Page 17 of Cold Comeback
"What the hell are you doing?" I hissed.
"Checking on you." His eyes were dark, pupils dilated in the dim lighting. "You seemed tense."
"Stop."
"Stop what?" He stepped closer. I smelled the wine on his breath, mixed with a faint hint of cologne. "I'm only being friendly. Answering questions about our team dynamic."
"You—you know exactly what you're doing."
"Do I?" He was close. Close enough to see the red mark on his neck that his collar didn't quite hide. The one I'd put there. "What am I doing, Gideon?"
"Testing me."
"And how am I doing?"
My self-control, which I'd built my entire identity around, hung by a thread. "Thatcher—"
He spoke softly. "You can't stop thinking about it either. Yesterday. How it felt."
"It—we—screwed up."
"We did?" He reached up, fingers hovering just shy of touching my chest. "Every time you look at me, and every time our hands brush during practice, you look like you want to screw up again."
He was right. God help me, he was absolutely right.
"We should get back." I took a deep breath and didn't move.
Neither did he. "In a minute."
"This can't happen." My voice sounded weak.
"No," he agreed. "It can't."
He leaned in, and I didn't step back.
"Gideon," he whispered, and how he said my name nearly broke me.
Someone rattled the door handle. "Hello? Is someone in there?"
We sprang apart. It was a miracle of timing. I unlocked the door and brushed past whoever was waiting—one of the servers, looking harried.
When I returned to the table, Thatcher was already there chatting with Janet about his favorite type of tape for stick handling while finishing his tiramisu, as if nothing had happened. He was entirely composed.
I was coming apart at the seams.
"Everything okay?" Janet asked as I sat down, gesturing to my untouched gelato that had melted into vanilla soup.
"Fine," I lied.
And this was only dinner. It was going to be a very long season.
Chapter five
Thatcher
The team house had a front door that stuck, a doorbell that played the first eight bars of "We Are The Champions," and a welcome mat that read SKATE OR DIE in faded block letters.
Standing on the porch with my duffel bag, I realized moving in would either be the best decision I'd made since leaving juniors or the final nail in the coffin of my dignity.
