Blindsided (Fake Boyfriend #4)(19)

“Gabby, I need your help decorating the pancakes!”

The kidlet runs off, leaving my phone on the comforter.

Thanks, Mom.

Kinda wish Gabby had run off with my phone when I see the text: Talon: Jackson says your surgery went well. Thanks for letting me know.

I groan. He’s calling me out for avoiding him. I thought it’d be easier to ignore him, being eight hundred miles away, but nope. That was pure stupidity on my part, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past six years, it’s that distance doesn’t make the memory of Marcus Talon any dimmer.

Me: Sorry I didn’t reply to your text while under anesthesia.

Talon: Smartass. It’s been three days.

Me: Jackson CALLED me instead of tapping away on a phone.

Fucking hell. His name flashes on my screen with an incoming call, and I should’ve known he’d do that if I taunted him. Yet, I still did it.

Because he’s Talon, and I’m me.

“Hey,” I say, my voice groggier than when I woke up.

“You sound like crap.”

“Miss you too.” I wince. Talking to grown-up Talon always brings out college Miller, and breaking old habits like joking about this kind of stuff is hard.

“How’s the leg?”

“Why does everyone ask that?”

“Because you had surgery. Duh. It’s like proper etiquette and shit.”

Is kissing me in a hospital bathroom proper etiquette? Did that really happen or was I super high?

I wish I was on the good drugs now so I had the courage to ask him these things.

“The leg is fine. Drugs are good.”

“Evidently,” Talon mumbles.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The line goes silent, and for a moment, I think it’s cut out.

“Tal—”

“Are we going to talk about what happened in the bathroom?”

Oh. Oh. My tongue searches for the lie I want to say—my mind is blurry on the details. It’s not, though. I remember every single thing about it. I just wasn’t one hundred percent sure it actually happened.

“I, uh …” I have absolutely no idea what to say.

Talon laughs, but it’s awkward and sounds forced. “Yeah, that’s my thoughts on it too. I, uh, dunno what that was.”

“I wasn’t entirely sure if it was real or a drug-induced hallucination.”

There’s a pause, because this conversation is awkward as hell, and clearly, we both think it necessary to add to that awkwardness. If it did happen, why? And how?

“Would it have at least been a nice hallucination?” Talon’s voice is small, and this whole time I’ve been wondering if I imagined it because I’ve wanted him that close to me for so long.

I haven’t even had the chance to wonder how he felt about it all. “Have you ever … uh, you know—”

“Been so blindsided by a kiss that I don’t know which way’s up anymore? Don’t know whether I’m going crazy or getting turned on by two guys going at it is normal? Uh, no. That’s all new.”

“Wait, you got turned on by who?”

“Jackson and Noah.”

I thought I saw something in his eye the day he told me he walked in on them, but I’d dismissed it because I thought there was no way.

“Have you ever …” Talon asks, “kissed another guy?”

I suck in a sharp breath and wonder if yes is the wrong answer here. I have kissed guys. Not many, but a handful or so in the year between Talon leaving USC and me graduating the following year.

“Pancakes!” a little—but fucking loud—voice says in my ear, and I jump. I didn’t even hear the squirt come in.

I cover my half-hard cock with my blanket, because I really don’t want to have to have any sort of grown-up talk with my niece about that. Nope, nope, nope. Anatomy and sex and all that is totally my sister’s problem.

“So, I can’t talk about this right now,” I say into the phone. “Little ears are listening.”

“Who’s that?” Gabby yells some more.

Talon’s laugh is warm. “She sounds cute.”

“That’s because you’re eight hundred miles from all the noise.”

Gabby pops her hip out with the attitude of her mother. “Who. Is. It?”

“It’s Marcus Talon,” I say, and her entire face lights up as she reaches for my phone. “She wants to say hi,” I tell him.

“All right.” His tone is more amused than annoyed we’ve been interrupted.

I hand her the phone, and she presses it to her little ear.

“My mom says you get sacked more than anyone else in the league.”

“Gabby!”

“It’s true,” she says.

Talon’s laugh is so loud I can hear it from here.

“She said you hold onto the ball for too long, which is why you get tackled all the time.”

I take the phone back off her. “Okay, you’ve had your fun. Go help Grandma with the rest of the pancakes.”

She doesn’t move.

Talon’s still laughing when I put the phone back to my ear.

“So, yeah, that’s about the extent of my next few months. I don’t think I’m going to get a minute to myself ever. Feel sorry for me.”