And he shouldn’t.
Because I should. I’m the one who owes him an apology. An explanation. I know this. I’m a fucking jerk sometimes, but I’m no fool. It’s been one thing to create distance, be aloof, demanding, terse—to use my seniority as an excuse for holding everyone at arm’s length. But I know it got away from me. I took it too far on the field the other day and at my house. I lashed out at him. I lost control, snapped, spoke like an overbearing ass. And I shouldn’t have. I should have kept my cool.
Instead, the warning voice inside me whispers, you burst into flames and came so fucking close to pinning him against the wall and kissing him until neither one of you remembered your own names.
“Bergman, I—” My voice catches. I clear my throat. “I realize I was…a bit high-handed the other day.”
It’s quiet but for the faint roar of the Pacific a few blocks away, a stray bird singing its night song. Slowly, Oliver pushes off the side of his house and steps out of its shadow. In moonlight, his eyes are eerily pale, the sharp planes of his face sharper as they cast shadows on his skin. “‘A bit’?” he says.
I grit my teeth. “Yes, a bit. However, in a nutshell, I meant what I said. We’re not getting chummy, but I’ll keep my temper in check with you. I have the last two days, haven’t I?”
“You’ve been okay, I guess.” He takes another step. Then another. A foot stands between us, mirrors of each other. Hands in pockets, gazes locked. “So, that’s what we’ll be…civil.”
“Yes.”
“And that’s it.”
“Yes,” I grit out.
He tips his head, examining me. “Why?”
That’s the question I can’t answer. That I won’t.
I’m not telling him that I’ve had my fill of learning how little I meant to people beyond what I can do with a ball at my feet and the world it can buy me. I’m not telling him that soon I’ll be an always-in-pain washed-up former athlete, and he’ll be where I once was, the world before him, and I cannot let one more person, let alone someone who has everything I’m about to lose, decide that I’m not worth much at all, certainly not worth keeping around when his life and career are soaring into the stratosphere while mine crashes and burns.
“I don’t have friends here,” I finally tell him.
“Except the poker grandpas.”
“They forced themselves on me. And ‘friends’ is a generous term. I endure them. That’s all I do with anyone here, and that’s what I meant when I said that to you,” I lie. “Even if I said it…a tad…harshly.”
“But you meant it,” he says. “You’ll never be my friend.”
I stare at him, knowing down to my bones, that’s impossible. “No. Not your friend.”
My gut twists. I don’t like hurting people, believe it or not. I’ve just accepted that many small cuts are better than one large gaping wound. To avoid much worse hurt down the road, these brief, sharp inflictions are necessary.
I brace myself for that stricken expression again, like in the locker room, the one that cut straight through me like a knife to the gut. But it doesn’t come.
“You got it,” he says, staring down, toeing the grass.
I blink, surprised. “I…what?”
He glances up, and there it is—fire in his eyes, that devious smile as he backtracks toward his house. “On practice days, you pack a change of clothes, right?”
My eyes narrow. “Yes. Why?”
Oliver slips into the shadows of his house, his expression hidden as he says, “Just wondering. Goodnight, Mr. Hayes.”
Just wondering, my ass.
Seething, I walk into the locker room the next morning, rainbow confetti stuck to my hair.
And clothes.
And skin.
And other places I’m not going to mention.
I’m going to murder Oliver Bergman.
Santi, whose cubby is beside mine and whose sunny disposition gives Oliver a run for his money, turns to say his usual good morning but comes up short on a gasp.
“Buenos días, Santiago.” I drop my bag, making the entire room startle. They stare at me warily.
Santi swallows, his gaze darting nervously over me. “Capitán. What happened to your…hair? And clothes? And—”
“My entire fucking body?” I wrench off my sparkling shirt, sending a plume of rainbow confetti bursting into the air overhead.
Santi jumps back to avoid it. “Uh…yes?”
Oliver walks in, whistling cheerily, bag on his shoulder, the top half of his hair tugged back into an irritating little spurt of golden hair that makes him look deceptively innocent.
