Page 86 of Triple Play

I kiss her at the curve of her jawline. Across her lips. “My breath is probably terrible,” she laughs.

“Mine too, so we match.” And kiss her again.

After a minute, she sits up. Her hair is chaotic. Her eyes have mascara rings under them. “What?” she says, when she catches me looking.

“Just thinking about how beautiful you are.”

That gets her throaty early-morning laugh. “Like an electrocuted racoon?”

“Like you couldn’t be more perfect.”

A wave of something passes over her face. Is she still waiting for me to get mad about her dancing? We all have things in our past. Nothing that won’t make her think I’m dwelling on that, so I kiss her until she melts against me.

Next to us, Felix is still asleep. He looks even more bearish in the morning light—thick through his chest and stomach, stubble prickling his jaw. If I kiss him now, it won’t count, right? We have two hours. In two hours, I can go back to being Blake Forsyth, who’s good at everything. Everything except getting what I want.

My hand drifts over to his belly. I don’t know why I like that line of hair down the center of his stomach, only that I do. There’s something undeniable about that, about how my nails look tracing over his hard padding of muscle. Queer. A word that got tossed at me growing up along with a dozen others I learned to avoid.

My nails are already chipping at the edges—it makes the fact that they’re painted more obvious, not less. Even with that polish gone…the word won’t be or the fact that Felix and Shira saw me for who I am and didn’t run.

My phone chimes again.

Brayden: I’m already bored driving.

Me: You have another two hours of it

Brayden: not at the speed I’m going

A second later, a screenshot comes through—Brayden’s navigation app calculating he’ll be here in about ninety minutes.

Me: Be careful with that car. It’s not yours.

Because Brayden is driving out here with a car, trailed by his own vehicle he convinced a friend to drive for him. He’s leaving from here down to the Atlanta Hammers’ spring training complex, which just happens to be right next to Boston’s.

Brayden: damn bro, I really missed you

And I start to write back me too when another message comes through.

Brayden: treating me like I’m too dumb to live

Of course he’s mad at me. Of course.

Showering will take my mind off this. I need to stop lingering. I need to get up. We have ten hours of driving ahead of us.

“Hey.” Felix’s voice is rough with sleep. He blinks awake, spots my hand still on his belly. Smiles. “Good morning.”

Kiss me. What I want them both to do. To settle between them, to stay here, held, like I was last night. “Brayden’s on the road,” I say.

Felix yawns. “And he’s bringing the, uh…?” He trails off when Shira’s eyebrows shoot up, then adds, “Car?”

“Yeah. I was just getting up.” Even if I don’t move.

Felix’s laugh lifts my palm on his stomach. It’s a strange thing to know about my teammate. How the low rumble of his laugh eases something within me.

“Didn’t get a good look at the shower,” he says. “You think it’ll fit three people?”

A question that contains another question inside it: if we’re really done. If we’ve officially left Fayetteville, and what happened in this bed won’t last longer than the time it takes housekeeping to strip the sheets. “Looked like it was only big enough for one.”

So I stroke Felix’s side—a good morning, a goodbye—then get up to go put myself back together.

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