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

Now that’s something you don’t hear every day. I have the ridiculous urge to
squish his cheeks together and kiss Ren breathless for the adorkable things that
fall out of that mouth. Instead, I settle for shutting the door behind me and
carefully lowering myself to the edge of his bed.
“Well.” I pat his hand. “I can tell you feel bad about calling a guy with one
nut a eunuch, but he’s an asshole guy with one nut. He was coming after you,
bullying you, Ren. You just stuck up for yourself, and you didn’t even mean to
land such a pointed blow.”
Ren shifts the ice pack on his forehead and doesn’t say anything.
“Can I ask you something?”
He pivots his head on the pillow and meets my eyes. “Yes.”
“What made you decide to play a professional sport that is arguably the most
tolerant—celebratory, even—of hostility and aggression, when you’re clearly a
nonviolent person?”
“There’s so much more to the game than that,” he says, almost as if to
himself. “I love the beauty of it. Grace and coordination, the team effort of
hockey. I just choose not to embrace its most vicious aspects.”
“And you feel like you stooped to his level tonight.”
“I didn’t mean to,” he says quietly. “I was relieved he didn’t smash my face,
again, but I felt awful when I watched him slam into the boards, then fall on the
ice. I know he brought it on himself, I understand that in some sense of karmic
justice he deserved that, but…”
Ren sighs heavily, eyes closed. “I don’t know. It was like high school all
over again. I felt weirdly vindicated and guilty. Does that make sense?”
I nod. “Yes. I get why you needed to skip dinner.”
“Oh, I was coming to dinner. I’m starving. I wasn’t that torn up about it. But
then I started this headache.”
“Have you been getting headaches a lot?”
He swallows and presses the ice pack harder onto his forehead. “They started
a few weeks ago. Amy says it’s what sometimes happens after a couple
concussions. So, nice life development.”
I steal the moment to stare at him. Tousled hair, haphazard waves of russet
and gold. Full soft lips half hidden beneath his beard. Stupidly, I lean in and
push back a piece of hair stuck to his forehead.
His eyes drift open, pale as ice and just as capable of freezing me. “Why are
you here?” he whispers.
Voices echo in the hallway, muffled, rooms away from us. I hear myself
breathing, rough and rapid. “I’m not sure. I was…I guess I was worried about
you.”