“You have no balls. You should yell it at Carolina tonight when they try to take down Grant. Like, really loudly.”
“Awesome.” Beck’s excitement is nothing compared to mine.
On the inside.
Because that’s so not what it means.
The drive takes forever, only made to feel longer by Beck’s constant hyperactivity. When we finally pull into the hotel, we can’t get out of the car fast enough.
Grant’s there to meet us, and he passes out two hotel keys. One to Jacobs and Beck and the other to his brother.
Two.
“And me?”
Nada.
Shit, so now I’m homeless for two nights too?
When Grant basically says I’ll overhear him and Zach have sex if I stay with them, and Beck offers to let me watch him and Jacobs have sex in their room, I turn to Seth in a moment of desperation. “Please let me stay in your room.”
Seth’s eyes widen. “I don’t even know you.”
I want to argue we spent a major holiday together, but again, not going to embarrass him. He’s my ride home. “I really don’t feel like listening to your brother have sex, and I just spent two hours in the back seat with Beck.”
Beck whines.
“Feel sorry for me!” Please take pity on this unfortunate soul.
The very last thing I need is to be around happy couples.
I keep hoping Einstein will message, keep looking at my phone and getting mad when there’s nothing.
Our lack of communication hurts more than I thought it would, which is stupid because I don’t even know what this guy looks like.
I just know that he makes my day brighter. I’d gotten used to talking to him every night and can barely remember a time we weren’t doing it.
But there’s this big barrier between us because he’s scared, and I get that. I really do.
We have this amazing connection, and I have no doubt it will be ten times better in person, but he can’t know that for sure.
He’s never done this.
Well, neither have I, but I also know my dick is easy. His is more complicated.
The only thing I can think to do to get him to trust me is to message him my full name and a link to the CU hockey page, but that’s putting myself in an extremely vulnerable position I don’t really want to be in.
I’m not out to anyone, and considering I don’t know Einstein’s name and he refused to give it means he could literally be anyone on the other side of that phone.
What if it’s someone from the team messing with me?
I mean, it wouldn’t be Beck and Jacobs. They mock me, but that’s to my face. They’re not evil enough to do this. At least, not for this long. But it could be any of the other guys.
There are definite trust issues between us.
Something flashes across Seth’s expression.
“Fine,” Seth says. “I wouldn’t subject anyone to Foster and Zach’s sex noises, and I don’t even need to justify the Beck thing.”
Thank fuck.
Although, now I only need to worry about sharing a room with Seth Grant. Nothing says awkward like riding an elevator up to a hotel room I basically forced myself into with a guy who’s stoically silent and looking at me weird.
Fun times.
I follow Seth down the hall, and he lets us into the small, basic hotel room with … one bed.
Couldn’t have been a twin room. No.
Just one queen bed.
Because of course.
“I can take the floor,” I say.
Seth doesn’t say anything.
I dump my bag in the corner of the room and go check out the view of the surrounding city.
Seth moves about the room behind me, and holy shit, this is awkward. I thought after Thanksgiving, it would have broken the ice between us, but it’s as if it never happened.
“Hey, thanks again for letting me crash in your room.”
“It’s probably the least I can do after …”
“So you do remember Thanksgiving!”
“Barely, but it was you who got me home, wasn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“Umm, thank you for that, by the way. I was in a shit place.”
I get the feeling he doesn’t want to get into the details. He didn’t really that night either, bouncing from random subject to imaginary fights with his brother, so I change the topic. “What time do we have to be back downstairs to meet the others?”
Seth takes his phone out of the pocket of his beige slacks. “Game starts in forty minutes, so in twenty? It’s only a five-minute walk to the arena.”
“Cool.” I go back to the window.
My fingers itch to reach for my phone in my pocket.
I want to talk to Einstein. I want to give him space.
I don’t know what the fuck I want.
The air in this room is stifling. Or maybe it’s just me wondering what Einstein would think if he knew I was sharing a room with some random guy.
I mean, he’s not totally random. He’s the brother of one of my good friends.