Always Only You by Chloe Liese (z-lib.org).epub

My banged-up shoulder twinges from leaning on my elbow, and I drop down
onto the blanket, as stunned by her words as I am by the pain lancing through
my body. Frankie slides her hand up my arm, to my shoulder. When she rubs it,
kneading the tender spots with her fingers, a groan rumbles out of me.
“Feel good?” she asks quietly.
“Uh-huh.” My limbs are heavy, my thoughts calm. I feel like putty in her
hands.
“Good. Now let’s hear why you’re hiding in that nice-guy shell.”
“I feel like I’m being interrogated.”
She grins. “I’m taking advantage of your relaxed state. You’re so damn
chipper.” Her finger pokes my cheek, where a dimple is visible when I don’t
have the beard. “I need the dirt, Zenzero.”
I give her a teasing glare that melts when she goes back to rubbing my
shoulder. “The dirt is I was a late bloomer. Then when I got to college and kind
of filled out, found my stride with hockey, people started treating me differently.
And I didn’t know what to do with that. I was the same person I’d always been,
but now that I looked a certain way and had met with some socially constructed
measure of success, I was suddenly supposed to feel different?”
Her fingers still for a moment, then gently resume. “Go on.”
“That’s really all there is to it. I just found my place with my Shakespeare
geeks, playing hockey, and I guess I’m still trying to figure out how to be me and
belong to both of those worlds. This ‘nice guy front’ you speak of is what trying
to hedge my bets looks like.”
“Have you had a relationship that made you feel like you could be all of
those things?”
“No.”
“Bad relationships?”
“I never had a serious relationship, bad or good.”
“Ah,” she says. “So hookups. Yeah, those are over before you even get to
know each other.”
I stare at the night sky, bracing myself for her reaction when I say it. “No
hookups, either.”
Her fingers still. She drops her hand. “Holy shit, Ren. You’re a virgin?”
Turning, I face her. “Yes.”
“You’re messing with me.” She smacks my chest. “This isn’t funny.”
“Frankie, I’m not messing with you.”
“You’re twenty-five. Smart. Handsome. Like soaked-panties, sexually
deviant handsome—”
“I’m sorry, I’m what?”