Page 47 of Obsessed with my Temptation

That made me freeze for a second. “You sound very confident about it.” Especially because this was the first I heard about it.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about this long and hard. I knew my parents wouldn’t be happy about it, so I wanted to be sure.”

Andy’s parents had a decent-sized family-owned business. They’d been pretty devastated to know Andy wasn’t going to continue when he told them years ago he wanted to go pro at boxing, and now that he had changed his mind andstillwouldn’t be doing it…I could imagine how that wouldn’t go so well.

Andy told me about how much he’d researched, talking to some people he knew. Apparently, a guy in one of his classes had a sister that owned one, and Andy had already talked to her about the whole thing.

I felt…a little impressed. Also unmoored. It felt like Andy was moving very quickly with all of this, and I had been so tangled up with everything, not even knowing he was thinking about this in the first place.

A part of me almost envied him. That he had such a freedom to change his mind on things, that he followed his instincts so head on.

“You could do this with me, you know? If you wanted,” Andy said lightly, drinking from his beer and watching the TV, but I knew he wasn’t paying attention.

“Open a gym with you?”

He turned to look at me, raising an eyebrow. “Is it so hard to believe?”

“No, just…I wasn’t expecting it.”

It felt outlandish. Doing anything other than being a pro boxer. Again, it wasn’t like I wasdyingto become one, or that I didn’t wonder what else life had to offer, but I felt like my ship had sailed for now. That I didn’t have time to consider this.

“Just throwing it out there, no need to say anything. Options are good to have, right?”

Yeah, I guess they were.

We got engrossed in the game after that, talking shit about other boxers and people in our classes, having lighthearted laughs.

And then my thoughts inevitably drifted to Scott.

Reign in your obsession, T.

We were seeing each other less than before. Or, well, you could argue we were seeing each othermoreoften, since in the past two weeks we’d started catching each other almost every day of the week, but it wasn’t the same. These were stolen moments in between things, not the two hours we got of being in each other’s presence, of having actual conversations, letting them wander or the silence linger comfortably between us.

I missed him.

I wasn’t supposed to miss him.

Looking at the TV lighting up our darkened living room, a wild idea popped into my head.

Taking my phone, I texted him without thinking twice about it.

I was already breaking all of my rules. What was one more?

He answered almost immediately.

“What, you got a date with your crush?”

I punched Andy lightly on the shoulder.

Was this a date?

Did I want it to be?

No. No dating. Not a relationship.

This was only two guys who fucked seeing each other and being civil.

Sure.

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