Page 69 of Breaking the Ice

Or how much he wanted it still, despite just coming his brains out.

Chapter 10

Itwassofrustrating.

Zach thought he’d get used to pretending that everything was fine and normal. He’d been doing it for weeks, for fuckingmonthsat this point, but sitting across from Gavin, both of them acting like they hadn’t talked to each other last night likethat. Ignoring the way the air crackled between them. Evading even the slightest mention of the two times—thetwotimes—they’d almost kissed.

But he wasn’t used to it.

He leaned back in their booth in Jimmy’s—they had a fucking booth now, one they sat in multiple times a week, sharing breakfasts and lunches and dinners and even occasionally a late night snack—and stared at Gavin opposite him.

Gavin didn’t look at him, just kept his eyes pinned to his egg white omelet, and Zach wanted to deny it, even to himself, but he fuckingcravedGavin’s gaze.

Wanted to know, without a single doubt, that he was as affected by this crackling tension as Zach was.

“Good eggs?” It was a stupid question. Gavin always got the same breakfast order and ate it like it was going out of style. Today wasn’t an exception.

Gavin glanced up, and Zach felt a thrill when their eyes met,finally.

He must’ve felt it too, because Gavin flushed a little, high on his cheekbones.

“Yeah,” Gavin said. “Yours good?” He gestured towards Zach’s plate. He’d been pushing his corned beef hash around not because it wasn’t good, but because he was getting really fucking tired of not talking about this.

Zach nodded.

Hayes would tell him to keep being patient, and hecouldbe patient, but he also needed something.

A tiny sliver of hope, to make the waiting easier.

“So . . .uh . . .about what we talked about last night . . .” Zach trailed off. Their phone call last night hadn’t beenthatdifferent than a dozen or so other phone calls, which really, that said it all, didn’t it?

“Hmm?”

Zach swore that Gavin’s flush was deepening. And okay, he’d been kind of obsessed with how soft and earnest and serious Gavin had sounded, howintoit Gavin had been, even during a throwaway convo that wasn’t all that much different than so many of their others. But to know Gavin was equally into it?

Was it any wonder Zach was losing his fucking mind?

“I mean, it was nice, you know?” Zach didn’t know how to say,it was better than nice; itwas everything.

And it hadn’t been anything special. That was why he was so fucking stuck on this.

“Yeah,” Gavin agreed. But then his eyes dropped back down to his stupid egg whites.

Zach wanted to scream.

Hayes would still tell him to be patient, but it was way too easy to just push that voice aside.

“It was more than nice,” Zach said. Hating how silly he sounded.You can do this. Break through the polite fucking platitudes.“Every time we talk, like that, I think, it can’t feel any better, but it does.” He dropped his voice lower. Trying to find that intimacy they effortlessly built every night. “Every time we talk, I don’t want to hang up.”

Thatgot his attention—in a major way. Gavin glanced up, looking shocked and astonished, like he actually thought he and Zach could keep going like this forever, edging around it, but never fucking talking about it.

Well, Zach was done with that. He was cutting through the bullshit.

“I don’t know—”

“Don’t say you don’t know what I’m talking about,” Zach said in a low voice. “You know. It’s okay. I feel it too. I felt it in Michigan, and two weeks ago, when we walked through the quad, and every fucking night, on the phone.”

Gavin’s mouth opened and then he snapped it shut again.