Page 21 of Catching Kyle

Michael laughs, but there’s a sharpness to it. “Did you even read the book?”

There’s that heartburn again. I feel like I’ve displeased Michael, but I don’t know how. “Yes, I did.”

He shakes his head. “Then we must have read different copies or something. Because the copy I read, I felt, really highlighted the autonomy of these three women in a setting that has traditionally been so restrictive to women.”

I lean forward and drop my hand from my beard, leaning on my knees. I watch Michael. Fascinated. He talks faster, but he pronounces each syllable more clearly, as if this is some speech he’s prepared. But I can tell this isn’t coming from some paper he wrote. It’s coming from the heart.

“A ranch in small-town Montana? That’s as conservative as it gets. Yet these women defy the odds by continually making decisions that are best forthem, following through on these decisions, and meanwhile having these ‘cowboys’, as you describe them, fall head over heels for them. And it’s only when these women allow it do these men finally get what they want.”

He finishes, and I’m just stuck staring at him. I have to remember to breathe.

“Sorry,” he says. “I know you said you wanted to just go over the basic discussion we had yesterday at Ruckers. You don’t need to hear all my ramblings.” He pulls out a journal from his back, the one that presumably had all those notes.

“Hey, no, that’s okay. I really like hearing what you have to say.”

He looks up at me, there’s a small sparkle in his eye.

I swallow and, not realizing saliva had pooled into my mouth, start coughing.

“Are you okay?” he asks when I don’t stop.

I reach for my water and take a big gulp. I’m embarrassed when nearly a third of the glass spills onto my chest, soaking my shirt and dripping onto my stomach.

“Oh my gosh,” Michael says, standing up. “Let me get you something to dry off.”

I grunt. “It’s fine.” I grab the collar of my shirt and quickly strip it off. I take the dry bits and dry the rest of my torso off. And when I look up at Michael, he stares at me as if I ripped my own arm off.

And that’s when it hits me.

Michael isn’t being shy because he thinks I hate gay people or because I don’t drink or whatever.

He’s shy because he thinks I’m hot.

I’d recognize that look anywhere—I call it the sticky stare. When people’s eyes seem to stick to you anywhere you go. Not to brag, but I see it every time I go out. I just didn’t think the man I’ve been crushing on for years would think this about me.

“Let me go get another shirt,” I say, even though I know he would much rather I stay here shirtless. I stand up as Michael remains frozen, and I pretend not to notice his gawking.

“Okay,” he chokes out.

I make my way upstairs and find a replacement shirt, unable to keep the smile off my face. Michael—Peter Cummins—thinks I’m hot. Even when I was granted the title of Sexiest Man Alive, I was flattered, but not to the extent I am now. The gay pornstar that I have followed for years thinks I’m just as attractive. I don’t know what to do with this information. But I like it.

When I make my way back downstairs, Michael is scrolling on his phone. His shoulders are tense, and he’s shrunk himself inside the couch cushion again. Before, I would have been uncomfortable with his discomfort, but now I welcome it. He can think I’m hot all he wants. Now he knows how I feel.

He looks up at me when he sits down and quickly thrusts his phone into his pocket as if I were to chide him for having it out.

“We were saying?” I ask, unable to stop the smug, toothless smile forming on my face.

He looks down at his book. “Um, I was just talking about this book is just more than cute. It’s inspiring. At least to me.”

Ah, yes. His little talk that had me gawking at him just as he was me.

“I don’t know if I would go as far as to describe it as inspiring, but like I said, it was good.”

“Why is it not inspiring?” he asks.

I shrug, confidence oozing through me. “I mean, how inspiring can the romance genre be? It’s about people falling in love. And often times it’s unhealthy. Fantasy, on the other hand, is inspiring. Take Lord of the Rings. You take this little nobody from a backwater place and give him the directive to save the world. It’s a bit overdone at this point, but the message never gets old: anyone, no matter how small, can change the world. Romance just gets people off.”

When I finish, I expect him to ogle at me just like I did him. But he just glares at me, a half-formed scowl on his face.