Page 15 of Matched

“Um.” Dragging his eyes up to mine, he licked his lips. “I forgot to bring any water.”

“Oh. Uh. Yeah. Here.” I shoved my bottle at him, our fingers brushing together as he grasped it. He visibly shivered.

What the fuck?

“Nate!”

We both turned at the new voice. I smiled, seeing my sister waving at me from the sidelines. She was standing with two of her friends, Daisy and Millie, and I nodded a greeting at them as I jogged over to greet Sophie.

“Don’t hug me. As much as I love you, I don’t love your sweat.” Sophie ducked away from my outstretched arms, and I pretended to lunge at her, making her use Millie as a human shield. Millie squealed, diving into Daisy, and when the three of them had collapsed into a giggling heap, I cleared my throat.

“Sophie, Daisy, Millie. Meet Charlie. He’s training for us as part of one of his uni modules.”

The three of them straightened up, and I grinned at the glare Sophie directed at me. It was my brotherly duty to make things as awkward as possible, after all.

I continued with the introductions. “Charlie, this is my sister, Sophie, and her friends Daisy and Millie. They all went to the same school and then followed each other to LSU.” I nodded towards the players on the pitch. “Daisy is Pete’s sister.”

“Hi.” Charlie smiled at each of the girls, giving them weirdly polite handshakes, and I wondered if he felt awkward, too, knowing that I was watching him interact with my sister. Especially because he’d admitted to me that he thought she was pretty and he wanted to meet her.

I stepped away, giving them some privacy, and Sophie shot me a grateful look. Watching them out of the corner of my eye, I moved into a series of cooldown stretches.

My sister’s bright laugh carried across the field, and my gaze snapped back to them. Charlie was leaning into her, tapping his fingers on her phone screen and saying something I couldn’t catch. Whatever it was, it caused her to flush and give him a half-shy, half-flirty look.

My jaw clenched, and by the time Charlie had handed Sophie her phone, my whole body was on edge.

Stop being so overprotective, Nate. Charlie’s a good guy, and Sophie’s a grown adult.

I forced myself to turn away, silently helping Travis to gather up the training cones before heading towards the changing room to shower.

I refused to look back.

“Seen Charlie lately?”

My brows rose at my housemate’s question. It had come out of the blue, right in the middle of a discussion about the latestStar WarsTV adaptation that we were currently watching.

“Huh?”

“Charlie. You know. The guy you had two dates with.” Jonas nodded at my phone. “All thanks to my app.”

“No thanks to your app, you mean.” Slumping further back into the sofa cushions, I kicked my feet up on the coffee table. “Speaking of seeing people, have you seen Joe today?”

Jonas shook his head. “Nope. I haven’t seen him in a few days. It feels like it’s just the two of us living here, most of the time.”

That was true. Our third housemate was rarely home, preferring to spend the majority of his time at his girlfriend’s place. Not that I blamed him—she lived alone, so they had privacy when they were at hers.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “He’s hardly ever here these days. As for Charlie, I saw him today, in fact. He’s training with the football team for one of his uni modules.”

“No more dates?”

“That would be a no, because in case you forgot, I’m straight, and so is he.” Jonas opened his mouth, and before he could say anything, I added, “He met my sister today. They seemed to hit it off.”

Jonas stared at me. “He met Sophie?”

“Yeah. She was at my training session today with a couple of her friends. One of them has a brother who joined the team this year.”

“Mate. What’s with the face?”

“What face?” I made a conscious effort to relax my posture. “I’m not making a face.”

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