Page 44 of Play Maker

She rolled her eyes and closed the door in my face. Denied. I probably should have left off the last part, but I couldn’t help myself. My primary form of communication was flirting. Most of the time, I was kidding. In this case, I meant every word.

I took a deep breath to get my racing pulse under control and turned toward the kitchen to make a grocery list. At the top, I added cleaning supplies and a new showerhead. The rational part of my brain tried to insist I’d do this for any of my friends, but I’d lived with Shaw for over a year and I’d never volunteered to clean.

Blue was smart to put some distance between us. I kept trying and failing to think of her only as a friend and roommate. Every day I spent with her made me wish I hadn’t agreed so easily to friends without benefits.

Maybe I was incapable of learning from my past mistakes, but the longer we danced around each other, the more I wanted. I was tired of talking myself down.

Eva’s words flashed through my mind like they always did when I felt like giving in.I don’t want a relationship, Mac, I just wanted some fun.

This time, they didn’t jolt me with pain. This time, I saw the difference. Eva wasn’t looking for me, she was looking for a distraction. I should have told her about my feelings before we got involved—the itch to make a change, the stretch for something different—but I didn’t. Somewhere along the way, I’d stopped sharing.

Eva hurt me when she left, but maybe I’d been pulling away for a lot longer. Maybe Eva had too.

As much as the thought of losing Blue’s company scared me, I wasn’t making the same mistake again. Blue knew parts of me Eva had never touched. She understood my restlessness, she wanted Adam, not Mac.

And I wanted Blue. I wanted every prickly, confident, beautiful inch of her, and I was done holding myself back.

16

Iknew I was tempting fate the second I chose to brave the kitchen in my sleep shirt and undies. Earlier in the day, Adam had stalked me all the way to the border of my room, but I’d managed to scrape together enough wits to leave him in the hallway instead of inviting him inside.

Then I’d hidden like the coward I apparently was. So much for not hiding from adversity.

When I came out to scrounge for dinner, I found a brand-new rain showerhead sitting on the counter decorated with a big purple bow. My heart lurched—not a reaction I usually got from plumbing equipment—and my resistance crumbled.

Thank goodness Adam hadn’t been in the room. I’d grabbed the present and a box of Cheez-Its before retreating again. They’d lasted me until after midnight, but I needed real food.

The cold tile felt good under my bare feet while the rest of me overheated. Stress always made me hot. With an upcoming project and the approaching deadline of my mom’s first wedding event, for which I was still dateless, pressure threatened to crush me.

I’d spent the evening trying to study instead of fantasizing about Adam, and I only put myself at a forty-seven percent success rate. The living room was dark, and the kitchen was lit only by the stove light. Footballs players traineda lot, so my roommates tended to go to bed early unless Adam pushed them to go out. Even so, it wasn’t early.

The hem of my vintage Rainbow Brite shirt brushed my thighs, but I didn’t care if one of them caught me. Shaw and RJ didn’t make me nervous like they had at the beginning. They were what I thought it might be like if I had siblings. Real siblings, not the pervy version Shad insisted on manifesting.

Cooking anything seemed like too much work to my tired brain, but for once, the fridge was full of healthy food I hadn’t bought. Healthy food that required some kind of preparation unless I planned to eat raw carrots. Screw the veggies—I wanted carbs. Toast would have to do.

This was my life now. Toast at midnight because I was too much of a coward to face my roommate. At least I was an equal opportunity coward—I’d been avoiding Eva too. Chloe talked to her regularly, and the lack of any news meant nothing much had changed on her end. A lot had changed on mine.

I sighed and rested my forearms on the counter, waiting for my meal to pop up. Mom had texted earlier to make sure I remembered her engagement luncheon was next week. I remembered. I’d simply planned to ignore it until I had a solid strategy for finding a date.

My grand plan of having Adam teach me to be fun and sexy was backfiring spectacularly. He nailed the fun and sexy part, but every time I tried to mimic him, I either felt like an obvious fraud or I fell headfirst under Adam’s spell.

Admittedly, he hadn’t been as much of a player as I expected. Football players were stereotyped as promiscuous for a reason, right? Not this group. With RJ and Chloe, even Eva to some extent, all the men were on lockdown. I should probably appreciate their very taken status since I haven’t had to deal with any groupies or late-night visitors, but I felt a little bad about originally assuming Adam only paid attention to women he wanted to sleep with.

He paid attention to everyone, and now I was avoiding him. Not a great way to learn.

None of my evolving feelings toward Adam would help me show up to Mom’s luncheon properly paired off with a respectable date, and I hadn’t suddenly developed the ability to make small talk without mentioning my menstrual cycle.

This first event was a small, intimate gathering of mostly family and friends. Rob’s family and friends. She’d even given me an out because she wanted me to have time to settle into my new place. I only intended to use it in case of emergency.

The toast popped up, but my appetite had disappeared. Sleep sounded better than eating, but I’d regret it when I hoovered up a trash breakfast in the morning. Tomorrow was one of the three days a week I went running with Adam in the evening. Which brought me full circle to the stupidity of hiding from him.

Along with the stupidity of skipping dinner and the stupidity of thinking I had any idea how to be friends with someone who starred in my dirtier fantasies.

As if he could sense my swirling thoughts, I heard a door close quietly in the hallway. Shaw and RJ’s door squeaked, so it had to be Adam. For a second, I considered running back to my room, but the questions circling quietly in the back of my mind surged to the front in a deafening roar.

What if I didn’t run this time?

I felt him first—his warmth on my back. His arms brushed mine as he caged me against the counter, flattening his hands on either side of me. I didn’t move.

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