Page 32 of The Sky Between Us

“I’m glad you joined the team. We really need to beat ASU and Ohio. I think you can help us with that.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “First, we should win nationals, you know beat USC and UCLA which isn’t going to be easy. You guys only ever won nationals by accident…”

“True,” she muttered and forcefully extended her hand towards me. “I’m Giselle, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you,” I shook her hand a little less enthusiastically. “Since when are you…” I started when I caught a sight of Aiden across the garden.

He swung his duffle back across his back, his dirty blond hair damp from the shower, and the last rays of sunshine glimmering on it. His smile lit up his face, despite him being in the shadows as he laughed at something his teammates told him. Elliot came up from behind him and tackled him, making Aiden laugh even harder.

Words got stuck in me, and I forgot all about Giselle and our conversation. All I saw was Aiden. My eyes travelled lower from his face, realizing he was wearing white t-shirt and navy-blue sweatpants. The pants hung lower on his hips and his shirt rode up as his duffle caught the side of it, exposing his sharp cut V and abs.

My mouth ran dry and my brain completely turned off.

“Um, are you friends with Aiden Hitchings?” Giselle asked me, catching my arm when my foot automatically took me towards him.

“No,” I shook my head immediately, and glanced back at the soccer players.

Aiden’s shining blue eyes were on me and a flirty smile played on his lips, and the team detoured, heading towards us.

“We aren’t friends,” I said to remind myself and to justify those crazy little butterflies flapping in my stomach.

We were something, or going to be something. But that sure as hell wasn’t friends.

“Hey beautiful,” he greeted me as the entire team gathered around Giselle and I.

My body developed a mind of his own, and I stepped towards him. Surprise flashed across Aiden’s face, but he quickly recovered and extending his arm, he pulled me to his chest. Burying my head into his neck I inhaled the smell of his shower gel mixing with this cologne. Woody, spicy fragrance, with strong notes of grapefruit, bloody mandarin and mint, mixed with some cinnamon, rose and mixture of leather, patchouli and amber. It was such a unique and rich scent, yet it made me feel safe.

“Wanna grab dinner?” he muttered into my ear, as his stubble, probably three-day beard, tickled my face.

Blinking up at him, I felt a giggle bubbling up inside of me. “I thought we are having dinner on Wednesday,” I whispered back hoping the others won’t hear us.

Aiden looked down at me, his eyes shining with honest excitement and admiration that made my heart leap.

“Why waste more time?” He flashed me his usual smile, but this one was the opposite of cocky. It was sweet, causing my insides to turn into a puddle. Deep ache formed in the pit of my stomach and desire washed over me as I stared at his lips. I wished he kissed me, or rather, I wanted him to kiss me. Desperately.

Shaking my head, I pulled away from him, his arm sliding off my shoulders, down my arms until he caught my fingers and interlaced them with his. He gave my hand a small tug.

“Come on, I bet you are starving.”

I stared at our interlaced hands and looked up at him, unbothered by his teammates and Giselle goggling us like they were watching the hottest Netflix drama.

“I am, actually,” I found myself saying, and Aiden’s smile turned triumphant. Some guys cheered in the background but I didn’t care. Or at least I thought I didn’t care, until my face started burning from the attention. This was exactly why I didn’t like soccer players nor their attention, nor anything in particular about them. Yet, there I was holding hands with yet another captain, star forward and legendary#10. History was repeating itself and I was letting it happen, but I was growing tired of living in the shadows. Just for an hour, I wanted to live, I wanted to feel alive. And with Aiden, my body was more than alive, it was annoyingly aware of the tiniest touch or the most innocent look. Despite everyone’s chatter, all I could feel was his thumb drawing circles on the inside of my palm, sending shivers through my body and fogging my brain from making sound decisions.

I wanted him, there was no denying it. The question was how could I play the player, in order to keep all my secrets intact. Because my walls crumbled for him, and the only thing left for me to protect myself were the secrets, I couldn’t spill. But the problem with my secrets were that they were self-explanatory, it won’t take him much to dig them up. Only a few pieces of clothing were standing between him and my darkest secret that would change everything.

Forever.

Chapter 8

Ididn’t expect her to say yes, and keeping my face blank was proven to be a challenge. Yet deep inside, strange warmth spread through my body starting from my chest. For some stupid reason her agreement made me happy. Her walls were coming down and somewhere along the way she was becoming comfortable with me. I couldn’t guess how long her comfort would last. As far as I knew, she could turn back into a bitch and withdraw into her shell within minutes or hours. I hoped for the latter, giving me enough time to enjoy a meal in her presence.

Our planned out Italian date night got discarded when I saw her eyes bore into me from a distance. Then when I approached her and she walked into my open arms, I knew I wasn’t going to let her go. I was determined to get to the bottom of her mystery, tonight.

Waving goodbye to my teammates, I left my arms around her waist, my thumb drawing circles on her exposed skin. It wasn’t much, as her leggings were high waisted and her bra was longer, but there was still something for me to touch. It was comforting to do this small, mechanical motion and by the looks of it, Hazel enjoyed it as well. Her fair skin turned pink as warmth crept into her face. Girls blushed just as easily as guys got hard. Especially seeing her in a workout outfit, all her skin-tight clothes hugging her body and leaving nothing to my imagination got my brain to turn off and delegated command to my smaller brain that only cared about being deep inside her.

But that had to wait.

“Where do you want to eat?” I asked her, once we remained alone, and she decided to peel her body off mine.

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