My Masturbation Recording Was Listened To 146 Times By The Ice Hockey Hunk Chapter 03
From that day onward, Zach avoided me blatantly.
We lived in the same offcampus apartment complex. Before all of this, he would often stop by my place for meals right after hockey practice, or I would hang out for hours in his unit.
Now every time I suggested hanging out, he would say he was swamped with practice or team meetings. He no longer walked me home from class.
Worse still: he refused to open my voice notes on our socialmedia app entirely.
Once I was juggling full grocery bags and could not type, so I sent him a voice message.
He texted back: Stop sending me voice notes.
Rage flared inside me.
What gave him the right? He used to listen to my sixtysecond rants about fraternity drama one after another without a single complaint.
I recorded a full sixtysecond voice note brimming with irritation.
“My pronunciation is perfectly clear! Can’t you just use texttospeech?! Zach, do you even know how to use a smartphone?! You never had this many ridiculous rules before! I’m furious with you!”
He read it and never replied at all.
I tossed and turned, unable to sleep all night.
Dusk had already fallen when I ran into him near the entrance of our apartment complex.
I was carrying a paper bag of fruit I’d just bought from the corner store—apples, a few peaches, and a bunch of bananas still slightly green. Zach was walking toward the building with a small pharmacy bag in one hand, head down, as if he hadn’t expected to see anyone.
I stepped into his path.
“Zach. Are you avoiding me?”
He stopped short. His eyes flicked up to my face, then dropped almost immediately to the bag in my arms. They lingered for a second too long on the bananas poking out of the top.
His Adam’s apple rolled once, hard.
“No.”
“Quit the act.” I tugged the pharmacy bag from his hand before he could react. “What did you buy?”
He didn’t fight me. Inside were over-the-counter stomach pills.
“Are you sick?”I asked, alarm rising.
“Not me.”His gaze stayed fixed somewhere around my shoulder, carefully avoiding both my face and the fruit. “These are for you.”
I frowned. “I don’t have a stomachache.”
“You updated your status this afternoon.”
“I just ate too much, that’s all.”
His brows drew tight. The silence stretched.
I shifted the fruit bag higher against my chest. One of the bananas slipped sideways, the curved tip now clearly visible. Zach’s eyes snapped to it again before he forced them away, jaw locking.
My frustration spilled over. “You’re the one acting weird. Shutting me out for days and then going out to buy me medicine?”
He stayed quiet, staring at a point past my ear.
“If you’ve got a girlfriend and you need space from me, just say so. I’m not the clingy type.”
His head jerked up. “I’m not seeing anybody.”
“Then what is wrong with you?”
The evening air felt thicker. My thin dress clung to my skin with every small movement. Zach’s gaze dropped once more—first to the bananas, then lower, before he dragged it back up with visible effort. His breathing had gone shallow.
“We can’t keep things the way they used to be.”
My chest tightened. “Why?”
“We aren’t kids anymore.”
“That is such a garbage excuse.”
His voice came out low, rough. “When you get too close…I start thinking things I shouldn’t.”
I stared at him.
“What kind of things?”
Zach turned his face away, the tips of his ears flushing dark. His free hand curled into a fist at his side.
“Nothing. Just—don’t show up at my place unannounced like you used to.”
I exploded. “Are you serious, Zach?”
“If you don’t want me around, why bother worrying whether I’m sick or what clothes I put on?”
“I’m not some pet you can pet one minute and shove away the next!”
I hurled the medicine bag hard against his chest and spun to walk away.
In an instant he caught my wrist and pulled me back toward him.
His palms were slick with cold sweat as he lowered his head to look down at me, his Adam’s apple bobbing repeatedly, his eyes a mixture of desire, guilt, and struggle.
“You’re not a pet.”
His tone softened, dropping to a murmur. “I am.”
My chest ached, but my words remained sharp. “You’re completely unreasonable.”
Zach let out a quiet sound of agreement and slowly released my wrist. He bent to pick the bag off the pavement and held it out toward me again.
“Take these.”
I refused to take it.
He took my hand, curled my fingers around the bag’s handles and looped them over my fingertips.
“Put them away when you get home. Watch what you eat. Stay away from cold food.”
He gazed down at me with devastating tenderness — totally contradictory for a man who insisted we needed distance.
For one heartbeat I truly believed he was about to lean in and kiss me. My cheeks flamed.
“You are absolutely the worst.”
He hung his head and let out a bitter, selfmocking little laugh. “Yeah. I know I am.”