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Cross closed his front door, reset this security system behind Rusty, and blew out a long breath. What the fuck did I just do? He wasn’t sure if he meant the kiss, or shutting Rusty down immediately afterward.

He hadn’t planned to kiss Rusty. Hadn’t even realized that was on the table, although if he’d been honest, he could’ve probably recognized the way his whole focus turned toward Rusty when he was around.

He’d never obsessed over Scott like that, even before he knew the guy was taken, and Scott was objectively hotter than Rusty.

Scott had ridiculous abs that could almost match the ripped-shirt hero, and he was a great guy besides.

And yet it was a tall, gangling, blond teenager that had Cross acting like a highschooler with a crush.

The light in Rusty’s blue eyes was better than any six-pack, the way he focused on Cross and listened to him more heady than Scott’s perfect ass.

Cross leaned his forehead against the closed front door.

Fuck. Or not, which was part of the problem.

He’d enjoyed that kiss. A lot. He’d wanted to shove Rusty up against the wall and kiss him for an hour.

But it hadn’t made Cross hard and he wasn’t sure he wanted to go farther than that.

Not yet. Maybe eventually. He’d seen Rusty’s dick respond in those gray sweatpants and for a moment he’d been tempted to keep going, to enjoy making Rusty hot and bothered.

But he’d shut the whole thing down fast because he wasn’t on the same page.

The age difference mattered. Rusty might be an adult, might’ve already survived more than Cross ever had in his entire life, but that didn’t put them on an even footing. Cross needed to be sensible, be the responsible one.

And also, whatever it took for his demisexual brain to decide yes, this person is cool enough to have sex with, hadn’t happened yet. Like every other time. When am I ever going to get to the sexual part of demi?

He went back to the family room, dropped onto the couch, and called his sister.

“RJ? What’s wrong?”

Hearing Marie’s voice, seeing her face even on the small screen of his phone, made the tight muscles in his chest ease. “What makes you think something’s wrong? Can’t I call my own sister?”

“You can.” She chuckled. “But you really don’t, especially not out of the blue. Talk to me.”

“I’m just bored. Was watching a movie with a friend but he had to head out.”

“A friend? One of your teammates?”

“No. No one special,” he lied. “Hey, listen, can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Why didn’t you like Willow?” He’d gradually realized Marie was only painfully polite to the woman Cross planned to marry.

“What do you mean? I liked her. She was really nice.”

Nice was Marie’s kiss of death. “When I told you I was thinking about proposing to her, you told me to take my time and not rush into anything.”

“Well, you’d only been dating for a few months.”

“Six months.” And his sex drive had stayed painfully lukewarm about her, even then. He’d really enjoyed spending time with Willow, who was sweet and quiet and kind and patient. He’d been on the verge of loving her, starting to think about forever.

“You really want to know?” Marie sighed. “She didn’t make you happy.”

“I was happy.” He’d been twenty-seven and sure he’d finally found the person he was meant to spend his life with. “She was beautiful and a good person, inside and out.”

“She bored you to tears.”

Cross flinched, because he couldn’t deny that faint echo of truth. Rusty isn’t boring. “ She broke up with me ,” he protested. “I wanted to get married.”

“She wasn’t stupid. She saw the writing on the wall.” Marie shook her head. “You want to know when I was sure she wasn’t the one? When you brought her to the villa in Spain.”

“That was a great trip. We had fun.”

“Remember the loveseat on the porch looking out over the ocean? You sat side by side one evening watching the sunset across the water. I was working on my laptop inside, and I looked up every so often. You sat there for an hour with three inches of space between your shoulders and when it got dark you came inside. You didn’t kiss.

Far as I could tell, you never even touched each other. ”

He remembered that evening. He hadn’t taken Viagra and he didn’t want to give Willow the wrong idea.

By that point, if he initiated touch, she always wanted to take it further, so the easy affection, the kissing and snuggling they’d enjoyed in their early days had turned into a landmine he hadn’t known how to negotiate.

He’d missed their first few months when they were going slow, enjoying a meal or an evening watching a movie in between his road trips.

