Another crunch on his apple. “Isn’t change what you wanted?”
“Dammit, Viggo, not this kind of change! I did not want to escalate my antagonism between my now co-captain and myself beyond the level of mutual juvenile pranks, to holding hands across the goddamn country, then being stuck in the same hotel room WITH ONLY ONE BED!”
There’s a brief pause. “Did you say only one bed?”
“Viggo!”
“What? I’m asking a question!”
I groan in frustration, dropping my head back and staring up at the ceiling. “Yes,” I mutter bleakly. “Only one bed.”
“And you…held hands?” he asks carefully.
I glare up at the ceiling. “I had a panic attack during the flight. He held my hand and talked to me, helped me calm down before it got bad. Then I fell asleep and woke up and he was still holding my hand, and now we’re in a hotel room together and he was acting all intense and concerned about what happened on the plane, and then he said something really cryptic, and it freaked me out, because this makes no sense. He’s a giant asshole who hates me and who I frankly cannot stand either, but holy shit, we keep getting really in each other’s personal spaces, and now he drops this, like, poetic bomb on me!” I barrel on, sucking in a sharp breath. “‘I held your hand across a fucking continent, Oliver Bergman. Do with that what you will.’ That’s what he said!”
Finally, I’m done. The other end of the line is silent for a moment, until my brother lets out a long, slow whistle. “Wow. That is poetic. He really said that?”
“Yes.” My chest is tight again. My legs itch with the need to pace. Stalking across the room, I step into the bathroom. A faint trace of Gavin lingers—clean and warm and a little spicy. I don’t breathe in deeply to catch every trace.
Because that would be creepy.
I just take a…little whiff.
“You okay over there?” Viggo asks. “Doing your deep-breathing exercises?”
“So I don’t bodily harm you when I get home,” I mutter, staring at my wonky plane hair and trying to do something with it. It’s in this weird grow-out phase where it’s just past my ears but barely long enough to tug most of it into a ponytail. “Viggo, what’s going on? What did you guys do? What the hell is happening?”
“Ollie-bo-bollie.” Viggo crunches on his apple and says around his bite, “First of all, I’m sorry you had a panic attack. Those are zero fun.”
“Zero fun,” I agree, giving up on my hair, spinning, and parking my butt against the sink. “Thank you. I’ll be okay. It’s just…a lot.”
I can’t see it, but I feel his affirming nod. “Cross-country flight when you hate flying.”
“Yeah.”
“First game of the preseason,” he adds.
“Yep.”
“Seeing your dirtbag ex from college who plays on the opposing team.”
“That, too,” I agree.
“Co-captaining for the first time with a guy you’ve been infatuated with since you were a teenager.”
“God, yeah—whoa!” I scramble off the sink as if escaping the room where Gavin’s scent still lingers will somehow distance me from what I’ve just admitted. “I didn’t—you tripped me up with that.”
“Oliver.”
Dammit. Now I can see his arched eyebrow. The one that says, I see your bullshit, and I buy none of it.
“Dude, I grew up with you, remember?” he says. “I know how hard you crushed on him when we were teens. Shit, I crushed on him when we were teens. Gavin Hayes is hot and competent. Beyond competent. He’s a goddamn legend. He will, beyond our lifetime, be remembered as one of the greats.”
“He’s not dead,” I say defensively. “Or retired. Stop talking about him in the past tense.”
There’s a thick, heavy pause. Without a doubt, he’s biting his lip, trying not to smile.
I flop back on the bed, groaning in frustration. “I hate that I know you so well, I know exactly what you’re doing and thinking right now.”
“Am I so predictable?”
I stare up at the ceiling. “You’re trying not to smile, totally failing, and you’ve got that conniving glint in your eyes.”
“Damn, you’re good. Okay, back to what I was saying, point number two: do you think maybe you two are…into each other? I mean, are there feels? Just really—”
“I do not have feels!” I jackknife up on the bed. “I have a massive hard-on for him. That’s it. He’s hot and, as you say, competent. And he’s…bossy and intense, and that’s my catnip. But he’s also a giant, high-handed, cold, snarky jerk who I cannot stand.”
“Who held your hand,” he reminds me.
“An outlier.”
“And dropped the poetic bomb,” he adds.
“Okay, so another outlier.”
“Ollie, you can ignore that poetic bomb, but if you do, you’re in denial. He has some kind of feels for you,” Viggo says.
“Yeah. Feels of frustration and annoyance. He’s probably just doing all of this to mess with my head and make me feel bad for pushing his buttons.”
“Or he held your hand because he cares and asked about your panic attacks because he’s worried about you, and he almost kissed you when you had your fight in the locker room the other day because he’s been into you and he’s running out of the strength to hide it.”
I roll my eyes. “You really read too many romance novels.”
“No such thing, Oliver. No such thing.”
“I’m telling you—wait.” I frown. “The almost-kiss.” Well, almost-kisses, not that I admit that to Viggo. “I never said anything about that.”
“Ollie, Ollie, Ollie. It was written all over you. You don’t read as many romance novels as I have and not learn the signs of a good almost-hate-kiss.”
“Stop it with the romance novels,” I beg. “This is what I’m talking about. I don’t want to start looking at him with rose-colored, happily-ever-after glasses. Life is not a romance novel.”
“One of my biggest beefs with life.” Crunch. Once again he’s back at the apple.
Sighing, I rub my temples with my thumb and forefinger. “What am I going to do, V? I feel like I’m all turned around and upside down. Much as I hated how things were before this co-captaincy threw a wrench in everything, at least he was predictable. Now I don’t even know what to expect.”
Viggo’s quiet for a moment except for the last crunch of his apple, the slap of the composter lid opening before I hear the core drop with a thunk. “Does something need to be done?”
“It’s a pretty stressful existence right now. I can’t maintain this.”
“So talk to him during your little sleepover tonight. See where things go. Let passion take you where it may—”
“Viggo, no. Not that I think anything close to romance is possible between us, but even if it were, I promised myself I would never do that again—fall for someone who’s in my profession.”
“Who said anything about falling?”