Page 9 of It's All You

I smile as I watch him, face so bright it’s like the sun is shining through the roof of the arena. I don’t completely follow what he’s saying, but that doesn’t matter. Seeing him enjoy himself like this is the real entertainment for me.

“Yeah, it was amazing.”

Beau pauses and gives me a resigned look. “Do you even know what I’m talking about?”

I offer him an apologetic shrug. “Not really?”

Beau slings his arm around my shoulders and gives me a squeeze. “G, man, what am I going to do with you?”

His arm is heavy and warm and I can’t help but melt into him a bit. He’s looking at me with that familiar quirk of his lips, eyes shining from all the excitement. My heart does a little dance in my chest.

What happens next will be seared into my memory for the rest of my life. One second, it’s only the two of us in the stands, sharing our little moment. The next second, we’re on the Jumbotron’s kiss cam and the entire arena is staring at us, waiting for us to smooch.

I watch the shock register on my enormous face and my mouth opens to explain to them that Beau and I are just friends. Then Beau’s arm tightens around me, pulling me flush to his side, and he leans in. His smile never budges. In fact, I think it gets bigger. His other hand comes up to cradle my face, holding me in place as he plants his lips on my cheek.

One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi.

It isn’t a simple peck. He holds the kiss long enough that there’s no way to dismiss it as a slip of his lips. Then he leans his temple against mine andfucking grinsout at the crowd like he’s posing for the cameras.

My mouth hangs open as thousands of spectators whoop and holler at our image. I mean, yeah, maybe a straight guy who is confident in his masculinity won’t mind kissing his best friend on the cheek sometimes. But this isn’t that. We look like a couple. There’s no way we can be mistaken for anything else.

The camera cuts away as quickly as it cut to us, leaving me stunned and staggering.

“Why did you do that?” I sound accusatory. And yeah, maybe I am, because what the actual fuck?

Beau looks at me, genuinely confused. “Do what?”

“That!” I wave at my cheek, which still burns with the imprint of his lips on it.

He sits back, though his arm is still slung over the back of my seat. “It was the kiss cam,” he says, like that explains anything.

“I know it’s the kiss cam!” I hiss, not wanting to draw any more attention than we already have.

“You’re supposed to kiss when you’re on the kiss cam,” he says slowly, as if I might not understand him otherwise. He’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind, and what the hell, maybe I have.

I fold over, elbows on my knees, fingers stabbed through my hair. I want to grab Beau and show him what a real kiss looks like. I want to freaking strangle him. He needs to figure his life out sooner rather than later, because one of these days, I’m either going to stab him or fuck him. Neither option is good.

CHAPTER TWELVE

BEAU

Okay, so maybe I shouldn’t have kissed Gavin like that. In my defense, thatiswhat you’re supposed to do when you find yourself on the kiss cam. I suppose I didn’t have to kiss him for that long, or lean my head against his, or smile like it’s the first time I’ve ever been happy. Except, at that moment, I was happy—truly, genuinely happy—and I can’t remember the last time I felt quite so light and carefree.

Gavin’s little meltdown put a bit of a damper on things, but we managed to rally somewhat in the second period. By the time the game ended, we were back to our old selves—that is, being all awkward and overly polite with each other.

I’ve been thinking about it all day: why things have gotten so weird between us. If I’m honest, I haven’t paid much attention to Gavin’s love life through the years. I mean, if he’s seeing someone, I’ll ask how it’s going and I’ve met a couple of his boyfriends before. His relationships never seem to last long, though, and I’ve never bothered to ask why. That’s a far cry from saying he has feelings for me, but there’s something there that keeps niggling at me.

“Hey, thanks again for these tickets, G,” I say as we inch our way out of the arena.

“No problem. It was fun.”

To anyone else, that would sound like a totally sincere comment. But I know Gavin, and I can hear the tension tainting his words.

“Come on, this way’s faster.” He takes my arm and drags me sideways, cutting through the current of people all headed toward the subway.

Someone comes barging through the crowd, dislodging Gavin’s hand on my arm, and for a moment we’re two balloons in the pool, drifting away from each other. A gap opens in front of me and I surge forward, grabbing onto Gavin’s arm. My hand slides down to his wrist and before I can think about what I’m doing, we’re holding hands.

And not the way you might shake someone’s hand where you keep all your fingers together. Oh no, our fingers are spread apart, slotting into place in between each other. I squeeze his hand and he squeezes back, and suddenly it feels like our hands are bound together with a force that’s not of this world.

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