Page 102 of Untouchable Player

“She saw used condoms in the trash.”

“Oh, shit, sorry, maybe I should have hid them…”

Nate crosses the room and kisses me, slow and deep, and it shuts me up.

“It’s fine, she approves.”

“She does?’

He laughs, “of course she does. She thinks you’re a ‘hunk.’”

“Oh.” My face gets hot.

“Jesse, what’s wrong? What happened?”

I step back, because I need to breathe and I still can’t believe this happened.

“I was scouted.”

“Oh my god.”

“By an ECHL team, in North Carolina.”

“Oh.”

“I don’t think I’m gonna go.”

“Why not?”

I shrug. “Because I wanna graduate and just being in this school is like the best opportunity I’ve ever been given. Because I don’t want to sign a three year contract with the Carolina Steamrollers to beat the shit out of people and then get passed up as soon as I’m worn out. Because I don’t really need to play hockey to be happy…”

Nate comes closer again, he’s tentative as he picks my hand up and I squeeze it to let him know I want him here.

“How long do you have to think about it?”

“I don’t know, at least a few weeks I think.”

“So take a few weeks.”

I nod.

“But I think you already know what you want to do, right?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“It’s not because of me though is it?”

“What?”

“Not going to North Carolina? I mean, it’d suck having you that far away, but if it was your dream, we could make it work.”

I cup his face, “no, don’t worry, it’s not that, though getting to stay here does have its benefits.’”

He stands on his tip toes to kiss me and I drink him in.

“I think I want to do the summer camp thing and get my grad degree in sports training.”

Nate beams at me. “Are you sure?”

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