Page 34 of Yard Sale

“First blindness casualty,” I murmured. “Seventeen stitches. I fell one night when I was walking home from a friend’s house. I didn’t realize how bad my eyes were getting until I turned on our street, and most of the lamps had burned out.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. His fingers played over the rough, jagged lines where I’d been stitched together.

“It’s fine.” It was now. It wasn’t back then. I got in trouble for being an inconvenience. My dad accused me of being drunk or high—which, yeah, I was, but falling had nothing to do with that.

Aravind let out a small breath, then said, “Is this okay?”

I blinked at him. Being so close, I could only catch bits and pieces of his face. His eyes. Down a bit to his nose—wide at the tip and pierced in the right nostril. His lips were full, and there was a faint shadow from where he’d recently shaved over his lower lip and chin.

It was a strange thought, but I knew suddenly he would look just as pretty with a rich, thick beard.

I fought the urge to reach up and touch his skin there, to see if it was as rough as it looked.

“Are you, ah…are you being serious?” I finally asked him. “About this?”

“Yes. I can be a bit forward, I think. Sometimes I read the room wrong. I know you don’t like me, but I think you want me.”

I started to make a noise of protest, but it wasn’t completely honest. I didn’t like him before. Now, I wasn’t so sure how I felt. All I knew was that life had been a lot lately, and the weight of him was comfortable.

And I had always been attracted to him. I couldn’t help that back then, and it was even worse now. I wanted to lean in and kiss him—to taste his tongue, to feel his hands in my hair, to rub off on him. And I was fairly sure that’s where he was going with all of this.

“Do we have to like each other to keep going where we’re going?”

Aravind’s pretty pink tongue darted out to lick his lips, and I caught a glimpse of a round tongue ring with a pink ball on the tip. “And where are we going?”

I hesitated, doubt creeping in for the first time. “Are you trying to make a fool out of me? Embarrass me?”

“I know I was a dick,” he said, his voice kind of sharp, “but I’m not that kind of person. I don’t like humiliation.” He paused, then said, “Sometimes I get things very wrong, and when I do, I get hurt. I’m being careful. I don’t know what you want, and not even twenty minutes ago, you hated my guts, so…”

I gave in to the urge to touch him, wrapping my hands around his waist. He groaned and rocked himself down against me. “I never hated your guts. I was pissed off at you for what you wrote in that article, and I’m still a little annoyed at you for being so shitty about my place in the league⁠—”

“I said I was⁠—”

“Sorry,” I finished for him. “I know. And I do forgive you, but it might take a little time to stop feeling that sting.”

“Okay,” he murmured. I felt a jolt of shock pass through me because I was expecting him to fight me on that. “I can understand that. But I do need you to be clear on what you want and that this is okay.”

“It’s okay.” I skated a touch up his back, absently counting the knobs in his spine. “It’s more than okay.”

I hadn’t ever fucked a guy like him before. Usually, it was quick and dirty, in a bathroom stall or in my hotel room with them on their knees before I booted them out the door.

Sometimes they were hockey players. Sometimes they were fans. But they almost always looked like me. It was never a conscious choice. It just sort of happened because I never felt like I had the freedom to chase what drew me in.

It was easier to get rejected by people I didn’t give a shit about than to put myself out there only to find out it was pity or curiosity or a fucking bet.

“You feel tense,” Aravind murmured as he shuffled closer to me. “If you’re not into this, or into guys, or…”

“I’m into this, and I’m into guys,” I said. “I’m into you. You did nothing but piss me off for an entire season, and I still sometimes fantasized about—” I cut myself off.

Maybe I shouldn’t be saying any of this.

“What?” he urged in a whisper. He tipped his head forward and nuzzled his nose alongside mine. “Tell me. I want to hear about the ways you thought you’d fuck me.”

My swallow got caught in my throat, and it was a moment before I could speak again. “Ah. I’m not very creative or inventive,” I warned. “Mostly, I thought about you finding me after a game, asking me questions. Getting me all riled up.”

“Then you pressed me against the locker and fucked my ass?” he chanced.

My face bloomed even hotter because no. No. It wasn’t that. I cleared my throat again. “More like…”