talk with Sabrina about the upcoming schedule as I head out of town for a road trip.
She seems…a little off though. Sure, she’s moving around the kitchen like normal—slathering avocado on a bagel, sprinkling sea salt and pumpkin seeds, checking her canvas bag, the one she carries every day with the words Skate Like No One’s Watching, For Fox Sake on it. But she won’t meet my eyes.
When I mention Luna’s upcoming field trip for a beach cleanup as part of the school’s efforts to raise awareness about climate change and rising ocean levels—a topic Sabrina normally loves to chat about—she looks down and says, “That’s great that the school is doing that.”
She takes a bite of her bagel, studying it like it’s something entirely new to her. And sure, I fucking love a good avocado bagel. But the way she’s eating it—like she’s fixated on it—makes me think something is wrong.
Given what’s gone down with us in the last week or so—nothing—I’m not entirely sure if it’s my place to ask how she’s doing. But I care about her. So I’ll do it anyway.
I lower my mug and clear my throat, maybe forcing her to look up. “Are you okay?”
“Am I okay?” She repeats the question like it’s in a language she doesn’t understand.
“You seem a little off, Sabrina. Is it something with your parents?” I ask gently. Her dad is a world-class prick. Maybe he said something shitty to her yesterday on the phone? Who knows?
“No, not at all,” she says, dismissing that quickly, then taking another bite, like she wants to shut herself up.
Hmm. Maybe she had a rough day at the rink. “Was everything okay with your lessons?”
She nods as she chews, her head bobbing up and down like a puppet’s, then swallows and says, “Yes! I’m great! Everything is great!”
And that feels like a few too many greats.
“Are you sure? You seem a little…not quite yourself,” I say. I don’t want to say distracted—it’s kind of rude—but hopefully, she’ll get the point.
“Oh, so much going on, so much to do. I have videos to make,” she says, and then her eyes slide wide open as she tries to walk it back. “I mean, I don’t have more videos to make. I’m not making videos. Well, yes, I am making videos, like the ones you li—”
She cuts herself off, rolling her lips together before she finishes the word like. Her face goes pink, the color spreading across her cheeks and down her neck.
And suddenly, I wonder about the videos I like.
“Yeah, I like your videos,” I say stupidly, my voice thick, my tongue barely working.
Then…oh, shit.
I’ve never liked one before. Not on social media. But I must have last night. While I was clutching my phone with one hand and jerking my dick with the other.
Pieces of my bedroom indulgence snap back into place, rearranging into a different story.
The moment I thought I heard something late last night. When I hit pause on her skating video, pulled out an earbud, and listened to the silence before shaking it off and continuing—was she really there in the hallway?
The possibility slams into me like a hit into the boards. My chest burns, heat flooding through me. The kitchen shrinks around me, the air too thick, too charged. My pulse hammers out of control. I grip the counter to steady myself.
“I’m so glad to hear that,” she says, but her voice is still too high, her eyes darting away from mine.
The pieces assemble the rest of the way in my head. The sound I’d thought I heard last night—it was the sound of the dryer opening.
She was in the hall. Last night.
And she knows what I did.
I wonder how long she stayed outside my room. Did she stand by my barely opened door for a few seconds? A minute? Was she tempted to come in?
Heat blasts through me.
I wish she had. I wish she’d pushed open the door, leveled me with her sexy gaze, fiddling with the hem of her sleep shirt, and asked—in that Sabrina ramble—for a do-over.
“It should happen again,” she’d have murmured, like she’d already decided.