Was dating theactionof going out and doing stuff together? Or was it theintentionof spending time together?
Graham’s first instinct was to ask the guys around him. Connor, maybe. Or Mickey. Tom Bass seemed really solid too. Guys who had a brain in their heads and some critical thinking skills.
But since Graham couldn’t tell anyone about the situation with Thad, that made it a lot more complicated.
Like any self-respecting Gen-Z person, he turned to the internet for guidance.
Aware of the nosy guys around him, Graham shifted, carefully angling his phone away from any curious eyes under the guise of getting comfortable.
Connor didn’t even glance up.
Graham tried googling and eventually fell down a rabbit hole of dating advice on Reddit. He’d found it helpful in the past. Why not try it for this?
He found one subreddit that seemed kinda promising and spent some time reading it.
None of the advice really applied to him, but it seemed sensible at least and he began typing up his own question.
So, like, I’m into this guy and we kissed once but we’ve never done anything else even though we both admitted we want to. We’re buddies and I broke up with my girlfriend recently but I’m looking for a low-key way to let him know I’m ready todate. We’re on a work trip right now and we’ve gotta keep this quiet from the team—Graham backspaced and put inco-workers—so I can’t like … ask him out to dinner or whatever. Any help here?
Graham read through it, then backspaced until he’d deleted the entire message.
No, it felt weird to post online.
When he’d signed up for Reddit initially, he’d already had a throwaway email account and had set up a generic, unidentifiable profile, but it still felt too risky.
And honestly, kindapathetic. Graham shouldn’t have to resort to anonymously posting on forums to get date ideas.
He briefly considered messaging his older sister, but again, they were trying to keep thisquiet. Well, Graham was. He wasn’t sure where Thad stood on any of this yet.
The pilot spoke, telling them they were approaching their destination, and Graham backed out of Reddit and shut off his phone.
After they landed, they got on a bus to their hotel in Manhattan.
They’d be playing the New Jersey Hornets tomorrow night and the New York Rockets the night after, before heading home for the season opener two days after that.
Ugh, way to start off the fucking season with a back-to-back and on the fucking road.Gross.
Whoever made that schedule was an asshole.
The bus was too crowded for Graham to pull out his phone, so instead, he spent the ride into the city talking to the guys about their plans for the night.
After they got settled into the hotel, they were doing a team dinner at a nice sushi restaurant, then guys could go off and do whatever they wanted after.
Maybe he could get Thad to do something with him then.
Graham was still mulling overwhatto do when they arrived at the hotel. As they milled around the lobby waiting for their room assignments and keys, he was getting desperate for ideas.
Impulsively, he turned to look at Tom who stood nearby. He was a happily married man, hopefully he’d have some good advice. “Hey. What was your first date?”
“With Krista?” he asked with a raise of his eyebrows.
“Uhh, no. Before your wife. Like your first date … ever?” He wanted to get back to the basics here.
“Oh.” Tom frowned. “Umm, going to the movies, I think. All I really remember was that we held hands and my palm was sweaty. But we were like … thirteen so my mom had to drive us. Why?”
“Just wondering. Some buddies and I were, uh, talking about it. We made a bet on what the most common first date was.” Graham blurted out the lie and hoped his face wouldn’t give him away.
Tom gave him a slightly puzzled look but nodded. “Yeah, pretty sure it was the movies, man.”
