Power Plays & Straight A's - Eden Finley Page 0,17
to the paper, but, why not your parents? They’ve been nothing but nice to me.”
Yeah, but you’re not their son.
“Will you come with me tonight?” I change the subject. “Please? I’ll tell you all my other deep dark secrets on the way.”
He blinks at me. “Promise me this is you talking and not Seth.”
I throw up my hands. “I haven’t even spoken to Seth today.”
Zach stares down at his clothes. “I have to get dressed.”
“I could really go for that invite inside your room right now.”
“I’ll be out in a second.”
Damn. So close.
8
Zach
It’s entirely possible tonight will kill me. I consider checking the emergency contact details in my phone to be certain I’ve covered all bases, but I can’t take my eyes off Foster.
Bisexual Foster.
Foster who’s apparently been interested in … hearts for as long as I’ve known him.
I try to picture those big, capable hands cupping another man’s face, running down his chest to his—
Highly inappropriate. I will certainly not be sexualizing him purely because I know this tiny, improbable piece of information about him. Though I suppose it’s only improbable because Seth talks about him with women, never with men, so I haven’t stopped to picture him that way.
Foster may be interested in men, but there’s still a lot of difference between the types of men worthy of an insanely good-looking hockey captain and, well, me.
As has been pointed out to me on countless occasions.
In fact, Foster being bisexual might be the cruelest joke CU has played on me yet. At least when I thought he was straight, I knew there was no chance of that changing. Except, it apparently has.
Now it’s not my penis zeroing out my chances.
It’s literally every other part of me.
“You can stop staring at me now,” Foster says.
I start because he hasn’t so much as glanced my way. “Are you a mind reader?”
“Intuitive.” His gaze flicks to me and away again. “Hockey star, remember?”
“I’ve yet to see the evidence of that.”
He lets out a noise of complete disbelief and starts to walk backward. I try my hardest to keep a straight face even if I am lowkey impressed at his coordination. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were smack talking me.”
“Well, it’s a good thing you know better.”
“Hmm …” Foster tilts his head back as he studies me. “I’m watching you, Zach Sawyer. I don’t think you’re as innocent as you claim.”
“I have never once claimed that title.”
Foster’s laugh is completely uninhibited as he turns back around. “Maybe not verbally.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I tug at the bottom of my T-shirt, which is only marginally better than the one I had on earlier. “What exactly is this thing you’re dragging me to?”
“A mixer.”
“I’ve never been to one.”
“E-ever?” He peeks over at me again, and I get the feeling he doesn’t want to look at me for too long. I definitely make him uncomfortable, though I’m struggling to understand why. It’s Foster’s discomfort, paired with the timing, that makes me certain Seth orchestrated tonight. “Try to have fun. Get out of your head for a little bit and get to know people.”
I don’t point out that, in general, I don’t want to get to know people. I want to know about them. From a distance. “Okay, let’s start with you. What are those deep dark secrets you were going to fill me in on?”
“I was hoping you’d forgotten about that.”
“A tidbit like that is going to pique my curiosity.”
“Sorry to say, that might have been a ploy to get you to come with me. I don’t have secrets, I’m an open book.”
I frown. “Everyone has secrets.”
“Oh really?” He darts another quick look in my direction. “What would it cost me for one of yours?”
For him to use against me later? He has to be kidding. “They’re not for sale.”
“Well, damn, now I’m really curious. You can’t go around saying things like that without following through.”
“You confuse me.”
Foster looks at me properly this time. “Okay, random subject change. Are you going to follow through on that?”
“A lot of people slot into stereotypes. Not wholly, because of the human factor, but they have attributes designed around where they fit in and there are certain things that inarguably do not coexist. You’re the hockey captain, and you’re bisexual.”
He stiffens beside me. “Your point?”
“It’s interesting. I can’t stop wondering if your teammates’ knowledge of your sexuality is largely theoretical, so therefore they’re able to ignore it.”