Page 86 of What If I Hate You
She throws me a look over her shoulder that makes my stomach tighten in the best way. Her ponytail swings as she walks ahead, and I catch myself just staring like a complete idiot. Hoodie, jeans, barely any makeup. She looks comfortable. She looks like she belongs in my space.
And for the first time… I kind of want someone to.
Not just someone though. Her. I want it to be Blakely.
“So, what exactly are we looking for?” she asks, grabbing a cart like she owns the place. “Something to warm the place up, right? A vibe?”
“I don’t know what that means,” I say, stepping in beside her. “I need you to translate.”
“Okay,” she says, nodding like she’s accepted the mission. “Then we’re looking for ‘goalie with hidden depth who wants his apartment to say I don’t bite unless I like you.’”
I bark a laugh. “That’s a lot for a couch pillow to communicate.”
“You’d be surprised.” She stops in front of a wall of throw pillows and holds one up. “This says, ‘I care about lumbar support but also aesthetics.’”
“That one’s twenty-five bucks.”
“Comfort is an investment.”
I mutter under my breath but toss it into the cart anyway. Because she likes it. Because her eyes lit up and I want that to keep happening.
“What do you think about these?” she asks, pulling down two round pillows cinched in the center with a button of some sort. They’re each a different shade of blue.
I scratch my chin, mulling over the pillows before I answer, “I think they look like buttholes.”
“What?” She spits out a laugh. “What are you talking about?”
God her smile is so fucking pretty.
“They’re butthole pillows. That’s what I think of them,” I tell her, gesturing to the cinched middles. “Look, they look like they’re all puckered up. Like my asshole when Hicks walks into the locker room in a bad mood…or when you step up to the mic in the press room.” She’s definitely made my asshole pucker a time or two in that room.
“Oh.” She smiles with a raise of her brow. “So, I make your asshole pucker, huh?”
“Sometimes, yeah.” I nod, matching her mischievous expression. I lean down and press my lips against hers and then tell her, “And one day when the timing is right, I’m going to fuck you in that room so I can show you who’s boss.”
She giggles but I don’t miss the darkening of her eyes at the mention of the idea.
“Promises, promises,” she says before she drops the two butthole pillows into the cart. When she spins toward the lamps, I consider putting one of the two buttholes back but fuck it. What my girl likes, my girl gets.
“What about that one?” I point to a low wooden floor lamp with a warm fabric shade.
Her eyes land on it and her mouth opens a little. “Okay, that’s actually good. I’m impressed.”
“Why do you sound so surprised?”
“Because you just referred to pillows as assholes and the last time I saw you pick something, it was a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and a six-pack of Blue Moon in the gas station this morning. Also, I’m pretty damn sure your nutritionist would not approve.”
“You say that like it wasn’t an elite choice and between you and me, what my nutritionist doesn’t know won’t kill him.”
She snorts and keeps browsing, and I let myself enjoy this. The normalcy of it. No cameras. No pressure. Just…her, here, choosing a fake plant that won’t die in my questionable care, and making my place feel like it’s something more than just a crash pad between road games.
“This one,” she says, holding up a framed print of a mountain landscape with fog curling through the trees. “It feels peaceful.”
I nod. “Yeah. That works.”
She tosses it in the cart, then glances at me. Her voice softens. “You sure this isn’t too much? I know this isn’t your usual Saturday.”
“It’s better,” I say, quieter than I mean to. “I wanted you here.”
