Page 38 of Puck Shots
“It should be.”
My cheeks warm under his gaze, and I quickly turn my attention to the path ahead.
“You didn’t want to go out and celebrate the win with the team?” I ask as we head toward home.
“We’ve got another game tomorrow, so no celebrations tonight for anyone. Most of the team are still showering and getting changed.”
“You didn’t shower?”
“I did, but do I smell?” he asks, eyebrows pinched together as he sniffs his underarm.
I laugh. “Yes.”
“Seriously,” he asks, sniffing the other arm.
“Everyone smells, but you don’t smell bad. You smell…good. Like mint, actually,” I say, taking another long breath of him. He smiles and relaxes a little.
“Thanks again for all your help. Luka was like a gun out there; he was telling all the guys about you in the locker roomafterward, too. I told them how you helped with my super-speed slap shot. Some of the guys even told the trainers they should ask you to show them the program, maybe they can use it to help improve everyone’s game.”
“I figured it’s the least I could do, seeing as you’ve been helping me so much with the frat stuff. We will find out soon if I made it, and your obligation will be over.”
He stops walking and looks at me deadpan.
“Is that what you think you are?”
I shrug. “John asked your brother to see if you’d keep an eye out for me, so…yeah, I guess.”
He takes a step closer, my heart thundering inside my chest, waiting for him to speak, but he lowers his gaze and reaches out slowly and takes my hands in his. The faded lightning bolt on his inner wrist catches the light. He’s always got one there, drawn in black marker. I keep meaning to ask him about it. But I can’t seem to find any words right now as the warmth of his touch spreads up my arms and fills my chest with something more dangerous than getting on the ice with him. Hope.
“My brother asked if I’d make sure no one messed with you. That’s it,” he says, his gaze still on our joined hands. I’m surprised I can even hear him over the beating of my heart. It’s so loud that I’m sure it’s about ready to burst free from my chest. But I’m a science guy, and I know that can’t really happen, no matter how much it feels like it will.
“I sort of figured the rest was, you know…connected. Like a chain reaction,” I say in a whisper. I can’t look away from where his thumbs brush lightly over the backs of my hands. Does he know he’s doing that or is it an automatic movement like walking or breathing?
“I don’t know what the brothers’ decision will be, and I don’t know if you even, or if we could. Like I don’t know what this means for everything else, but…”
Is he nervous? My chest fills up like a balloon at the thought that I somehow made Cosmo nervous. It’s kind of adorable watching him awkwardly stumble through his words. He’s normally the cool guy, striding through the crowd with ease, talking comes easy to him, but not right now. Right now, he’s struggling to string together a full sentence.
“Cos, whatever it is you can tell me,” I say, and he looks right at me then, his blue-gray eyes filled with light.
“I like you,” he says, and if I hadn’t been able to see his lips move when he did, I am not sure I would have believed my ears.
“I like you, too,” I say, the words coming way easier than expected.
He shakes his head like he disagrees.
“No, I mean, I like you, like you.”
A chuckle escapes my lips, and he goes to pull away, but I hold on and step closer.
“That’s what I meant, too. I like you like you as well.”
“Really?”
I nod, and he releases one hand but laces the fingers of the other with mine and we start to walk again. His grip is firm but not tight, and I kind of love the way his arm rests against mine as we stroll along the path towards the frat house.
We don’t talk for the longest time. I keep glancing down at our joined hands, half expecting to look and find I’m not holding onto anything and this was all some kind of fantasy like all the other times. It’s amazing to think all the signals I was sure I was imagining were actually not in my head.
“So there is this film festival in the quad tomorrow, they’re showing last year’s student-produced top-marked films. Did you maybe want to go?” Cosmo asks as we take the path that leads along the back of the frat houses and past the woods I love so much.
