"We might be sleeping on the couch."
"We're not."
"You have not moved in four minutes. We are sleeping on the couch."
His breathing evens out and his weight settles against me and his hand stays on my chest. I can tell the moment he falls asleep. I pull the blanket off the back of the couch and cover us both without waking him.
We sleep on the couch.
?
Chapter 10: Luca
The Uber drops me two blocks from the building. The driver doesn't know who I am and doesn't care, which is the point. The team hotel is miles away and the group chat has gone quiet, which means most of the guys are asleep or close to it. Marchetti texted me twenty minutes ago to ask if I wanted to get food and I told him I was already in bed, which is the first lie I have told him today and the smallest one.
The lobby is empty and I take the elevator up fourteen floors. The hallway is the same hallway. I let myself in with the key I have had since I first lived here two years ago.
The penthouse is dark except for the kitchen light. His camera is on the coffee table. The novel on the side chair is one I haven't seen before. The cracked balcony door lets in the steady ocean breeze, and the apartment smells like garlic, lime, and him. For five seconds, I stand in the doorway with my bag on my shoulder, and my chest does something I can't describe.
"Wes?" I call out as I take my shoes off by the door.
"In the kitchen."
He is at the counter with a glass of water and his phone. Sweatpants, bare feet, a T-shirt that I used to wear. His hair is damp from the shower.
I cross the kitchen. His hand comes up to the side of my neck and his thumb presses behind my ear and he pulls me in and his mouth is on mine and the taste of him is toothpaste and water and the warm steady thing that is just him.
"Hi," he says against my mouth.
"Hi."
"Good game."
"We beat you."
"You beat us. Barely." He pulls back and looks at me. "Your backcheck in the second period was a seven-nine. The skating was there but you overcommitted on the angle."
"You're scouting me now?"
"I'm watching you. There's a difference."
"You watched me for sixty minutes tonight and the first thing you say is my backcheck was a seven-nine."
"The first thing I said was hi. The second thing I said was good game. The scouting report is the third thing."
"The scouting report is not a thing I am accepting from a man I just beat."
He smiles. I have missed it. Months of phone calls and texts and the screen going dark and this is what I have missed.
"Are you hungry?" he asks.
"Starving."
"I made sofrito. There's rice in the pot."
"You cooked after a game?"
"I cooked before the game because I knew you were coming."
