Page 39 of Trapped and Tackled

I don’t want her apology. This wasn’t her fault—it was me crossing a line and taking something I don’t deserve but desire anyway.

“I’m not,” I say.

She frowns.

Fuck. I’m sending her mixed messages.

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I amend.

She dips her head and reaches for her shoulder bag. “I should get going.”

“Wait.” I toss an arm out and she recoils, flinching. But I’m reaching for the pie box and when she notes that, relief filters over her expression.

What the hell? Did she think I was going to…what?

“Take this.” I press the pie box into her hands.

“No, I—I can’t.”

“Please.” I leave it in her grasp. Force myself not to brush a lock of her hair behind her ear. “Tonight, this dinner, it meant a lot to me, Leni.”

“Yeah,” she says. “Me too.” But her tone is clipped and I know she’s just as confused, maybe even a little embarrassed, as I am.

I hate that I made her feel that way. I hate that I messed shit up between us.

But most of all, I hate that when I walk her to the door and say good night, I do nothing to erase the look of dejectedness off her face.

Leaning back in the airplane seat, I close my eyes. I’m fucking exhausted. Partly from practice and partly from the shit sleep I’ve gotten the past few nights.

“What gives?” Callaway asks, dropping into the seat beside me.

I open an eye and glare at him. “Can’t you sit somewhere else?”

“Nope,” Crawford offers cheerily, sitting across the aisle from Avery.

I groan. “I’m going to sleep on this flight.”

“Don’t let me keep you awake then,” Callaway says, crossing an ankle over his knee and jabbing it into my quad.

“What the hell?” I mutter, pushing his knee away.

Crawford snickers on Avery’s other side.

“What’s going on with you?” Callaway hisses. “Please don’t tell me you slept?—”

“What?” I interrupt, stopping his trail of thought before he can voice it aloud. On a plane with the team and Coach. “Of course not.”

His eyes narrow. “You don’t know who I was about to say.”

I wince.

“Miller, this isn’t a fucking joke,” Callaway mutters.

“Keep your voice down.” I jerk my head to the side, knowing that Crawford is trying to eavesdrop. Luckily, his phone buzzes and since we’re still on the tarmac—and it’s Nova—he picks up.

Half a second later, he’s making fucking baby talk and I breathe a little easier knowing that nothing will distract Crawford from his baby girl. Not even scandalous gossip.

“What happened?” Avery presses.

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