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CAM

Unsurprisingly, Trev and I fell effortlessly into the perfect rhythm of a couple in their honeymoon phase. In bed whenever we had a chance. Texting and FaceTiming whenever we could.

The sex was off the charts. I’d never experienced a man who couldn’t get enough of me, and it was addictive.

Just the way he’d look at me whenever one of us walked into a room would make my toes curl.

Being desired was familiar. Being craved ?

Being the reason a man lost his train of thought or—as had happened at practice a couple of times—nearly lost an edge?

That was very, very new, and I loved it.

He wasn’t kidding about being hot for me when he saw me working out, either; I’d lost count of how many times we’d ended up going at it right there in his home gym.

And that was to say nothing about talking.

Lying in bed. Driving back from a game. FaceTiming until all hours of the night.

Sitting on the couch long after the boys had gone to sleep.

My mom had once mused that she wondered if we’d ever run out of things to talk about, but if the last few weeks were any indication, that wasn’t happening any time soon.

My life looked nothing like it had a year ago or even three months ago.

I was in a new city, working a new job, and absolutely loving every second I spent with the man I’d been away from for too many years.

Kind of felt like the universe was doing me a solid after running me through the wringer with Daniel.

I’d take it.

The boys turned seven the first week of December, and as luck would have it, the Rebels were in town. Trev felt guilty that he had a game on their birthday, but the twins were thrilled, especially when the Jumbotron read, Happy Birthday, Zach & Zane Allen! and the whole crowd applauded.

Their dad scoring a goal that night was the icing on the cake, and they were bouncing with excitement when we met up with him after the game. I was pretty sure their giant smiles and tackle hugs reassured him that they weren’t even a little bit upset that he’d had to work that night.

The Saturday after their birthday, Trev hosted a party for them.

Apparently Bryan had wanted to throw one, too, and he’d conceded that the house was a better venue.

Trev said he was welcome to come as long as they kept their issues out of the kids’ sight, and he tactfully requested that Tim not attend.

But then the boys had asked if Tim was coming, and Trev hadn’t had the heart to say, “No, your dad’s boyfriend is a giant bag of dicks, and if he comes in my house, I’ll drown him in the pool.”

So… there we all were—Bryan, Tim, Trev, and me—in a sea of children and parents, trying to keep everyone entertained, happy, and fed.

It wasn’t as bad as I expected. For one thing, the weather was unseasonably nice, so we could let all the kids outside to play.

For another, as much as Tim could be an asshole to Trev, he was great with kids.

That was apparently enough for him and Trev to pretend they liked each other while they showed all the kids how to hit pucks into a net in the backyard.

Or maybe he was just media-trained enough to know that if a video surfaced of him being a jerk to Trev at a children’s birthday party, it wouldn’t go over well with the team.

Whatever the case, I was relieved. I had fully expected today to be a struggle of trying not to throat punch Tim or Bryan. There was still that temptation just because it was kind of my default state with both of them, but it was tempered today. They were behaving. Trev was happy.

What I severely under estimated, though, was how stupid I’d be around Trev.

Like, I already knew that watching him with kids turned me into a swooning dork.

And I knew that he was so damn hot that my brain shorted out whenever I saw him.

And —the most recent development—I knew exactly how hard this man could make me come.

But still, somehow, I was not prepared for those three to come together into a perfect storm of distraction.

The boys had been at Bryan’s until the party, which meant Trev and I had had the house to ourselves this morning, and we’d taken full advantage. Now I couldn’t look at him without remembering how hard he rocked my world every time we were alone.

And I also couldn’t look at him without going a little wobbly because he was just so damn cute.

When a girl tripped on the deck and skinned her knee, he’d been gentle and kind, helping her to her feet.

He’d sat her down on a deck chair, where he’d carefully cleaned the wound, put a colorful Band-Aid on it, and then showed her a scar on his own knee.

“I got that falling off a bike,” he told her. “Had to have six stitches.”

She’d sniffled as she’d looked at the silvery scar, then peered up at him with wide, tear-filled eyes. “Did it hurt?”

“Uh-huh. It hurt a lot.” He gestured at the Band-Aid on her knee. “And they didn’t give me one of those.” He tsked and rolled his eyes. “Just one of the plain ones.”

