Page 63 of Breaking the Ice

It had been so good, until Gavin had lost his mind and nearly kissed Zach again.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Gavin said.

“Why not?”

God, this was so embarrassing. “I’m not that good at uh . . .controlling myself,” Gavin said. “There’s a line and I’ve told myself there’s no crossing it, that I don’t even want to cross it, but . . .”

“But you want to,” Jon finished for him.

He wanted more than anything to sayno,he never wanted to cross it, but that would be a lie, because he wanted to cross it all the fucking time.

It was unfair to him. Even more unfair to Zach.

“I almost kissed him again,” Gavin confessed.

“Yesterday? Today?”

“Twoweeks ago.”

Jon’s eyebrows went up. “So you’ve been agonizing about this for two weeks.”

I’ve been agonizing about this since June. Since it happened the first time.

“I thought I would . . .get used to it. Or I would get over it. Or I would—” Gavin broke off with a muttered curse.

“You spend a lot of time together.”

“Atwork. We’re working,” Gavin emphasized.

“Right. And you enjoy that?”

“Yeah, I do. He sees me. And I think . . .I see him?”

“Okay. That’s good. That’s really good, Gavin.” Jon was nearly smiling now and Gavin wished that he’d not done this at all. But if he didn’t, what was he going to do about it? He’d run out of ways he could avoid it on his own.

“Why does it feel so shitty then?” Gavin wanted to know.

“Because you’re not giving yourself what you really want. You’re holding back.” Jon paused. “Are you attracted to him?”

Gavin groaned. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“That’s a yes, then.”

“It’s a . . .it’s a yes,” Gavin admitted, flushing bright red. He couldn’t deny it. Especially not after they’d shared the gym today.

“Okay, are you masturbating? Giving yourself the release you need? I know you were, but what about recently?” Jon asked so matter-of-factly that Gavin wanted to die.

Gavin stared at the laptop screen,veryglad that he’d proactively decided to take this call at home and not in his office at the rink.

It was terrible no matter where they were discussing it, butGod, imagine if Zach—or anyone else—overheard?

“We’ve talked about this,” Jon chided gently as Gavin tried to avoid looking at his brick red face on the laptop screen.

“Yeah, and funny, it doesn’t seem to get easier,” Gavin croaked. It had been, at least before Zach had arrived on the scene.

“You going to answer the question?”

“No, I thought I could just die of embarrassment instead.”