Page 12 of How Not to Date a Griffin

He lifted his gaze to find Reid staring at him, lips quirked in a little half-smile that sent his heart racing anew.

“What?”

Reid blinked, lifted his own drink, and sipped from the straw. “So you like the sweet ones,” he mused.

“I… guess so.”

While they waited for the crowd by the Frogger game to disperse, Reid motioned for him to follow.

“I’ll have you know, I’m a legend around here,” he said, voice dramatic and low and daring.

“A legend? At… air hockey?” he clarified, following Reid’s lead and setting his colorful drink on a barstool he would not be using.

“Yes. Very serious business,” Reid claimed.

“So what you’re saying is, I should give up now?” Nolan wasn’t going to give up. Where would—

“—be the fun in that, man?” Reid finished his thought aloud and a flare of excitement erupted in Nolan, uncontainable in the form of a smile.

Nolan gripped the pusher and reveled in the nostalgic, harsh clack of the plastic against the table.

“It really has been years since—“

Distantly, Nolan registered the clang of the puck against metal as it slid into his goal box.

The digital numbers on top of the post shifted in Reid’s favor.

Glancing up, Nolan found a sly smile on Reid’s lips as he stared at him in anticipation.

“So that’s how it is,” Nolan called over, chest splintering open and something bright spilling out.

Reid grinned, then paused for a quick second before he shrugged off one shoulder of his coral button-up.

Nolan slapped the puck on the table and tried not to stare as he pulled the sleeve off.

Maybe Reid was giving him the chance to make his point back. It had been a sneaky move, getting it in while Nolan wasn’t paying attention.

Nolan slid the pusher across the table with a loud, resounding crack of plastic against the puck. Without missing a beat, sleeve halfway down his right arm, Reid blocked it, sending it ricocheting from side to side. Then he went on to slip the sleeve over his wrist and hand, seemingly unconcerned about being distracted.

But the puck was taking its sweet time to get down the table – how did he do that, hit it so it went both fast and slow at the same time?

Nolan bounced on his toes in anticipation, gaze flicking to Reid again and again after every clack of the puck. He reached forward, extending his arm to flick the pusher against the plastic, sending it skating across the table once again.

Reid had half his shirt hanging off the left side of his body, short sleeves of his worn band tee wrapping snugly around his biceps, and were those tattoos—

Clang.

Oh shit.

Nolan glanced down and watched the puck appear in the retrieval slot, and lifted his head to glare at Reid, who seemed to be fighting his own battles in the form of a smirk he hid behind a sip of his tropical drink.

“Gotta pay attention, y’know,” Reid said.

“That was a little unfair, wouldn’t you say?” Nolan cut sharply, and sent the puck reeling across the table.

“What was unfair?” he questioned, a knowing little grin on his face, their banter echoing the puck.

“You—” Undressing to distract me? Nolan couldn’t very well admit that!