Page 51 of Catching Kyle (Football Heartthrobs #1)

Michael Cunningham

On my day off, I decide to sleep in. I watch the sun rise through the window, and the colors remind me of the Thanksgiving sunset back in Glamour Springs, making my stomach all twisty.

I turn over and face the wall. Amani told me that Kyle wants to see me, but I don’t want to see him.

I can’t. What would be the point? ‘Oh, Michael, I love you, and I’ll never let you down’, and then have him ghost me five minutes after?

The man is a freshly out frenetic mess of jumbled nerves who will jump at any opportunity to be ‘normal’, regardless of the cost. I’m not opening up to somebody who hasn’t worked through who he is.

I’ve talked to Susan about this too, and she thinks my logic is sound.

I’ve come too far in my recovery to let some man take advantage of my good will just so he can temporarily get what he wants and then throw me away when he gets too scared of what we have. I’m not doing it anymore. I’m not.

After I lay there for a little longer, my anxiety preventing me from falling back asleep, I decide to roll over and scroll on my phone.

I normally hate doing this in the mornings, but fuck it—it’s my day off.

I check my email, and I see a message at the top that came in just ten minutes ago.

It’s from a familiar name, but I can’t pinpoint how I recognize it.

But when I open the email, the memory comes flooding back.

It’s the last literary agent who had my full manuscript, the same one I thought ghosted me just like Kyle did .

And she wants to set up a call.

“No fucking way,” I say, sitting up in my bed.

I reach up and pull my hair up from my scalp to see if I’m dreaming.

Thankfully, I’m not. Immediately open up an email to reply.

I give her my number and tell her she can call anytime today, and I provide some later times this week as well.

I hit send and then sit there, my body lit with excitement. Almost immediately, I receive a reply.

“Great! I’ll call around 2PM your time today. Looking forward to it!”

I’m so thrilled that I have to resist screaming and waking my neighbors up. There’s usually only one reason why an agent wants to call, and I doubt I’m the exception. I’m about to be an agented author.

I immediately jump out of bed and head for the shower.

I want to feel as prepared as possible for this call later.

In the shower, I’m singing—fucking singing.

I can’t remember the last time I was this thrilled.

This has been years in the making. God, I’ve wanted an agent ever since I took that class on the business of publishing in college. And it’s finally happening.

After I get out of the shower, I call Amani, and she’s squealing so loud through the phone I’m afraid my neighbors will hear.

“You call me immediately after,” she says. “I want to know how it goes.”

“Will do,” I say, sitting down at my desk after I’m all dressed. I hang up and message Skye and Josue, with whom I am again on speaking terms, and I share the news. They offer their congratulations, and the heat of pride warms my chest.

Staring at my computer, I let out one more shout of joy, and then I turn it on.

If I’m going to be talking with an agent today, I know she’ll ask what else I’m working on.

And I can’t remember the last time I touched my previous work in progress.

I remember it was similar, about two magicians on their way to slay a dragon, but that’s about all I have.

I’ll need to brush up on it, possibly do some edits and more writing, to make sure I know what I’m talking about.

So that’s what I do. By the time it’s lunch time, I’ve reread the whole thing and added about five pages, confident that my next book isn’t total garbage.

I take a break for lunch. When I get back to my desk, I get that post-food drowsiness, and I have to fight to maintain my focus.

My train of thought during this period also gets darker too.

For whatever reason, at the brightest moments of the day, I get the most depressed.

I chuckle to myself, remembering all the times I’ve been rained on.

It’s like the weather and I are mortal enemies.

I reread over what I’ve written today, and then my chest sinks.

How could I think this was good? Oh no. This is bad.

The dialogue between my characters is cliched and surface level.

My worldbuilding is much too obvious and distracting.

Oh, and my overall plot? Stupid. Who would want to read about two gay magicians going to slay a dragon? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

Exhausted, I collapse my face into my palms and blow a raspberry. I decide to scroll on Instagram to give myself a break. I have been working all morning, after all.