That got a giggle out of her, and a moment later, she was off and playing in the yard with the other kids.

I stood next to him on the deck as we watched her and everyone else romping around on the lawn. “Falling off a bike, huh?”

He muffled a laugh. “That’s the official story.”

“Mmhmm. And how much is it worth for me to not tell her the truth?”

Trev shot me a look and narrowed his eyes.

I shrugged with mock innocence.

He huffed, shook his head, and muttered just loud enough for me to hear, “You’re an asshole.”

“And that’s not a bid for my silence, so…” I started to walk toward the deck stairs, but he grabbed my elbow, hauling me back as I cackled.

“Tell her,” he warned, “and I’ll tell all the kids where you got that scar on your finger.”

“Which finger?” I held up the middle one, keeping it tucked against me so no one else saw. “This one?”

He snorted. “No. The other one.”

“Go ahead.” I shrugged. “Do you really think I’d be embarrassed if you told a bunch of first graders that a shark bit me?”

“No, but you might be if I filled in the part where the shark was two feet long, dead as a doornail, and you stuck your finger in its mouth to see if its teeth were sharp.”

I huffed. “Still a better story than?—”

“Shut up.” His cheeks turned a satisfying shade of crimson, and I didn’t even try to hide my snickering.

And that just added another dimension to all the reasons Trev was a walking, talking distraction today.

All those memories from our youth—I didn’t get nostalgic about many things, but it was hard not to when I thought about growing up with him and our friends.

Even the time we’d been walking on a beach and found a dogfish that had washed up with the tide.

Yes, I’d stuck my finger in its mouth, and yes, I had a hell of a scar from it.

The part he’d left out was that he and Don had each promised to pay me five bucks if I did (hey, that was a lot of money back then). So it was really their fault.

To this day, his parents believed the story that he’d “fallen off his bike” when he’d cut up his knee.

He’d sworn the rest of us to secrecy because his parents would’ve had his head if they’d found out he’d crashed said bike into a parked car while riding with no hands (something his mom had warned him about a million times).

Just like they still believed to this day that every time our group of friends went to the theater, we were absolutely not bribing people to buy us tickets to R-rated movies.

And Trev and I had never once bought tickets to movies we never saw so we’d have an alibi for the two or three hours we spent parked somewhere.

Though that last one almost blew up in our faces once when his parents saw a film that we’d claimed to see, and they’d tried to strike up a conversation about it.

I still didn’t know how we’d managed to bullshit our way out of that one.

Those memories were all swirling in my head today alongside everything that existed in the present.

It wasn’t that I wanted the kid version of him now that I was an adult.

It was just that all that nostalgia and all the years of friendship and our clumsy attempts at love—we had a ton of history together, and all that history combined with everything we had now made it impossible to keep my feelings for him casual.

We were the sum total of everything we’d ever been, everything we’d ever done, and everything we were doing now, and nothing in the world had ever felt more right or more perfect.

I’d told him I wasn’t ready to jump into an official serious relationship because I’d recently had a messy breakup, but honestly, it didn’t feel like anything I needed to get over.

Not anymore. That whole shitshow of a relationship—all eight years of it—and its disaster of an end felt like a flicker of bullshit in the lifelong timeline of Trev and me.

As I watched Trev, all I could think was… Daniel who?

I wanted today to last forever, and I couldn’t wait to get him alone tonight, and oh my God, I was so stupid for him.

I was a grown-ass adult. I could handle keeping my hands to myself.

But I’d have been lying if I said my brain didn’t go completely blank every time I heard Trev’s voice or caught a glimpse of him.

One minute, he was being adorable with one of the kids, carefully and patiently showing them how to hit a puck.

The next, the sun would hit him just right and he’d be somewhere between so fucking cute and Greek God.

Then he’d glance at me, and our eyes would lock for a second, and he’d give me a little wink or a lopsided grin, and by some miracle, I wouldn’t drop my damn drink. One smile would send me back to our childhood. The next would send me back to this morning.

And it was perfect. All of it. I couldn’t wait to get him alone, but I also adored watching him like this.