Page 34 of Hot Streak

But that was dream Jackson. Regular Jackson didn’t look at him like that.

He wouldn’t.

Connor tried talking himself off the ledge—but that was hard, because he was hard. That was kind of a difficult thing to explain away if a part of him, if all of him, wasn’t interested.

It was just because Jackson was so good-looking. That had to be it.

He didn’t even like the guy. He was kind of asshole. A brash asshole, who exuded all this fucking confidence that sucked all the air out of the room. Sucked the certainty out of everyone around him.

He wasn’t God’s fucking gift to baseball. He was just another random guy, floating around the minors. He wasn’t going places, not like Connor.

And yet, everyone listened to him. Even Andy. Even the skipper. Even Charlie now. He’s pretty damn good, Charlie had insisted just last night, when Connor had tried to argue otherwise.

If he was so goddamned amazing, then why had he kept calling for Connor to hit that corner the ump wasn’t giving him? That didn’t make any fucking sense.

Okay. So he didn’t like him.

But it wasn’t like he’d had to like any of the girls he’d ever hooked up with. In fact, there’d been one out in LA that he could barely stand to exchange small talk with before they’d always fallen into bed.

That fact certainly hadn’t stopped him before.

And God, Jackson was hot.

In a way that Connor had never, ever noticed about a guy before.

He knew there were some guys—less secure guys, for sure—who shied away from even the idea of being attracted to another guy. Like it made them less of a man.

Connor didn’t agree. If he was able to admit this, own this feeling, then didn’t that make him strong and confident? That he didn’t give a shit about what anyone thought of him?

Of course, owning it to himself was one thing and acknowledging it to Jackson was another thing entirely.

Wouldn’t it just make him so much cockier, to know about Connor’s attraction?

Look at me, look at how hot I am, I even turned Connor Clark, the famous Comet, gay.

Connor knew that wasn’t a thing. That, like his sister said, they all existed on a spectrum. But it sure felt like he had just been going on, minding his own fucking business, and then Jackson had appeared, the key to his particular lock.

He flopped over and reached for his phone.

There was only one person he could call about this. Not Maya, who would only crow about how she’d been right. Besides, she wouldn’t have any concrete advice to offer, not like Tristan.

It was early, so he texted first, even though Tristan was probably up early too, because he was in Miami for training camp.

Tristan Nicholson was wide receiver for the Miami Piranhas, currently heading into his third year. They’d met last summer in LA, at one of the many house parties in the hills. Tristan had been with his boyfriend, Wade, who was also his teammate. And he and Connor had hit it off, chattering half the night and as Wade said wryly more than once, trying to outshine each other.

Tristan was a very good-looking guy. Objectively, Connor could acknowledge that, and yet, he’d not felt a thing for the guy other than friendship.

So why now? Why Jackson?

Instead of texting back, Tristan called.

“It’s early,” Tristan complained. “And you woke me up.”

“Actually,” a voice added, that Connor recognized as Wade’s, “you woke me up.”

“Sorry,” Connor said.

“Everything alright?” Tristan asked, after shushing his boyfriend.

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