Ads for the Championship Game litter my feed, making my stomach curl into knots. That’s where Kyle will be. All hot and sweaty in his uniform. He may be an asshole, but goddamn did God spare no expense when he made that man. He definitely is the Sexiest Man Alive.

Memories of his dick in my asshole pepper my mind, and pretty soon I’m rock hard. When I see an article talking about Kyle’s new girlfriend, Jessica, I know it’s time to get off social media and get myself off instead. My call with the agent isn’t for another thirty.

I slump in my bed and shut off Instagram. I want no reminders of Kyle Weaver. But as I scroll through other videos on OnlyFans, I can’t seem to shake him from my mind. Not him, his perfect dick, or his hairy, plump ass.

I huff out a breath. I am not jerking off to him.

I jump on Twitter, but I keep seeing things about the Championship Game there, too.

I groan as I open my internet browser. We’re gonna go old school today.

Yet even as I scroll through these videos, I can’t help but crave the taste of Kyle’s cock in my mouth.

Fuck it. I close my eyes and conjure up the Sexiest Man Alive in my head. I have plenty of photos of him, as well as all of the videos I’ve saved of his commercials. I could easily pull him up, but that feels like I’m conceding something. My pride maybe? I don’t know.

But as I’m nearing my climax, the mental image isn’t enough. I need him. The true Kyle Weaver .

I pull up my favorite picture of us. It’s where were sitting on the back porch of that cabin down in Glamour Springs, the glowing lanterns behind us, right before he walked out on me for good.

It’s not a sexy picture, per se, but it’s the one where I think Kyle’s the most handsome.

His smile shines wide through his thick beard, and his hair’s a little overgrown.

He has on a windbreaker, and I remember that day he wore the jeans that made his ass perk up.

Looking into his eyes, I think of the man I fell in love with, the one who read my writing and gave me honest feedback. Who helped me love fantasy. Who loved me for who I was, anxious insecurities and all.

And then I fucking cum all over my hairy belly. I look at his picture, and feel my heart skip a beat.

“I hate you so much,” I say. “Because I still fucking love you.”

I throw my phone down on my bed, and it bounces onto my floor. “Fucking fantastic,” I say. I lay there for a second, recollecting the pride I lost with that cumshot. And then my phone starts ringing.

“Shit, shit, shit,” I say, standing up. I glance at my bedside clock. I was jerking off to Kyle Weaver for thirty minutes. So much for not still having feelings for him.

I quickly roll down my shirt and pull up my pants before I trip and break my nose. I manage reach my phone and answer it before it’s too late.

“Hi, this is Michael,” I say.

“Michael,” a woman says. “This is Lori from Better Books Literary Agency. Is now still a good time?”

I smile, my heart racing with excitement. “Yes, it is.”

As we get wrapped up in small talk, I’m tripping over myself, worried I’ll say something wrong. But then when I hear her stumbling over her words, I realize that this may be just as nerve-wracking for her as it is for me. She’s trying to get a new client!

“Sorry,” I say when I manage to trip over my words yet again. “This is just—I’ve been waiting for this moment for a really long time.”

“It’s no worries at all,” she says. “I can imagine your feelings right now. Let’s get right to it then. First of all, I just want to say that your book was phenomenal.”

Joy squeezes my chest. “You think so?”

“I know so,” she says. “This is just what I’ve been looking for.

Your manuscript perfectly blends that dark, gritty nature of some of these more mature fantasy novels, but it somehow brings the charm of your everyday rom-com.

It’s so genius, yet so simple. I have high hopes for this book’s reception amongst publishers, and I already have a few specific editors in mind that I’ll send this to. ”

‘Wow’ is all I can say. I can hardly process all this good news. “Jeez. I’m overwhelmed. In a good way, of course.”

“Of course,” she says. “And I’m getting ahead of myself anyways. I’m calling to say that I would love to represent you. I can give you some time to reach out to other agents have your work, and in the meantime, I can send over my contract for you to review. Do you have any questions for me?”

I sit there, breathing heavily and seeing stars.

This is my dream come true. I’ve been wanting this for so long. So why does it feel like I’m missing something?

