“I see,” I said.

So that’s what I’d been missing out on. For years, Dani and I had both been equally inexperienced in all things sex, but here she was, talking about the best way to fuck her boyfriend, getting tips and recommendations from my crazy cousin.

If anything, I was jealous.

“Told you Logan wouldn’t want to hear about this,” Dani said.

“No, no,” I said. “It’s not TMI. I promise.”

I wondered what Brody was into. Had he ever been fucked? Or did he only like to top? I was suddenly so interested in all of the things that had seemed completely impossible for me until now.

Even the foreign exchange student I’d kissed a few years ago didn’t seem that into me. He’d been in the closet, and there was no question that we’d never see each other again after that one night. But for whatever reason, Brody had seemed interested in me last night. We weren’t drunk, and he wasn’t just trying to get me in bed for a meaningless hookup, either. The concept was hard for me to wrap my head around.

“I hear you guys are here just for the food,” Perry said as he came out from the kitchen and leaned forward across the bar.

“I am in desperate need of a burger,” I said.

“And I can’t stop thinking about that soft pretzel with cheese I had last time I was here,” Dani said. “Did it have beer in the sauce?”

“You bet,” Perry said.

“You can’t just have a soft pretzel for dinner,” I said.

She cocked her head to one side. “You’re right. Make it two.”

I laughed and Perry nodded, his silvery-grey hair shining under the bar lights. “A burger and two soft pretzels, coming right up.”

He disappeared back into the kitchen.

Sam came over to us again, nodding. “Y’know, Perry used to be shy, too,” he told me. “Then he met a hot jock and that all changed really fast.”

Sam wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying that the football player you came in here with the other night was really hot, and you should go for it,” Sam said. “Sometimes opposites attract.”

“Shush,” I said. “You’re into your own stepbrother.”

“God, I sure am,” Sam said, his voice going dreamy as he thought about Fox.

I still liked teasing Sam about that fact, but in reality, I’d seen how much they cared for each other when we’d all hung out this past summer. They were sniping at each other at first, as if both of them were out for blood. I thought I’d be enduring a road trip filled with verbal sparring and maybe even all-out fights.

But Sam and Fox cared for each other. So deeply. And envy had burned hot through me, in a way that was getting increasingly hard to ignore.

I was envious of Sam. Envious of Red. Envious of Perry, and Dani, and everybody else who seemed to be falling deeply in love, all while I sat around on my own.

It made it a lot harder to keep my loneliness where it should be—in the little box, stuffed deep inside me. Love seemed like a foreign country, to me. A language I didn’t speak, a code I couldn’t read.

All I could ever do was fantasize.

“Anyway, Logan,” Sam said, “I still say you shoot your shot with Mr. Muscles.”

“Don’t call Brody that,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“I mean, you’ve seen him, too,” Sam said. “I work out a lot, but your roomie is like Superman.”

“Didn’t it seem like Brody had a thing with his teammate, though?” Dani asked casually, taking a glug of her beer.

I glanced over at her. “What kind of thing?”

“The quarterback,” she said. “Vance. It seemed like they were kind of into each other. Like Brody was his tight end in more than one way, if you know what I mean.”

I furrowed my brow. “I’m pretty sure Vance is straight,” I said. “They’re just good friends. They have to spend a lot of time together.”

Danielle shrugged. “Yeah, but maybe he’s not so straight. Imagine it. Two footballers together, one of them slowly discovering his sexuality, realizing he might not be straight? Come on, you know that’s hot.”

I gently bit the inside of my cheek as I thought about it. A tiny, nervous pit formed at the bottom of my stomach as I pondered the idea.

For the first time all day, a wave of uncertainty washed over me.

Of course Brody could have a thing with somebody else. Even if he didn’t have anything going on with Vance—I was pretty sure that Dani was just fantasizing—Brody still could be flirting, hooking up, or dating any other dude he wanted in the world.

I knew he was a total playboy. That was his whole thing—out, gay, proud, and unafraid to get what he wanted. Just because he was acting cute last night and kissed me on the cheek didn’t necessarily have to hold all the meaning in the world, like it had for me all day today.

Tags: Raleigh Ruebins Red's Tavern Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net