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Lane smiles back and I can almost see his shoulders relax. “Fine. In that case, welcome to Casa del Masters.”

He opens the door and gestures for us to step inside. It’s the first time I’ve ever been somewhere that Lane calls home. For all of our time spent together growing up, it was always at training camps and college campuses. I’ve seen pictures of his family in Montana and have a good idea of his family home, but this feels different.

The apartment is open plan, with the kitchen and living room joined. There are only two doors, which I assume are the bedroom and bathroom. I immediately drop my bag by the door and toe off my sneakers, heading over to some pine shelves to peer at the photos there.

“Wow,” I say, picking up one of his sisters and their kids. “Your nieces and nephew got big.”

Lane laughs from where he’s already rooting around in his kitchen. “Yeah. And that photo’s a year old.”

“How many sisters you got?” Aldo asks, dropping down onto the sofa and making himself comfortable.

“Two,” Lane says. “Which is two too many.”

Aldo laughs, deep and rich, and the sound makes my stomach tighten. “I have three sisters and two brothers.”

Lane’s head pops up from behind the kitchen counter, his eyebrows raised. “That’s a lot.”

He shrugs. “I’m right in the middle, so it’s all I’ve ever known.”

Placing the photo back down, I continue my lap of the living room, my fingers tracing the medals displayed on the wall as my chest tightens. I was right there with him for most of them. Back before everything changed.

I glance over at the kitchen, watching him frown at his cupboards as he tries to organize drinks, his teeth sinking into the side of his lip like he does when he’s concentrating. When I look over at Aldo, I find him watching Lane, too.

As much as Aldo was shocked when I suggested the two of them were together, I’d have to be blind not to notice the way he looks at him. It’s clear as day he’s attracted to him. I mean, I can’t blame him.

Heading over to the sofa, I sit down at the opposite end and Aldo turns to me. His gaze heats as he looks me up and down and my pulse skips in response.

“What are you doing all the way over there?” he asks, arching a dark eyebrow and holding a hand out toward me.

My heart races as I take it, and he pulls me close enough that our thighs press together. When he doesn’t let go of my hand, I swallow. I don’t want to upset Lane, but would he be upset? He knows Aldo and I were fooling around. Even so, I don’t want Lane to feel like a third wheel, so I gently pull my hand away. The disappointment on Aldo’s face is almost enough to make me change my mind.

“Okay,” Lane says from the kitchen. “I’ve got dark rum and white rum. Lemonade and Coke. There’s a dusty bottle of red wine in the back of the cupboard that I don’t remember buying, so it might have been left by whoever lived here before me.”

Aldo laughs and squeezes my thigh before standing and heading over to the kitchen. “Let me see the wine.”

Lane hands it over and folds his arms across his chest. “So, because you’re Italian, you’re a wine aficionado?”

“No,” Aldo says, grinning at him. “Because I grew up in the restaurant business, I’m a wine aficionado.”

I laugh and Lane rolls his eyes.

“This is pretty decent,” Aldo says, blowing actual dust off the bottle. “I say let’s try it. Feels like more of a celebratory drink than rum and flat soda.”

Lane shrugs and grabs three wine glasses while Aldo opens the bottle. I watch them from the sofa, enjoying the aesthetic of Lane’s blond hair and blue eyes against Aldo’s Mediterranean coloring, and swallow as I remember the desperate way they’d clawed at each other in that club.

“Here you go,” Aldo says, handing me a glass before returning to his seat beside me.

I accept the glass gratefully and Lane sits down on my other side, leaving a respectful distance. “What are we toasting to?”

“To kicking ass,” Aldo says, raising his glass. “And to having an excellent assistant coach.”

Lane laughs and raises his glass. “And to having the best captains on the West Coast.”

“I can toast to that,” I say, grinning as I clink glasses with both of them.

The wine is nice, and we sip in silence, appreciating it for a moment. When Aldo takes a breath to speak, I’m not prepared in any way for what comes out of his mouth.

“Did you know Joy thought we were together?”

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