There’s a lot about my life that’s felt like a downgrade since signing with an MLS team. That probably sounds arrogant and spoiled, and maybe it is, but after playing for some of the most cash-rich, prestigious teams in European football—soccer, that is—it’s been an adjustment. At least it was, at first. I’ve gotten used to it after two years: sharing commercial flights with passengers, sharing stadiums with the other local professional teams, sharing hotel rooms.
Not sharing a bed.
Hiding in the bathroom, I pull out my phone. This is exceptionally unprofessional, Alexis.
Three dots appear. Then Lexi’s—Coach’s—response, which makes my phone chime quietly. Not that I’m agreeing to your assertion that making co-captains share a room is unprofessional, but who says I made you two roommates?
Not just roommates, I write. There’s only one. Fucking. Bed.
Yikes, she texts. Best hope Bergman doesn’t hog the mattress.
“Jesus Christ.” I drop my phone on the counter, splaying my palms across the cool quartz surface. With a glance up, I lock eyes with my reflection. Dark eyes. Darker smudges beneath them. I look exhausted. Because I fucking am.
In so many ways.
I cannot stop replaying what happened on the plane any more than I can stop the ache in my chest that pounds in time with my heart.
Or maybe it is my heart.
It fucking hurts. It’s a festering, nagging ache that wants me to do something foolish like hold Oliver, crush him to my chest and make him tell me where the hell that came from and how the hell I can make it never happen again.
Which is…a problem.
This is why I’ve kept my distance. This is why I’ve held him at arm’s length.
Because I knew this is how it would be. The moment I let him punch through those icy walls I’ve built around myself, I’d melt faster than a dropped ice cream cone on a Los Angeles sidewalk in July.
And I cannot do that. Except I can’t seem to fucking help myself.
“Goddammit.” I grip the counter harder, then push away, scrubbing my face. With a flick of the handle, I flush the toilet to make it seem like I was doing my business instead of losing my fucking mind in our bathroom. Then I turn on the faucet, run cold water, and splash my face.
Right. I’ve got this.
I look at my reflection. “You’ve got this.”
My reflection does not look convinced. Which is why I turn away from it and whip open the door.
Oliver leans against the windowsill, pinning the curtain between his shoulder and the wall. He stares out at the view, which from here I can see includes the stadium. When he senses me, he glances over his shoulder, those glittering pale eyes meeting mine.
For a moment that holds an eternity, he doesn’t say anything. Neither do I. The world is nothing but the warmth of sunlight spilling across his face, casting one side in sharp shadow. The faint whir of forced air from the vents, the distant sounds of guests shutting doors, their suitcase wheels crushing plush carpet, the ding of an elevator.
I drink in the moment like a magnificently tall glass of ice water after a run in brutal heat. I’m hot, and as I absorb what I’m doing, fierce coolness works its way through me, a shock, a warning: This is not wise.
And yet I couldn’t look away if my life depended on it. I stare at sunlight sparkling off his lashes, slipping down his long, straight nose in a whispering warmth like a lover’s caress, over sharp cheekbones and soft lips. An intimacy I’ll never have with him.
Not that I want it.
Too much.
Because I haven’t let myself. I haven’t let myself look and linger and think and dream. It’s pointless. Futile. His life’s just beginning. Mine’s coming to a fucking end—at least the meaningful part of it. He’s young. I’m old. I’m a miserable, pain-riddled misanthrope, and he’s a perennially happy ray of fucking sunshine.
Or so I thought.
I see it again, his hands clutching the seat, air sawing out of his lungs. I swear I heard his heart flying from where I sat beside him. Perhaps he’s not so “fine,” then. Or “happy.” As much as his always-the-optimist, upbeat demeanor grates on me, the threat to it makes me infinitely angrier.
“What was that?” I ask sharply.
Oliver blinks away, stares down at his bright-yellow sneakers, toeing the carpet. “A staring contest? Which I lost.”
I sigh impatiently. “That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it.”
