Page 116 of Plays Well With Others

I growl some more, then we head inside in front of them. Rachel lifts a questioning brow. “Something stuck in your throat?”

“I swear, if any of my asshole teammates hit on you, I will rip them a new one,” I grumble.

Where did that come from?Oh, just the depths of my caveman soul.

Rachel laughs in surprise. “Noted.” She squeezes my arm again. “But I’m here with you. Why would they hit on me?”

She asks it so earnestly, but I know how straight dudes who make millions playing ball can act with women—like they can have anyone they want.

A minute later, our kicker weaves past us, stops, spins around, and meets Rachel’s eyes. “I scraped my knee. Can you help me, nurse?”

Called it. “Fuck off,” I say.

Hamlin appears next, in Black Panther gear, clearing his throat. “I have a sore throat, nurse. Will you look at my tongue?”

I bet Beck put the guys up to this to fuck with me.

“Sure. Stick it out,” Rachel says.

Hamlin complies, and I have no choice but to smack him upside the head.Gently. Well, mostly. “Your tongue is fucking fine, Ham.”

I tug her into the kitchen, hoping to get away from pervy teammates. But the kitchen is swarming with teammates too. Well, it is a party.

“They’re jackasses,” I say to Rachel, apologizing in the crowded corner of the kitchen, by a tray of edible eyeballs.

Her smile says it’s no big deal. “It’s okay. They’re your teammates. It doesn’t bother me.” She nibbles on the corner of her lips then raises her chin and takes a breath. “But why does it bother you so much?”

The question comes out like she’s feeling me out. Like it’s hard to ask, but like she really wants to know.

And after tonight and the way we crashed into each other with such need and desire, then the way I saidI’ll always be early, I’m starting to entertain new ideas.

Ideas that make me want to say something.

To tell her—I am so infatuated with you, and I can’t stand the thought of anyone else looking at you the way I do.

But at a party? With loud music reverberating through speakers? And spiderweb nacho-spread and mummy jalapeño poppers and a hundred of our friends? A party where we’re, for all intents and purposes, working? Where I have to make the second to last video in a contract that’s been chasing me?

No. Now’s not the time. You don’t make a big play on first down. You just…move the ball.

So I answer her question with a question. “Did it bother you when I kissed you outside the car?”

Pretty sure it didn’t. But I want to hear it in words, not just deeds. I was so caught up in the moment that I didn’t think. I did something that could radically fuck with this wholejust friendsthing we’ve built at Date Night.

Something that Zena and app users and anyone could have a field day with.

But I loved kissing her freely. I want to know her toes were curling too.

She pins me with a heady gaze. “Couldn’t you tell how much I didn’t mind it?”

My dumb heart thumps.

Then my head does.

“Ouch!”

It’s Hamlin smacking me. “Payback, bro,” he says.

I roll my eyes. The moment is over, and I’d better focus on what we came to do. I whip out my phone and hit record.

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