Anger pulses through me as I see the pain he holds in his eyes—pain that he tries to hide. “Fucking Bryce Burrows,” I growl. “That piece of diving shit.”
Oliver’s mouth quirks. “In retrospect, he’s highly underwhelming and definitely wasn’t worth all the angst, but…” He sighs. “That’s not how I felt back then. I’m not the most rational person when I fall for someone. And I fell for him. Hard.”
Ugly, potent jealousy sours my stomach.
“I want nothing more than to give in to this,” he says quietly. “And I’m having a very hard time dealing with how frustrated I am denying it. But you could be very, very bad news for me, Gavin Hayes. And I didn’t come this far to let another person blow up everything I’ve worked for.”
I sift through what he’s said, hunger and need making me lean into his touch, feast on the way his pupils dilate, the way his chest rises and falls unsteadily, like mine. “It doesn’t have to blow up,” I tell him, a plan formulating in my head.
He laughs emptily. “It doesn’t, but it likely will, and then I will be screwed.”
I shake my head, sliding my hands down, rounding his shoulders, holding him tight. “Just fucks. No feels.”
He stares at me. “What?”
“We’re both losing our minds not acting on this.” I nudge my hips against his, making us both suck in a breath. Oliver’s grip tightens on my pockets, holding me there when I try to pull away because it feels so good I can barely form sentences while we’re touching like this. “If we scratch the itch, keep it strictly physical, feelings out of it, then you risk none of that.”
He stares at me, breathing unevenly. “You’d want that?”
A groan rolls out of me. “Fuck yes.” I nudge my hips against his, showing him exactly how much I want.
“You just…” He shakes his head. “The past few weeks, I’d swear you couldn’t care less.”
My hands move against my will, down his arms, threading through his fingers, stroking his palms. “That is because I am very, very good at hiding what I want and feel and need.” I lean closer, my mouth a whisper from his. “I’ve seemed my usual surly self.”
He nods.
“But I have been in hell,” I admit to him. “Watching you when I shouldn’t. Wanting you when I shouldn’t. The things I’ve done to you in my mind, when I’m alone. In the shower. In my bed. Fuck, it’s a madness, how much I want you.”
Air rushes out of him as he wrenches his hands from mine and steps back, breathing roughly. “You promise?”
“Promise what?”
“That you’re not doing this to sabotage me. That you’re not going to mess with me, turn this against me somehow.”
Cold fury ices my veins. “Bergman.”
“Promise me,” he says.
I search his eyes. “You piss me the fuck off. You are aggravatingly cheerful and much too polite on and off the pitch. You choke on set pieces and you pass the ball too readily when you should shoot instead. You are much too attractive for your own good, and your wardrobe is an affront to the eyes, but I have never, nor will I ever, do anything to sabotage your career or your happiness. You have my word.”
He blinks at me. “But you…you used to hate me. Sometimes I still think you do.”
Here’s where I have to tread very, very carefully. If I admit to him—to myself—the truth, this arrangement I’m proposing, will be entirely off the table. If I admit how damn much I feel about Oliver Bergman when I’m promising to fuck him senseless and satisfy this ravenous craving between us with not a drop of emotion involved, he will shut this down and for very good reason.
Because if he knows what I feel, it would give him permission to feel that, too. And that’s exactly what he’s asked me to promise not to do to him, what I will not do, when I know how this ends. Me leaving. Him living. Happily. Without me.
“I have never hated you,” I tell him quietly, keeping my hands to myself, needing him to hear me, to understand, to believe me.
“Then, if not hate, what was the past two years, Hayes?”
I stare at him, knowing I can’t tell him what I’m thinking: That was doing everything in my power not to end up exactly where we are—loathing you for what you have while longing for who you are, aching for the person who’s gained everything I’m about to lose, wanting you more than I want my next breath.
“I hated how I felt around you.” It’s an incomplete truth, but it isn’t a lie.
“Likewise,” he fires back. “But you didn’t see me being an asshole.”
“Not overtly, but you found plenty of ways to get under my skin. You just did it with a smile.”
He shifts uncomfortably. “I had to give it back to you somehow.”
“Yes, well, I’m not the warm-and-fuzzy type to begin with. Having to rub shoulders with you was not going to bring out my nonexistent friendly side, especially when I was attracted to you.”
His mouth parts. “Wait, you’ve been attracted to me—”
“Since I fucking saw you? Yes.”
And I resented you for it, I almost admit. I resented how happy you were, how gorgeous and young and promising. How content you were, when I was anything but.
“It was irritating as fuck,” I gruff. “It still is.”
His mouth quirks. A faint blush stains his cheeks. “But you wanted me. You couldn’t stand me, but you wanted me. You still do.”
I hold his eyes. “Yes.”
He bites his lip, staring at me. “So…it wouldn’t change anything. Same dynamic as always, professional at work. And when we’re home—”
“Very unprofessional,” I promise him.
A smile lights up his face. His blush deepens. Then he schools his expression and offers his hand. “Deal.”
I stare at his hand, then glance up, meeting his eyes. I slap away his hand, wrench him by the shirt, and drag him into my arms. “I’m going to kiss you.”
He nods. “I’m good with that.”
“But first, you’re going to tell me who the fuck walked into your house like he owned it and kissed you first.”
“My cheek,” Oliver says. “He kissed my cheek.”
I growl as I walk him backward until he’s up against the wall and I’m pressing him there. “Tell me.”
Oliver rolls his lips between his mouth, then says, “Don’t get mad.”
“Bergman,” I warn.
“It was my brother.”
I stare at him, feeling like the floor has dropped out from underneath me. “Your brother?”
Oliver’s trying very hard not to smile. “Also, that night when we were in the kitchen and a woman showed up outside my place? That was my sister.”
“Jesus.” I rake a hand through my hair, setting distance between us. “How many fucking siblings do you have?”
His smile wins, brightening his face. “Six.”
“Six!” I blink. “There are six more of you running around? God help us.”
“Shut up.” He grips my shirt and pulls me close. “Now do you feel like an ass?”