Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 83542 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83542 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 278(@300wpm)
“No,” I say immediately. “Especially not a sex addiction. I think celebrities who are caught out sleeping around one too many times are too quick to jump on that for an excuse. It adds to that stigma about sex being shameful when it’s not.”
“Sex addiction is real, by the way.”
“I know, but someone needing it and doing it through any means necessary and someone enjoying it with as many people as he wants are two completely different things.”
Lane nods. “I agree with you, and I was only joking about the addiction thing.”
“Were you?”
“Sort of. But no, really, you’re right. We need to clean your image up with the truth.”
I open my arms wide. “Please tell me how this is the truth?”
“Take away hockey, sex, and booze—”
“Kill me now. Just end it. I don’t want to live anymore.”
Lane backhands me in the chest, and I pretend his pathetic slap hurts, but I can’t keep a straight face.
“Stop being dramatic,” Lane says.
“I can’t help it. It’s who I am.”
“No. It’s not.” Lane’s words are said with such conviction, like he knows that’s not the real me, but that’s not possible. He moves closer now, almost pressing against me to the point if people were looking, they’d probably take notice of our proximity. “Here you can be you.”
I lower my head and my voice. “You say that like I’m not always who I am. I am hockey and cheap hookups.”
“But that’s not all you are,” Lane says, and he’s so confident, I almost want to believe he’s right. In my experience, people only hang around for two reasons: my looks or my ridiculous, over-the-top, fun nature. Sure, those people aren’t worth being permanent, but I’m not worth it either, so it works. But Lane doesn’t think that personality is me, and he’s trying to bring out some good person he thinks exists. If I do that, what then? Am I pretty enough for him to stick around for, or will he get bored of me like everyone else?
“I don’t know what else I am,” I admit.
As if admitting to something he has wanted to hear all along, Lane softens. “Well, why don’t we figure it out?” He looks out at the arcade. “Maybe Oskar Voyjik is a slut, great at hockey, annnnd …” His gaze moves around the room. “A Skee-Ball champion.”
I glance at the games and then back at Lane. I have no idea what Skee-Ball or bowling or video games have to do with who I am on the inside, but we’re here now, and I’ll give it a go. “You’re on.”
But it becomes apparent quickly that Skee-Ball is not my game.
“Skee-Ball champion, you are not.” Lane laughs when my first two tries earn me absolutely zero points.
“I can get it,” I say. “I just need to practice.” I roll another ball, and it goes nowhere near one of the holes with a score on it. “Or not. I think you need to be extra talented to score as low as I am.”
Lane takes his turn on the ramp beside me, and just when I think he’s gone too far left and will get zero like me, the ball shoots up the ramp and lands in the hole in the top corner, scoring one hundred points. “I guess I’m not that talented.”
“Why won’t my stupid balls get in my stupid hole?”
Lane snorts, and I turn to him, wondering what’s so funny.
He shrugs. “You want your balls to go in your hole. It’s an … interesting image.”
“I thought I was supposed to be the immature one?”
“Oh, come on. One snigger at balls in holes, and suddenly, I’m more immature than you?”
“No. Bringing me here and making me play stupid games that I suck at means you’re more immature than me.”
“You really hate losing, don’t you?” Lane asks.
“I’m a hockey player. We all hate losing.”
“Okay, Mr. Hockey Player. How about we play some air hockey? Maybe your hockey talent extends off the ice?”
Spoiler: It does not.
No matter what I do to try to stop the little air puck thingy from going in my goal, Lane shoots it right past me. Seven times in a fucking row.
He leans on the table. “I think that’s what you guys in the biz call a shutout.”
“How are you so good at these games?”
“Well …” He rounds the table and approaches me. “You weren’t the only one with a not-so-fun school experience. I don’t exactly know how the popularity chain worked while you were growing up, but while you were moving around the country playing hockey everywhere and being all ‘Go, Sports, Go,’ us nerdier, non-gorgeous gay kids would go to the arcade on weekends with our other equally nerdy friends because being good at something made us feel better about being losers.” The sadness in his stare, the soft tone in his voice … they make me want to kiss it away and have him go back to gloating.