Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111089 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 555(@200wpm)___ 444(@250wpm)___ 370(@300wpm)
I laughed. “No, yeah. Of course. I…um…meant, you look…”
“You can save it for a moment where you’re not trying to redeem yourself.” The grin on her face assured me I hadn’t blown the date already.
Truth was, I was never the kind of guy to totally lose myself over a hot girl. Sheila was beautiful, but I was never like most guys, who could fall head over heels straight away over someone like that. As I’d told Kyle, I had to get to know a person…well, as much as I felt I had gotten to know Sheila. That was what really turned me on.
“Anyway,” she went on, “has he officially come out to you?”
“Not in so many words. I was planning to wait until he volunteers something more explicit before I say anything.”
“I would maybe take a brochure or a printout of a resource. Do you have anything from the program at your old school?”
“I might, actually.”
“That keeps it very much a discussion with boundaries, where you’re offering him something that could be of value in helping him navigate the experience. Obviously, you need to do this in private and—”
“Of course.”
“But that’s really wonderful that you want to help one of your kids like that.”
“He’s hardly a kid.” I didn’t know why that had pushed out of my mouth as quickly as it had, but I couldn’t help it. Kyle was no kid.
She thought again. “Malcolm Wyle?”
“Stop!”
She enjoyed a laugh before reaching across the table, setting her hand on mine. Her touch was warm, comforting. “I’m glad you accepted my invitation.”
“Me too. It’s kind of amazing to be able to interact with someone like this after Sheila.”
“What do you mean? You don’t get together with friends or…”
“I lost a lot of friends during that relationship. Sheila was always very worried…”
“Paranoid?”
“It was just easier that way. Sorry, didn’t mean to bring her up.”
“It’s fine. You guys were together for five years. And it sounds like there’s still a lot to unpack.”
Even though I knew what she meant, it made me think about all those boxes I still hadn’t gotten around to unpacking.
“Yeah,” I said, taking her hand in mine.
Even just touching was nice.
Really nice.
11
Kyle
Was it just me, or was James becoming even more adorable the longer I knew him?
Were his shirts tighter than usual, or was he putting on some extra muscle at the gym?
How many days had it been since he trimmed his sexy-as-fuck scruff?
I caught myself sketching his face in my notebook, not because I had any artistic talent, but because his face was becoming a bit of an obsession. Again and again, I’d draw it in the margins of the sheet I’d brought to take notes. I wanted to get the dimensions right, and when I finally got the jaw just how it needed to be, I quickly scratched it all out to keep anyone from discovering my hobby.
As soon as I’d blacked out the little cartoony face, Mr. Warner cracked a joke that earned some giggles.
He smiled like he was so pleased at the reception.
That smile… That damn smile.
It would have annoyed me more if it hadn’t been so goddamn adorable.
I was constantly fighting both sides of the tug-of-war in my mind. One minute, the way he tucked his glasses up his nose annoyed the hell out of me; the next, it made me so hard, my dick crimped painfully in my jeans as he introduced us to the Shakespearean part of the semester.
I’d never denied myself wanting anyone—guy or girl, teacher or not. But it was different with James. I didn’t feel how I typically did whenever I had the hots for a guy. It was much more than that.
Even noticing one of my classmates rolling their eyes or yawning at one of his corny jokes made me want to flip a desk over and lose my shit. I wondered if, at least in part, it had something to do with the night he’d been attacked. If some primal impulse had switched on, making me feel like his protector.
I’d tell myself I simply enjoyed his company or being friends, but that didn’t account for my raging hard-on, my balls pulling close like if I made a wrong move at my desk, I might blow my load. Was I thirteen again?
What made it even worse was that, with wanting to fuck someone, I usually felt reciprocation on their end, but not with James. He didn’t give me one damn reason to believe he saw me as anything more than his friendly student.
Maybe that was part of what pissed me off so much. I knew all this daydreaming in and out of class was a waste of time.
Not that it would have mattered even if he’d wanted more from me. He was my teacher. End of discussion. But then all I wanted to discuss was how those brown eyes seemed to change ever so slightly every time we saw one another—depending on the light, or his mood, or maybe simply because I allowed myself to really take them in more and more each time we had a moment together.