My phone lights up on the table with a vibration that feels like it’s syncing itself with my pulse, and I jump. Every cell in my body leans toward it like gravity itself wants me to lose myvantage point. It’s instinctive, it’s fucking desperate, it’s a dead giveaway to my now all-out smirking brother.
I tell myself I’m not looking for Xavier. But the moment that screen lights up, my pulse spikes like it’s a fucking alarm.
Control is the first line of defense.I silently repeat it like prayer, even as my hand twitches toward the phone.
Thankfully, I don’t have to see him again for a while. It’s October. We’ve played our first back-to-back weekend series with them already, but there’s another one on the schedule for mid-January. It’s a double header weekend in Wisconsin, and I’m already trying to think of ways to get the fuck out of going.
Faking my own death is currently top of the list.
We do have games this week, and part of me wishes one was against Xavier, so I could look him in the eye and remember every reason he’s a bad idea.
“I don’t think I need to say anything, Hermano. I think you’re doing a great job of further strangling your life all by yourself.”
My head snaps up from being too close to resting on the table. “What? I’m doing this to cement my life, Pollo. To get what I want out of life.”
He gives me a small smile. “You’ve got rules for everything you want.” He nudges the tin toward me. “When’s the last time you let yourself need something?”
My chest clenches. The clock ticks like it’s mocking me, each second heavier than the last.
He pats me again. “You’re trying so hard not to live, you’re forgetting you need to breathe.”
The tin gleams in the lamplight, sugar dusted across the desk like symbolic fallout. I tell myself I’ll throw it away in the morning. But I already know I won’t.
CHAPTER 9
Xavier
I’m supposed to be in Wisconsin, finishing a group project. Instead, I’m standing like a creeper watching Artemis freeze his sculpted ass in an ice bath after his game.
Did I watch him from the stands and cheer for him like a fan girl?
Damn straight I did. I drag my fingers through my hair. Fuck.
His head is tipped back, tiny water droplets sliding off the ends of his wet hair as he just… sits. He looks like he’s crammed himself into the recovery pod, his presence as well as his body is just too much to be contained.
I check my reflection in the glass pane of the door. Tired. I look tired and verging on disheveled and unbalanced. Perfect. That’sexactlythe look I was going for.
He oozes steely confidence, criminally chill vibes, but when his eyes snap open as I push into the recovery room, they fill with an instant fire.
“Wow. All that discipline, and you still don’t know how to say thank you?” The words sound steadier than they feel. Mythroat’s sandpaper. I force my face to smirk, ignoring the flutter of what feels terribly close to insecurity that ripples under my skin. “Your mama must be so proud.”
I cram my hands into the pouch of my new hoodie. It’s not my travel hoodie, it’s not my everyday hoodie. It feels foreign and stiff, but I wanted to make a point. And while it’s a comforting piece of clothing, I’m regretting not wearing something a little more… fashionable.
My tone is deceptively easy—like I’m just passing by and stopped to “talk”—but really, my insides are unraveling.
Was this a mistake? Inter-state road trip using the money I earned from tutoring on the side for gas, just to catch a post-game glimpse of the object of my affections? Feels closer to obsession. Oh. My. God. Am I the problem?
I might be the problem.
Artemis doesn’t move, but the water sloshes over the edge of the pod. His jaw flexes once, twice, before he speaks. “You drove five hours to pick a fight?”
I close the distance between us, what was about twenty feet has been halved by my traitorous body drifting toward him like metal caught in a magnetic pull.
Each step tightens the air. I casually lift a shoulder, at least I hope it looks casual, the tautness in my muscles is anything but. “Figured I needed to do a wellness check since you’re ignoring all of my attempts at communication.”
Another couple of steps between us disappear. I can’t help moving toward him, but the closer I get to him, the hotter everything feels.
He pushes to stand, water crashing against the sides of the barrel. “Some people would take silence to mean a person doesn’t want to talk to them.”