His eyes dance over me. He bites his lip. Hard. An infuriating cocktail of rage and unwelcome hot-blooded awareness spills through me, reminding me of that mouth I came so close to tasting, those fast, sharp breaths as our bodies drew close. Too close.
Fuming, I stand there and brush glitter off my chest. Oliver looks away as he clears his throat, heading for his cubby.
“Well, Santiago, I’ll tell you what I know.” Storming over to the sinks, I run my head under the water, then my face, rinsing off as much glitter as I can. “I was minding my own business this morning, opened my car door, sat myself down, and when the sun hit right in my eyes, I pulled down the visor.” I cut a seething glance at Oliver who’s started changing, his back to me. “Imagine my surprise when a glitter bomb of confetti baptized my fucking car.”
“Ay, Dios mío.” Santi cringes. The rest of the team makes sympathetic sounds.
“Damn, Cap.” Ben grimaces. “That’s a nasty prank.”
“Kids these days,” Amobi says wearily. “They have no shame.”
Carlo nods in agreement. “At least they didn’t—”
“Put it in the vents, too?” I offer. “Oh, they did.” I glare at Oliver’s back. “I have confetti in my fucking sinuses.”
Oliver coughs, then clears his throat. He turns, shirtless, skin gleaming, his jersey balled in one hand. “Damn, Hayes, that’s rough. Whoever’s bad side you got on, I sure would want to mend fences with them, if this is what they’re capable of.” Strolling by, he lowers his voice and says, “Especially when they’re just getting started.”
8
OLIVER
Playlist: “It Ain’t Easy,” Delta Spirit
Well. It seems I underestimated Gavin Hayes. Who knew he had it in him?
“Oliver,” Santi says as he steps up behind me at the airport. “Tu pelo. How do you get it so…soft?”
Gavin stands ahead of us, eyes down on his phone, expressionless as always, a statue named Innocent Disinterest.
Even though he’s anything but.
I silently wish him a swift, violent case of diarrhea the moment we board the plane, then turn to face Santiago. “Nothing like a deep-conditioning treatment, Santi. Does wonders for it.”
Santi reaches for my hair, then stops. “May I touch?”
“Be my guest.”
He slides his hand down my hair, which after five home washes last night has only just begun to feel like it’s not shellacked with butter. After I realized Gavin—and it was undoubtedly Gavin—swapped the conditioner and shampoo in the dispensers of my favorite shower stall at the facility (I tried not to think about how he even knew which one was my favorite), my head looked like I’d dipped it in a bowl of oil.
Such a dirty move. Then again, I’d forked his yard the night before and coated his outside doorknob with peanut butter that looked very much like poop after I’d added some cocoa powder and red food dye, so I should have seen it coming.
He just seemed way too curmudgeonly to be the retaliatory pranking type.
“Wow,” Santi says in awe, stroking my hair some more. Andre joins him. Then Ben.
“Oi,” Gavin snaps. They all look at him, dropping their hands like kids caught with their hands in the cookie jar. “We’re in an airport, not a petting zoo.”
I shrug. “We’re modeling a healthy departure from toxic masculinity, wouldn’t you say, fellas?”
Their heads swing my way.
Gavin’s jaw tightens, his left eye twitching as he glares back down at his phone. He may not be looking right at me, but he’s paying attention. I smile my widest, sweetest smile.
“Men,” I say, loud enough for him to hear from his few feet away, “are taught touching each other without roughness, reasons deemed socially acceptable, like a contact sport, is a sign of weakness or—heteronormative patriarchy forbid—having feelings for one another.”
“Ah, yes,” Gavin drawls, eyes still on his phone. “If anyone needs a lecture on homophobia’s inherency in patriarchal constructs, professional sports, and broader culture, it’s me.”
“Not a lecture. Just saying, would a few pictures on the internet of the guys touching my hair be the end of the world? Would it maybe even be…a good thing?”
Slowly, Gavin glances up from his phone, eyes searching mine.
“Beautifully said,” Carlo mutters. “Ollie, you should write a book. You speak so…inspirationally.”
“Nah. But that’s nice of you, Carlo.”