Series: Fever Falls Series by Riley Hart
Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85157 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Kenny and Ash talked about the game, and most of the time I simply listened. It was different for me, hearing Kenny talk to someone other than me about things like that. He had his friends, of course, some of the people he met at the center he went to, and people from his college classes, but it was different coming from someone I knew. It wasn’t that my friends weren’t great with Kenny, because they were, Linc especially, but…well, hell, they weren’t Ashton Carmichael. If I were honest with myself, I’d admit that had always been a thing for me. Maybe I held Ash to higher standards in some ways, and didn’t expect as much of him in others.
Once we were at Mickey’s, the three of us got out together. Luckily, the place wasn’t too busy as we went to the counter to order.
“I hope you like pepperoni and double sausage. That’s all we order. I love sausage.” The moment the words fell out of my mouth, Ash cocked a brow at me, and I realized how it sounded.
“Big sausage fan, are you?” he teased in a way I’d never been teased by any of my straight male friends before. What the fuck was up with him? I couldn’t figure Ash out.
“Quite interested in my preferences, aren’t you?” His eyes darted away, and guilt immediately drowned me. Shit. For as hard a time as I always gave Ash, I was the one who was fucking up lately. “I’m giving you shit. I didn’t mean anything by that.”
“What could you mean by it?” Kenny asked.
“I can take the next customer in line,” the man at the counter said, saving my ass from my dickheaded statement to Ash and explaining it to Kenny.
“Do you want something else?” I asked, and Ash shook his head.
“Nah. I’m good with…that.”
Great. Now I’d ruined it so we couldn’t even say the word sausage. Go Beau. I was killing it.
We ordered our pizza and a pitcher of soda, then sat in a booth close to the arcade, Kenny and me on one side, Ash on the other. We talked more about the game, Mom’s éclairs, things like that. I couldn’t help but notice Ash wasn’t making eye contact with me like he had been before. Not that I could blame him.
It didn’t take long for our food to come. We basically annihilated the pizza, and then Kenny made his way to the arcade. They had an old Pac-Man machine, which was his favorite. He didn’t do any other games, wasn’t into shooting or racing cars, but he could play for hours that old-school game that was even before my time.
“Listen…I’m sorry about the joke earlier. It was inappropriate—”
“It was a joke,” Ash cut me off. “It’s fine.”
But it didn’t feel like a joke with him. It felt like more. Maybe it was the kiss all those years ago or a fantasy I had about Ashton and me that I’d never allowed myself to truly voice. Maybe I was trying to see something that wasn’t there because Ashton had always been better than me at everything, more secure than me, but in this, in being a proud gay man, I was more comfortable in my skin than he was. Or maybe he wasn’t gay or bisexual at all, and I was projecting my own shit onto him…but yeah, it just felt like more, it felt important, and I didn’t know any better way to explain it than that. “But it’s not okay if it makes you uncomfortable.”
“It didn’t make me uncomfortable,” Ash replied.
“Okay.”
“Seriously, Campbell. I’m good. I can take a joke. I’m funny as shit, in case you don’t remember.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. Ash was good at that. “Well, you don’t lack for confidence, that’s for sure.” But when his eyes darted away, my stomach dropped, and I suddenly felt like I’d done something wrong again. Or hell, maybe I saw that Ash wasn’t quite as confident as I’d always thought he was. “It’s true, ya know?”
He turned my way again. “What’s true?”
“I watched all your stupid games. If I worked or was in school, I recorded them. I was proud of you, Ash…I still am. That isn’t easy for me to say. I wanted what you had so badly, that at first I watched trying to tell myself it was a mistake, that I was better than you.”
“You could have had what I had. You put your family first, is all.”
“No.” I shook my head, being honest with myself for the first time in years. “I was good. I could have played college ball, but I wasn’t good enough to be professional. Even if I’d gone on to play, I wouldn’t have accomplished what you did.”
“Christ, Campbell. You’re about to make me cry.” He swiped at tears that weren’t there.