Page 57 of Three Pucking Words
In my defense, Tori’s coworker was five years older than me and had four cats, which I’m allergic to. “I never wanted anybody to set me up. We talked about this, man. I’m not a fan of people coming into my life to try helping me down a path I didn’t ask to be on.”
He knows what I’ m talking about. “I apologized a hundred times about the Olive thing. I didn’t even realize you liked her that much when I suggested that she keep her distance.”
“And I’ve forgiven you.”
“So why did it feel like you were holding something back at dinner?” he questions, his eyes narrowing into suspicious slits that are all-knowing. “Because from my vantage point, it seems like you’re trying to convince yourself that you’re not into her.”
Christ. This again? “I don’t have a thing for your sister, Henderson.”
Not anymore, anyway.
His smile turns into a cocky grin. “I wasn’t talking about Olive. Although, that’s good to know.”
He was referring to Honor.
I wasn’t playing up anything,I’d told the redhead after nearly kissing her. I’d been so close to sayingfuck itand takingher face in my hands and kissing her properly. Not pecking her cheek. Not her forehead. I’d wanted her mouth on mine more than anything in the world. I’d been charged with sexual tension throughout the entire dinner.
Her laugh, her smile, her eyes on mine all did something to me. It made me want. It made me yearn. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.
“I already said there wasn’t anything to say when you asked what was going on between me and Honor,” I tell Sebastian pointedly.
I open the locker room door and follow him out, walking down the narrow corridor toward the back exit where most of us parked.
He readjusts his bag over his shoulder, stopping by his car a few minutes later. “It didn’t seem that way at dinner, dude. The way you looked at her…” His words fade as he whistles in admiration.
Olive had said the same thing to Honor, and I won’t forget the way her voice hitched and her face heated at the thought of that being true.
I wasdefinitelylooking.
I stared at her smile as she laughed at the banter between Olive and Sebastian. I stared at the way her lips were wrapped around the straw in her water as she drank. I stared at the way she squirmed when I put my arm on the back of her chair and let my fingers graze her arm. It didn’t matter who was talking, I spent most of the night with my eyes on Honor, like a gravitational pull forced me to.
“If there really isn’t anything to say about you two, then that’s denial if I ever saw it. Anybody at that restaurant who spent even five minutes looking in your direction could see that there wassomethinggoing on. And maybe that’s why Olive assumed it. Maybe I’ve been a jealous dick about you confiding in herinstead of me for no reason. But I want you to tellmethese things. We’re bros. Best friends. Not to get all sappy and shit, but I want you to come to me about chicks and life. I saw what Inez’s death did to you. I saw the trials you went through to get Gemma. I was more than happy to have you crash on my couch whenever you didn’t want to be alone. I was fine with picking your drunk ass up whenever you overdid it at the bars if that’s what got you through your shit. You’ve been through hell and back and deserve to find your happiness. I don’t know Honor, but what I do know is that she’s the first woman that I’ve seen you put your defenses down around. You looked more relaxed than I’ve seen you in years the other night.”
It’s almost a laughable statement, because I felt more pent up than ever around her. My body physically buzzes in her presence, and it took everything in me not to get a raging hard on every time she lifted her straw to her mouth.
But I understand his sentiment. Besides the undeniable attraction that made me desperately want a fuck ton more than a kiss on the cheek, Idofeel like I can be myself around her.
“When there’s something to tell, I’ll tell you,” I promise him. And I mean it. That doesn’t mean I’m going to tell him I asked Honor to go out with me to prove to Olive that I’m fine, because that wouldn’t help my case any. He’d probably pull some psychological babble at me to understand the inner workings of my mind, and neither of us have time for that.
Taking a deep breath, I exhale it slowly. “So does this mean we’re good? Because I don’t want to sit through another team meeting with people passing a piece of paper around with tally marks under who they’d live with if we got divorced.”
Sebastian laughs, which means he saw what our asshole teammates were up to when they should have been watching footage. “You’re just mad because there were more tallies under my name.”
There were. And, yeah, it was irritating. “It’s only because you have a bigger house and a fucking TV room.”
“And a jacuzzi room,” he adds with a slick grin on his face. “Can’t forget that. Really pays to buy their love.”
I roll my eyes. “Seriously, though. We good?”
His smile is lighter than before. “We’re good,” he promises, although there’s something in his eyes that make me wonder what he’s thinking. “Go home, ice that shoulder, and take some ibuprofen. I saw you rubbing it earlier. Don’t want it being fucked during our game against the Kings.”
Ice makes it worse, and ibuprofen doesn’t touch the pain, but I don’t tell him either of those things. I barely let myself acknowledge how close to the end of my career I feel. It’s a terrifying truth lingering in the back of my mind when I get home and hiss at each movement that sharpens the discomfort.
“And come over for tacos,” he calls out as he slides into his car.
I smile to myself now that we’re back on track. “Wouldn’t miss it, bro.”
*