Those had been some of the happiest days of his life, full of quiet affection and kisses, plus long distance texting and a tension that made his body sing sometimes, with how much he liked just being around her and holding her.

He’d thought he was building toward real desire. But off-season changed things.

He’d made an effort, once he wasn’t insanely busy, to go with her to her favorite places, like craft fairs, and to indulge her, to make up for how much he’d previously been so absent with hockey.

But all that together time had been stressful too.

They’d made it into bed, and it hadn’t been a success, despite enjoying the foreplay.

He’d told her he didn’t always feel like sex, but she took it as a failing, like she was lacking in something, like her girl-next-door sweetness wasn’t good enough.

She’d worked to be sexier, and he hated to keep putting her off.

So he’d fallen into offering oral and using Viagra and the faking and the lies.

And keeping his distance, when he didn’t want to do that one more night.

While he waited for his laggard libido to finally decide Willow was the love of his life. Except in the end, she hadn’t been.

He muttered, “Touch isn’t everything.” Although kissing Rusty had been more intense than any touch Cross could remember with Willow.

He thought about sitting on the couch beside Rusty, and the way they’d drifted together, shoulders bumping, how easy that was.

By the end, hanging out with Willow had never been that simple.

“You and she didn’t talk and laugh together, didn’t seem close. And yeah, silence can be comfortable. But you didn’t seem to have a lot in common. Whenever you got going with hockey minutia, her eyes glazed over.”

“She was a fan. I met her at a teammate’s party.”

“RJ, I hate to break it to you, but you’re more focused on hockey than any casual fan is likely to enjoy. Maybe try dating one of the women’s hockey team next.”

“You think I should date a player?” He kept the gender carefully neutral.

“Ah, probably not. A women’s leaguer would surely hate the fact that you play for millions and she plays for thousands.

Maybe someone who loves the game a whole lot, though.

Or— new option— someone you’re attracted to enough that they can tempt you away from hockey to do other things together.

You really need to broaden your interests. ”

“I do other things,” he protested.

“Like what?”

“Like I just got done watching a movie. And playing video games.”

“Hockey video games?”

Cross sighed. “Can I plead the Fifth? I painted a guy’s car recently. That was fun.” Although mainly because he was doing the work with friends, not for its own sake. He was a bit too perfectionist to love spraying paint over rust.

“A hockey guy’s car?”

He couldn’t stop a growl in his throat. “Okay, you made your point.”

“I worry about you. You’re thirty and you’re wildly successful at one thing—”

“Thank you,” he put in.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not minimizing what you’ve accomplished. Hopefully you’ll play another five years, even ten, but it can’t be forever. Then you’ll have this long life ahead of you and what’s going to fill it? I want to see you happy.”

“You’re thirty-four and single. Pot-calling-kettle.”

“Yeah, but I date. I dance and cross-country ski, and I have friends in musical theater. I fly to concerts for bands I like. You could take away my LaCroix Technology job, and I’d still have a life. What about you, if you take away hockey?”

“I might coach.” He’d been thinking about it more recently, since he realized how much he enjoyed working with Scott’s high school kids last summer.

“So more hockey.” But Marie laughed. “As long as you’re thinking ahead. Watch more movies, paint more cars, try some new stuff.”

“I rode horses with Edzie at his ranch.” He’d been surprised how much he enjoyed that.

“See? That’s something fun and different. You could buy a horse, mix with a different crowd.”

He wondered if Rusty would like a horse.

Rusty’d been raised on a farm and worked the ranch over the summer, seemed very comfortable and competent in the saddle.

When he arrived on the coast at the end of summer, he’d been tanned, his blond hair sun-bleached.

He clearly liked the outdoors. Cross wondered what kind of horse Rusty would like…

You can’t just buy a friend a horse.

Cross cleared his throat. “Right. I’ll put that in the ideas basket. Oh, and I was wondering…” Am I going to ask this? Yeah, I think I am. “Have you ever dated someone a lot younger than you?”

“Sure. Yuri was twenty-two. He was a ton of fun, but at some point I wanted a guy who could be serious and not just all about sex and parties, you know? He was still in his fuckathon days.” Marie tilted her head. “Did you go out with a younger woman? How much younger?”