Page 43 of Offensive Edge
“Girl?” He knew Theo had been seeing a girl, but he didn’t know he’d been seeing only girls.
“Still bi,” Theo teased. Somehow Rowan had half forgotten that. He must have remembered Theo’s queerness the same way he knew his own to be. Solidly male-attracted. “Easier to date girls when you play hockey.”
“I know,” Rowan said dryly.
“Girls just feel less dangerous.”
“And guys?” Rowan wanted Theo to tell him he was the only guy he’d ever been with. He knew that was unfair.
“I only saw guys when I was mad at myself. Like, punishing myself. Every time I was with a guy, it felt like, I don’t know. That feeling when you press on a bruise. You know it’s going to hurt, but you do it anyway. I was always reminded of how not-you they were.”
Theo finally looked at Rowan. Rowan could tell how seriously Theo was taking this conversation by the set of his eyebrows alone. They usually had a lovely high arch Rowan used to love running a fingertip over. Now, they were furrowed straight across his forehead.
“Like staying in Vic’s house. It hurt every day to see how you looked at me, but I couldn’t leave. I had to feel the pain.”
“Ro—” Theo started. He took a deep breath, then turned his eyes back at the ceiling. “Did you ever date?”
“No.”
“Did you ever, like…fuck around with people?”
Rowan felt a weird spike of embarrassment. “No.”
Theo paused, but he didn’t press Rowan to explain himself. “Just the weird thing with Becker?”
It was Rowan’s turn to laugh. “Yeah, just my weird thing with Becker.”
“And you didn’t even fuck him?”
“T, no. Felix is straight. Just affectionate.”
“And that was it? Just your platonic romantic friendship?”
“Everyone is different.”
“No, I know, I’m not trying to be a dick. Just. I missed eight years of your life, dude. I want to fill in the gaps.”
“No one other than Felix.” Even Felix was quite the stretch in this scenario. He loved Felix. And for the years they were in Texas together, they had a little codependent situation going on, even if they both knew it was a dead end. But while being apart from Felix sucked, it didn’t tear him apart like being away from Theo had.
“No one? Like, no boyfriends.”
“No…anyone. No anything. Don’t make fun of me.”
“Wait. I’m sorry, no one has touched your dick in eight years?” He finally felt like he had Theo’s full attention on him. He rolled onto his side, head propped on a hand.
“I’ve touched it plenty.”
“No one’s made you come since we were teenagers? Was I the last person who touched your dick?”
“I told you not to make fun of me.” Rowan couldn’t help the instinct he was feeling to curl up into his shell like a turtle.
“I don’t mean it like that,” Theo said. He had slowly shifted closer, looking at Rowan like he thought Rowan was one strong gust of wind away from dissipating. Theo put a hand on Rowan’s wrist. Rowan had a thousand memories of them lying exactly like this, just inches closer, their lips embarrassingly red and chapped from kissing.
“What do you think would have happened if we didn’t have hockey?” Rowan whispered.
“We would have gone to college. The same one, obviously.”
“Obviously.”