“Sure,” I say. “Um, I do have some questions, let me see.” I fumble through a notebook where I had written down what questions to ask a literary agent on the representation call. But this was so long ago, when my hopes were high, that I don’t remember.

“You know, I’ll be honest,” I say, still flipping through my journal. “I had been feeling really discouraged these past couple days.”

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I know how brutal the writing process can be. Let alone querying.”

Ennobled by her compassion, I continue. “Exactly.” I find the page with some questions, but there is another question burning in my heart.

“I have to ask,” I begin. “What was it that drew you into my writing? You mention that the idea was inventive and fresh, but what kept you reading? ”

There was a thoughtful pause, and then I heard her take a breath. “Honestly,” she says. “It was the romance.”

My chest tightens. The word immediately makes me think of Kyle. “The romance. Can you tell me more?”

“Of course,” she says. “I just loved how vulnerable these knights were with one another. I mean, hell, they start out in completely different stations, but as they kept doing things for one another, I really saw their romance blossom. I can easily say that some books focus on the sex more than anything else. And don’t get me wrong, that’s fine sometimes, and the sex you had on the page was great.

But it was the intimacy that led to the sex that really kept me going.

I was invested in the relationship from the moment the older, more experienced knight took in the poor serf to his retinue.

They saw each other. I don’t know, it was excellent.

And I know other people will love it too. ”

It’s like each of her words pokes tiny holes in my heart, causing me to bleed and drip blood down my chest.

When I first showed Kyle my romance writing, his biggest comment was that the love was superficial—focused and appearance and sex only.

Offended that a straight man of all people gave me that advice, I swore that I was going to write the most intimate, thoughtful romance I could, and have the sex be a result, rather than a cause, of said romance.

In other words, the intimacy between my characters was a result of Kyle’s feedback.

And here a literary agent is telling me that this was her favorite part of the book.

“Michael, you still there?”

I shake my head into focus. “Yes, sorry about that. Thanks, writing deep intimacy is really important to me.”

“And it shows,” she says. “Any other questions?”

I glance down at my notebook and scratch my chest. That’s when I realize that my shirt is glued to me as a result of the cum that I didn’t clean up earlier. The cumshot that Kyle’s stupid smile got out of me.

I ask some of the questions I had written down: her specific vision for the book, what she’s done for other clients, her communication style.

And it all seems really positive. In talking to her, I realize that she was one of my most preferred agents, so I don’t see why I wouldn’t sign with her.

I will give it some time to think and reach out to the few agents left that have my query, but I think this is the one.

“Great questions,” she says. “I have one last one for you.”

“Go ahead,” I say.

“Tell me what’s next,” she says. “I wanna know what the next project is!”

I press the spacebar on my computer to wake it up, and I see the blank curser just beneath the words I’d written this morning.

At first glance, they don’t seem as bad as before, but they definitely don’t look as good as I felt writing them.

I get the thought to reach out to Kyle to get his thoughts, and my chest aches as I imagine what he would say.

I share the premise with her—gay magicians on a quest to slay a dragon—and I can tell she’s intrigued.

“If you sign with me, let’s go into greater detail. I have some thoughts. But I like it.”

“Thanks,” I say, more embarrassed than I should be.

She says she’ll look forward to hearing from me, and then the call that’s changed my life is over. I sit there—excited, hopeful, afraid, nervous, motivated. But more than anything, there’s this grief attached to it all. And now that I’m done talking to the agent, the source of the grief is clear.

I miss Kyle.

I miss him so much.

I know he was a dick to me, and I know I should be angry with him. But he’s been trying to reach out to me. To apologize.

If it wasn’t for him, I may not have had this phone call.

I may have still been writing surface-level romance without deeper intimacy.

So this whole thing feels like a sign. Maybe I should keep Kyle in my life—dating, I don’t know.

But maybe as a friend? I appreciated his insight, so I know he can help me with my writing.

But more than anything, having him back in my life feels so right for me.

So I do something crazy.

I go to my contacts and finally unblock Kyle Weaver’s number.

And then I send what feels like the riskiest text of my life.