Page 9 of Summer Catch

“The best kinda surprise,” Kieran said, leaning over the bar. He was wearing an old, faded Condors T-shirt, stretched taut across his chest and his eyes glowed gray and blue and green. A thousand shades, in those eyes.

Jon didn’t usually think men were handsome—though it wasn’t like he was against acknowledging it when it was fact—but Kieran was, plain and simple, fucking hot. Made him hot under the collar.

“Are you gonna practice your superpower on me, now?” Jon teased.

Kieran smiled so wide the skin by his eyes crinkled. “What would you say if it’s still blank when I look at you?”

What else do you feel when you look at me? Are you trembling inside, now? ’Cause I am. Even though I told you a month and a half ago I was straight, and I thought I meant it.

“Is it? Did I break your superpower?” Jon asked, raising an eyebrow. Aware, on some deep, visceral level that he was definitely flirting with the guy. And not in the vague way he sometimes flirted over text.

This felt like it had purpose.

Weight.

Intent.

Maybe that was why his palms felt sweaty and he was shaking inside.

Because he’d worried it would feel like this when he came back to the Pirate’s Booty. And worried that it wouldn’t.

Kieran leaned in even more, elbows on the bar. They were only inches away, and that gray gaze swept over him like it could read every single thing he was thinking. Every single thing he was feeling.

“Do I . . .is there something on my face?” Jon stammered.

“Trust me, it’s just your face. Maybe I like looking at it,” Kieran said, eyes sweeping over Jon. “Thought maybe if I looked at it real hard, something might come to me.”

“Oh.” Jon swallowed hard. Realized that Kieran was saying his superpower still didn’t work with him. Why? Is that a good thing? What if it’s bad?

But it didn’t look bad, with Kieran gazing at him like that.

He’d admitted he liked looking at Jon’s face. Was that his way of subtly saying that he found it attractive? That he was attracted?

“It’s alright,” Kieran teased. “I can still make you a mean drink. Whatcha want?”

Jon shrugged. He wasn’t a big drinker. Not anymore. Not with this whole team—what felt like this whole city, sometimes—on his shoulders. “Whatever you want to pour me,” he said.

Kieran appeared to like that suggestion. He grabbed a copper mug and filled it with ice and, in several shockingly graceful movements, poured in several different things, topping it off with a flourish and a slice of lime, balanced on the edge, before he set it in front of Jon.

“A Moscow mule?” Jon knew what those mugs usually indicated.

Kieran shrugged. “You’re tart and a little sweet. Felt like it fit, superpower or no.”

“Thanks?” Jon was pretty sure it was a compliment. He took a sip. “This is really good.”

“And I didn’t even add the edible glitter Carter especially likes,” Jon teased.

Carter wasn’t here—in fact there were no football players here, on a Wednesday—so he felt like he could let out the eye roll that he normally tried to hold back in the presence of the Condors’ star receiver.

“Why does that not surprise me?” he muttered.

“He givin’ you problems?” Kieran asked.

It felt like the same kind of conversation they’d have over text.

Except Kieran was right there, in front of him, near enough to touch.

No matter how much Jon tried to ignore the thought, he was pretty sure he wanted to.

---