Page 16 of Caught Stealing

“I didn’t realize he liked football.”

Kason laughs and shakes his head. “Oh, he doesn’t.”

I frown some more, mostly not understanding how someone doesn’t like football. But also… “Then why does he come?”

“Show support. Being a good friend.”

I’d like to think of myself as a great friend to my inner circle, but Hell would have to freeze over before I’d be caught dead watching Oakley play hockey. I freeze my ass off enough just living through Chicago winters—there’s no way I want to do it for sport too.

“I see,” I murmur, watching our guys stop King from completing a quarterback sneakup the middle. “And what did he bring you?”

“Blue Gatorade,” he says, holding up the sports drink. “He brings me one before every game, and I’ll bring him a bag of dill pickle sunflower seeds during baseball season. Kinda been a ritual of ours since high school.”

The sentimentality of this little exchange makes me want to vomit nearly as much as the thought of eating sunflower seeds by choice. Then again, I’ll never understand the allure of playing baseball, let alone their mid-game snack selections.

“Adorable.”

Kason must hear the tiniest hint of sarcasm in my tone, because he knocks his shoulder pad against mine. “You’re telling me you don’t do anything nice for Oakley? Or the other way around?”

I doubt I could tell Kason his favorite color, to be honest. Then again, our friendship is more of the trolling, jabbing kind. The lighthearted fun rather than the heartfelt shit, even if he is one of the few people who knows the whole story about my parents.

“That would require him to stop thinking about hockey every waking moment.”

A lilt of laughter leaves him. “How did the two of you even become friends? You’re not from the same place, and you don’t play the same sport, so…” He trails off, but I’m easily able to follow his line of thinking, even if it is a bit unexpected.

“I answered an ad he’d posted about looking for a roommate near the end of my senior year, and I moved in the summer before starting at Leighton.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah,” I say with a nod. “He was living alone in the townhouse at that time of year, seeing as he’s the only one from Chicago. All our other roommates at the time weren’t due until closer to school starting.”

“So it was just the two of you.”

“Yeah, and it was awful,” I say with a laugh. “We butt heads constantly the first week, and I swear, I was this close to murdering him when he left one of his weird socks with red chili peppers printed on them in the washer. By the time I’d realized it, all my white clothes were fucking pink.”

He lets out a laugh. “Not a great way to kick things off.”

“Seriously. And he blamed it on me for washing my clothes in warm water.” I shake my head, recalling more of the fuck-ups we shared that summer before any of the other guys showed up. Like the time I flooded the kitchen by putting dish soap in the dishwasher instead of the little pod thing, or the time we set all the smoke detectors off when we accidentally put a frozen pizza in the oven still on the cardboard.

“We spent a lot of time together, just the two of us. Made us bond, I guess, even if we don’t have a whole lot in common.”

The Hawks manage to get a first down on our guys thanks to King throwing one helluva pass to his tight end. He runs it a good twenty yards before one of our corners, Colson, takes him to the ground.

Standing on the sidelines watching our defense always makes me antsy to get out on the field to help the team. But I can’t do that if they don’t stop the damn ball.

Which is why I glance over at Kason, needing a distraction.

“What about you and Phoenix?” I ask, and I realize I’m intrigued as to how they ever became friends.

“We’ve been friends for as long as I can remember. I moved to his school around…sixth grade, maybe? Got thrown together on some class project, and it just kinda stuck.”

I blink at him, waiting for more of an answer, only for none to come tumbling from his mouth. “That’s it? That’s your great, grand story?”

“I take it you were expecting some great, epic saga?”

Yeah, kinda.

“Considering you talk about him like he hung the moon or something…” I point out, letting him fill in the details. Then a wicked smile curves my lips, and I add, “Besides, I gotta know what my competition is here.”

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