Page 58 of Depths of Desire
Now, I was that guy. I was the hummer. The smiler. The one whose step bounced a little higher even when his quads ached from back-to-back drills.
“You’re dating him,” Rhett said one afternoon, tossing a granola bar onto his desk like it offended him personally. “Just admit it.”
I was lying on my bed, hoodie bunched at my shoulders, one arm flung over my eyes. Oliver’s latest voice note still echoed in my earbuds. He’d been rambling about a pigeon outside the locker room window that wouldn’t stop watching him change. The story had no moral, no punchline, just pure Lennox bait: his voice, soft with amusement, going a little breathy when he laughed at himself. I’d listened to it four times already and didn’t even care that I knew it by heart.
“We’re just…hanging out from time to time,” I said, voice full of fake indifference.
“Hanging out,” Rhett repeated like it was a tragic diagnosis. “Correction. It’s all the time. And you love it.”
I tilted my head and tried to stifle the grin tugging at my mouth. “Don’t start.”
He pointed a finger at me like I’d confirmed his entire thesis. “That’s the face. That’s the face of a man who knows exactly what he’s doing and does it anyway. Same face a cat makes half a second before pushing a glass off the counter.”
I didn’t deny it.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
Everything I did lately, consciously or not, circled back to Oliver. Tuesday mornings were suddenly sacred because that’s when Oliver had a late start and could leave a voice note while walking to class. I started planning workouts around his breaks. I took longer routes to meals in case I happened to run into him by the pool. And I never skipped a song on the playlist he sent me, even when I didn’t like it. Especially when I didn’t like it. Because he’d picked it. Because he thought I should hear it.
Love didn’t feel like fireworks or free fall.
It felt like gravity had shifted.
Like my center of balance had relocated, just slightly, but permanently, to wherever he happened to be.
He came to my game in the city that weekend.
I didn’t know he would, not for sure, but some part of me hoped in that quiet, stubborn way you hope for a miracle without daring to say it out loud. And then there he was, second row, ball cap low like he was trying to fly under the radar, arms folded like he wasn’t sure what to do with them.
He looked so stupidly, painfully good.
Soft navy hoodie and that crisp, sharp jaw. I caught sight of him mid-warm-up, and it knocked the air from my lungs. The kind of jolt that didn’t come from nerves or adrenaline. It came from knowing. From wanting.
When our eyes met across the rink, he didn’t smile right away. He just looked at me. Really looked. And whatever was in his expression, it lit me up from the inside out. I grinned like an idiot and turned away before I did something dumber, like blow him a kiss in front of the team.
But my chest stayed warm.
I scored that game.
Clean shot, fast release, perfect angle. The kind of goal you didn’t plan, just felt. Like instinct sharpened by heartbeats.
And I didn’t celebrate like I usually did. Didn’t raise my stick, didn’t slam the glass, didn’t let the noise carry me.
I just turned and looked for him.
He was on his feet, clapping hard, his whole body involved in the motion. I could see his mouth moving, cheering, probably, but all I could hear was the blood in my ears and the rush of something so fierce in my chest I could barely contain it.
That goal? That was his.
Every shift I skated. Every drop of sweat. Every breath that burned in my lungs until that puck slammed home.
All his.
I didn’t tell anyone: not Easton, not Elio, not even Rhett.
Some things were too private. Too sacred.
Afterward, when the buzzer sounded and the crowd began to rise, I looked up again and saw him still there. Waiting. Watching me. Like the win didn’t matter, just that I came through it whole.
