Page 94 of The Trophy

Luca’s expression turns into a scowl. “You’re right. First off because I’m sure he would manage to turn our relationship into something disgusting.”

“Yeah,” Cash clenches his fists. “He would cause a scandal. Believe me, if I was an outsider, it would be easy to believe that we’re all using her. That she’s a puck bunny we’re passing around just to get our rocks off.”

Fuck.

Cash has a point.

“What we do behind closed doors is our business,” I say to no one in particular. “It isn’t just a sex thing. And even if it was, we’re all consenting adults.”

“Yeah,” Cash looks me in the eye. “When we were in LA, at first I thought what we were about to do was wrong. I guess society tells us that a relationship should have just two people. I didn’t see it straight away, I was too caught up in my jealousy. We aren’t using Lake, we all love her.”

At first, I don’t catch on his last few words, too focused on defending our relationship, even though there’s no one here that disagrees with us. “If we’re in bed with her together, all we want is to make her feel good. We would never do anything to hurt her—wait. Did you just say that you love her?” I gawk at our goalie.

The corners of Cash’s mouth lift in a barely there smile. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. Last night I told her that I love her.”

“You did?” Luca is as shocked as I feel.

“What do you think I mean when I say end game?” Cash asks, rolling his eyes. “I’m in love with her. And I know the two of you are too. Or we wouldn’t be here discussing the future.”

When he puts it that way…

“So what did she say, when you told her that you love her?” I ask.

Cash’s smirk graduates into a full on smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him smile this way. “She said it back.”

Lucky motherfucker.

“Merda (shit),” Luca says, voicing exactly what’s going through my own head. “I love her too, but I didn’t want to tell her until I was sure I wouldn’t be the one she chose.”

“Same,” I confirm. “What if she isn’t there with me yet?” I didn’t mean to voice my insecurity out loud, but now that the cat is out of the bag, there’s no taking it back.

“Shut up,” Luca groans. “Why the fuck did you say that? Now I’m wondering the same thing.”

Surprisingly Cash puts us both out of our misery. “Of course she fucking loves you, idiots. What the fuck do you think she means when she says that she can’t choose? If she didn’t love all three of us, she would’ve made a choice.”

I hate it when Cash is right. He’s going to gloat forever about being the first one she said I love you to, the same way he’s been gloating about being the first one to take her out.

“We need to tell her how we feel,” I tell Luca.

“Giusto (Right),” he nods.

I’m already planning a romantic date to tell my girlfriend that I love her, when Cash brings up another matter we need to resolve.

“Guys, next week it’s winter break. The team is supposed to choose a captain. We got carried away with our feelings, but we haven’t decided what to tell Topher and the rest of the team.”

Goddam, today he really is the voice of reason. “What do you propose? We’re all dating her and we can’t come clean without tarnishing Lakyn’s reputation,” I complain.

Cash must have given it some serious thought. “There’s only one solution. For now, we should just decide which one of us gets to play the official boyfriend. The other two will have to be discreet.”

I know he’s right but I don’t like it. “Will it be like this forever?”

Cash shrugs. “We’ll have to play it by ear. When we’ll be rookies, we can share a place. A lot of new players do, entry level contracts are good but not that good. No one should ask too many questions if Lakyn is around, if the world thinks she’s with one of us.”

Maybe he isn’t totally wrong. “I guess. The world is hopefully becoming more tolerant toward non conventional relationships.”

Luca seems doubtful. “That might be true in some places but not everywhere. For example my father, the King, is very conservative.”

“I thought Europeans were more progressive,” I observe.

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