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I lower my forehead to hers. “Not quite the way I wanted to introduce myself to your family.”
“I couldn’t help it. I just saw you and—I don’t know. I just missed you so much.” She shrugs, which makes me notice she’s only wearing a sweater. I wrap the flaps of my open coat around her.
“So I take it you don’t want to break up with me?”
Luz does a double take. “What? Where did you get that idea from?”
“Uh.” If my face isn’t red like a tomato from making out with her in the cold, it has to be flaming right about now. “I don’t know. Pessimism?”
“You absolute fool.” Her words are barely above a whisper. “Can’t you see how you make me lose my mind?”
A slow grin stretches my lips. Somehow hearing her say that sends my pulse to new levels. “Okay, that’s good. Because I came prepared to beg. I even brought tiramisu to sweeten the pot.”
“Oh?” She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. “Wait, that’s not the point.”
“What’s the point? Because I’m having trouble thinking straight here.”
Luz snorts, but she does nothing to reduce my suffering. The glint in her eye tells me she’s actually enjoying it.“The point is,” she says very slowly, as if maybe she’s having trouble focusing too, “that I’m sorry I even made you think you had to beg. I don’t want to break up with you. Not for a second.”
I turn her words over in my hormone-addled brain. I like the sound of them, but the fundamental issue remains. Or rather, I need to make her see it’s not an issue anymore.
“Good, because I’m sorry I acted like a Neanderthal. If we have to date in secret until we graduate, then that’s fine by me.”
“But that’s not fair to you.” Her dark eyes bore into mine, so intense I couldn’t look away even if a meteor crashed down next door. “You don’t deserve to be kept a secret.”
“Neither do you.”
Her swollen lips draw into a little arch, a tiny smile that seems almost shy. I capture them with mine for a second, enough to sear the feel of that smile in my mind forever.
“Max.” She says my name like a sigh. “Let’s just tell everyone.”
I’m quiet. On the one hand, yeah, that’s exactly what I want. I want to scream to the four winds that Luz Rodriguez is my girlfriend. I want to hold her hand in class, sneak kisses between practices, go on dates, put my arm around her at O’Malley’s, act a proper fool every time she’s around.
But I can see the teams losing their collective marbles, toppling what little respect they may have developed for us as captains these past few months. If they live up to their pot-stirring potential, it may even throw our seasons altogether. That’s also not what this relationship deserves.
I summarize all that by saying, “Are you sure? Shit could hit the fan.”
“I know.” Her nose wrinkles, as if she’s smelling the sharticles already. “And I definitely think we should find the right moment to break the news. But I don’t want this double life forever.”
“What if we tell them after the season’s done?”
She tilts her head. “What if we make it all the way to the playoffs?”
I narrow my eyes. “What if we tell them after we win the playoffs?”
“Atta boy.” Her chuckles vibrate through me too. “Or we could just get them drunk off their minds and break the news then.”
“That might be quicker.” Movement from the corner of my eye catches my attention. A curtain swooshes shut as a spy tries to hide from view. “By the way, we’ve had an audience this whole time.”
“I bet.” She snorts through her nose. It’s as red as a stop sign. “What do you want to do now?”
“What do you mean?”
“The way I see it, you have two options. One, get in your truck and drive away as fast as you can. Maybe with me in it, once I get a coat.”
I nod seriously. “That’s an option. What’s the other one?”
“Go inside and face the inquisition.” She makes a point of looking down at my pants.
