Page 82 of Unrecognizable Player

He looks confused.

“Why would you be jealous of anyone? You’re like… Captain America.”

“Captain America?” His eyebrows shoot up, his eyes bright with amusement.

“Yeah, all chiseled jaw and high cheekbones and a body you could immortalize in marble.”

My face is burning, but mine isn’t the only one.

“Wow, well, thanks, I’m glad you think that. But maybe you didn’t hear me when I told you how beautiful you are like ten million times.”

I smile, dropping my eyes. I’m not used to all this praise. Sure my family praise my violin-playing, and Artemis and Mama always tell me I’m handsome, but I don’t think anyone has ever called be ‘beautiful.’

“But hey, that’s not the only reason why I did what I did last night, with you I mean,” he says.

“No?”

“No way. I likeyou.I like the person you are. You’re kind and you see the good in people, even if they don’t deserve it. And you’re patient, and honest and…”

A rush of blood drowns out whatever else he was saying after he calls me ‘honest.’ How can I be honest when I know I’m his online pen pal and I haven’t told him yet?

“Hey,” I feel him tuck a strand of hair behind my ear and snap out of it. “You okay?”

“Yeah just…” I look at him. The words are right there on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t do it. I’m selfish, I know, but I don’t want this to end.

“… a little surprised, about all this. When I moved in with a hot hockey player, I didn’t think we were gonna end up having sex.”

“You’re gonna have to stop with the compliments, you’re giving me a big head.”

“I think you could do with an ego boost. You’re a lot better in every way than you think.”

He gets up, backing off finally. All it took was a compliment.

“So I know you have to go to practice and classes and everything, but maybe you wanna hang out in-between, I don’t have anything to do until I’m signed off to go back to practice except study.”

“Sure, of course I wanna hang out with you. On one condition.”

“Shoot.”

“You’ll stop watching TV and stay off your phone, because it’s bad for your concussion and Google said so.”

His cocks his head. “That was two conditions.”

“Okay, I’ll amend it – no screens.”

His smile lights up the room. Dimples popping and brown eyes shining.

“What are you gonna do to entertain me?” He asks. His voice dripping with inuendo.

“No sex either.”

“I could just give you blow jobs.”

My face flushes. “As much as I’d love that, it would be incredibly selfish.”

“Yeah well, I think you deserve a little selfishness sometimes. But if you don’t want me to do that, there is something you could do for me, something I’d like and that probably isn’t against Google’s concussion rules.”

“Oh yeah?” My heart pounds at the prospect of being able to do something for him. Something to make him happy.

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