Between the Pipes (Offsides #3)

by J.J. Mulder

After spending the day with Anthony Lawson’s rugged good-looks slapping me in the face every time I turned around, Brad is a bit of a letdown. He looks like he needs to be put back in the oven to cook some more. Not that I should judge anyone by their appearance, when I look like I went ten rounds with a pair of scissors.

“I swear to god, if you ask me if I’ve got a problem with queer people again I’m going to pull over and beat the shit out of you. Not because you’re gay, but because you’re an asshole.”

“I guess we’ll just have to date each other. We can be miserable together.”

I guess we’ll just have to date each other, he said earlier. Yes, please, I think, and surprise myself.

I shouldn’t like him; I shouldn’t even want to be friends with him. But, absurdly, I want to kiss him.

Somehow, my useless eyes have no problem at all focusing on him.

I know I need to tone it down, but I can’t. Jesus, but I fucking want him.

“You told me yesterday that you were straight.” “And you told me that we should date each other,” I point out.

It’s been a long time since anyone looked at me with the level of interest that he looks at me with. There is no way this is one-sided.

He licks his lips, and fucking hell, I want to kiss him so bad.

He clears his throat, making his voice only a little less gravely. I wish he would narrate audiobooks; I wouldn’t mind going to sleep every night with that voice in my ears.

“I didn’t see it because I’m almost fully blind in my right eye, and partially blind in my left eye.”

He blushes. Actually blushes: a sudden bloom of color over his cheeks. Jesus Christ that’s fucking adorable.

It is a hockey rink, like I thought. My hockey rink, at SCU. And the figure on the ice is unmistakably me. It’s a ridiculously accurate rendering, and I have the uncomfortable sensation of looking in a mirror. A flattering mirror. He’s drawn my face in a way that makes it obvious it’s me, but also makes me look better than I do. The scars are there—one long one bisecting an eyebrow and traveling across the corner of my eye, with a few smaller ones on my forehead. Somehow, he’s made the scars the least interesting part of my face. It’s how I wish I actually looked.

“That is how you look,” Anthony says, and I jolt. I hadn’t realized I’d said that last out loud.

I don’t grab his hand, but I want to. Nobody has ever accused me of being smart.

This thing between Nico and I isn’t just a hookup, not to me. Sounds like you might be setting yourself up for heartbreak, Sam had told me. Looks like he’s going to owe me an I told you so, before this is through.

If nothing else is accomplished this summer, please let me at least leave Carter Morgan with a fucking friend.

It burns me how much I like him; I like him so fucking much I hate him.

Troy just got home. He had fun and also told me that he thinks you and Nico are fucking. I’ll go ahead and leave that conversation for you, shall I?

I want someone to stick, and I want that someone to be Nico. God help me.

Please, please, rely on me. Rely on me so much that you never ask me to leave.

I can hardly blame him, since I’m a little bit in love with him as well.

On my way out the door, I stop dead as I notice something hanging on the wall. Above his dresser, in a spot he’d see it every day, is the quick sketch I’d done and given him. It’s framed, and is the only piece of artwork he has hung up in the entire house. My eyes burn as I stare at it. He wouldn’t have kept it if I—we—didn’t mean anything to him.

He still smells faintly of hospital antiseptic, which makes me want to scrub him down in the shower. I want him to smell like my Nico, which is, of course, wildly absurd. He’s not my anything.

“You’d be easy to fall in love with, if I didn’t know what a spectacularly bad idea that would be.”

If my house was on fire, it’s the first thing I’d grab on my way out the door.

“What do I want…simple answer? You, Anthony, I just want you. I don’t know how that looks now, but if you don’t want to hide then we won’t. I dictated everything between us before, and I was wrong. Maybe, we try things your way from now on.”

Every small breath he takes comes directly from my lungs, and mine from his. I could live on a lifetime of kisses like this.