“Yes, Mr. Hayes. I know.”
“I told you to stop calling me that.”
He glances up and pins me with those moonlight-pale eyes again. A faint smile tips his mouth. “And I never told you I would.”
Anger flares inside me, hot, agitated. I want to cross the room, fist his shirt, and kiss that coy fucking smile right off his face. I want to throw him down on the bed, press my body into his and show Oliver what happens when he insists on provoking me, smiling at me, holding my eyes so long I want to fall into those ice-blue pools and never resurface.
“Answer me,” I demand. “Stop provoking and prevaricating. Answer me, dammit.”
He lifts his chin. “Why?”
My teeth grind. I don’t say what I’m thinking. I don’t tell him, Because I’m worried. Because you fucking scared me. Because I hate what being near you does to me, but I hate whatever’s hurting you more, and I have to know what that is. So I can bend it in the iron grip of my will and protect you from it.
“Because I have a right to know.” I stand to my full height, legs wide, arms folded across my chest. My most authoritative stance. “As your co-captain, what happens on team time is fair game.”
Oliver’s eyes flash, his smile slips, but for just a moment, before that coy charm is back, sparkling in his eyes. “Fair game, eh? Pun intended?”
“Fuck off, Bergman. Tell me.”
Slowly, he pushes off the wall, then strolls my way. He stops with a foot between us, stance natural, feet shoulder width apart as he slips his hands into his grass-green joggers’ pockets. Like a fool, I let my gaze drift up from those heinously bright yellow sneakers, green joggers, to his gold-and-blue Galaxy hoodie, which drapes frustratingly loose around his torso.
Oliver clears his throat. “How about I tell you when you’re done undressing me with your eyes.”
My gaze snaps up and meets his, fear and heat flooding me in equal measure. His eyes twinkle. His grin widens. He’s teasing me.
“I am not undressing you. I’m struggling to understand how a grown man can dress so terribly.”
His mouth drops open, stunned at my insult. “I wear color like a pro.”
“You look like a disorganized crayon box.”
He tips his head, giving me a slow, appraising once-over that sends a fresh wave of heat searing through me.
“No offense,” he says. “But coming from a guy who wears three colors—black, charcoal, and heather gray—your fashion critique doesn’t hold much weight.”
“Horse shit.” I pluck at my zip-up jacket with the team’s embossed logo. “I wear other colors. Blue. Yellow. That’s five.”
He rolls his eyes. “Hayes, you’re obligated to wear those colors. You don’t voluntarily wear them.”
“Awfully aware of my wardrobe, aren’t you?”
“Hard to miss it when you walk around dressed like a storm cloud.”
We are wildly off topic. I grit my teeth. “You’re distracting me.”
He grins. “You’re catching on.”
I close the distance between us, and his smile evaporates; his breath catches in his throat. I stare at his mouth, then meet his eyes. And then, sweet God, a faint pink blush creeps up his cheeks. It’s as satisfying as it is torturous. “You’re playing with fire, Bergman. Mind you don’t get burned.”
All humor vanishes from his face. He swallows roughly, and I watch his Adam’s apple roll. I barely suppress a groan. I can see it so easily, his head thrown back, his throat working as his eyes scrunch shut, his face tight with agonizing pleasure.
“Tell me,” I say quietly, holding his eyes. “Tell me what happened.” I bite my tongue so I won’t reveal any more than I have already. How worried I am. How much I care.
He searches my eyes for a long, silent moment. “I had a panic attack.”
As I thought. But it’s not enough. “What triggered it?”
Something flickers in his gaze, but he steels himself, stands tall. “A combination of things,” he says slowly, carefully.
“These happen regularly?” I’ve never noticed. I’d remember if this happened to him before.
He nods.
“You hide it.”
He hesitates, then says, “They don’t happen often, and generally when they do, yes, I’m able to isolate myself and deal with them privately. I see a therapist. I know what to do.”
“But they still happen.”
His nostrils flare. “Yes, Hayes. They still happen.”