Page 94 of Off Limits

“I’ve never read a romance or a why choose story, but I gotta say, as a bi man, it would be fun to read something that has bi men in it. I don’t know if it’s just me, but most of the stuff I’ve seen that has a bi storyline or characters is centered around bi women, and most of it feels like it’s for straight men and not for other queer people.”

He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve noticed that too, especially in anything that’s mainstream. It’s been like that with gay content for years. It’s like the only time they can tell gay stories is if the gay characters suffer, and even then, they don’t usually get a happy ending.” He paused and chewed on his bottom lip.

I knew that look. He was building up the courage to say something. I stayed quiet, giving him a chance to gather his thoughts.

“Did you mean it?” he asked, his voice catching and betraying his nerves. “About wanting to read my trilogy.”

“Yeah. I did.”

“You can, if you want.” He flicked his gaze around the room nervously. “It’s not edited or anything, so there’s a ton of errors in it. And there’s probably some plot issues?—”

“I’d love to read it.”

He blew out a breath and offered me a wobbly smile. “You’re the first person who’s ever wanted to read anything of mine.”

“Really?”

He nodded.

“It might take me a while to finish it because I’m the world’s slowest reader, but I’d love to read it if you want to share it with me.”

“Do you have an e-reader?”

“No, but I have an app on my tablet that can open e-books. Will that work?”

“It should. I’ll email the files to you later, and you can let me know if you need them sent in a different format.” He bit back a grin.

“What’s that smile for?”

“Nothing.” He wiped his hand over his mouth, like he was trying to wipe his smile away. “It’s just kind of surreal that we’re here, you know? We couldn’t even be in the same room together six months ago, and now we’re friends, and we cam together, and you want to read my stuff.” He let out a bewildered laugh. “It’s just weird to think about how different things are.”

“Yeah, they definitely are different.”

We lapsed into silence. I pulled my phone out of my hoodie pocket to check the time. It wasn’t even ten yet.

“Do you want to watch something?” I asked impulsively. “Maybe find a movie or a show to distract us for a while?”

“Yeah.” He smiled in that shy way that was going to be the death of me. “That sounds good.”

I handed him the remote. “You pick. I’m done with making decisions tonight.”

“Are you in the mood for something light and funny, or are you wanting action? Or maybe something that makes you think?”

“Whatever you want. Just nothing with spiders.”

The corner of his mouth tilted up in a smirk. “No spiders?”

“Nope. I don’t mind the little harmless ones, but anything bigger than a quarter scares the ever-loving shit out of me. I have no clue why, but it’s been like that since I was a kid.”

“You know what scares the shit out of me?” he asked, his eyes on the TV as he scrolled through one of my streaming services. “Any kind of real underwater footage from the ocean or even lakes where you can’t see anything but water. I don’t know why,but I spend the entire time convinced a giant monster is going to appear and attack the camera, and the thought of being out in the ocean or a deep lake, even on a boat, and not knowing what’s under me is a hard no.”

“Isn’t that an actual phobia? The fear of the ocean or something like that?”

“Yeah. Thalassophobia is the fear of large bodies of water, and megalohydrothalassophobia is the fear of underwater objects or creatures. Lucky me has both.”

“I promise to never bring you near a lake or the ocean or show you underwater footage if you promise to take care of any spiders in the apartment and not show me any movies with killer spiders in them.”

He chuckled. “Deal. Have you seen this show?” He motioned to the TV with the remote.

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