"Nathan," I said.
"Mm."
"I'm not going home tonight."
A pause.
"I know," he said.
"We should eat," I said.
"Yes.”
"In a minute," I said.
"In a minute," he agreed.
We lay there.
The food got colder.
Neither of us minded.
23
Sleeping with Nathan Cross turned out to be less of a one-time catastrophic life event and more of a recurring scheduling issue.
Not every night. We were not animals.
But enough nights that it had quietly become a thing we did—doors knocking, lights low, figuring out how to be near each other without blowing up our entire professional lives. We had gotten good at the corridor check. At the careful distance during practice. At Nathan's face giving nothing and my face giving nothing and both of us being extremely professional in every context that required it.
I was fairly certain we were being very discreet.
Which was how we ended up in Toronto for an away game, in the same hotel, with my doctor three doors down and my brain refusing to shut off.
Nathan was three doors down and I had been staring at a hotel ceiling in Toronto for forty minutes, which meant the math was pretty simple.
So I knocked on his door.
He opened it.
Nathan looked down the hall in both directions, then he grabbed the front of my shirt and pulled me inside.
The door clicked shut behind me. Nathan let go of my shirt, and then he stepped back, which was as close tofine, come inas Nathan Cross got.
Nathan had already unpacked, which I had not done, and his toiletries were organized on the bathroom counter in a row, which I could see through the open door, and his jacket was hung rather than dropped, because of course it was.
I flopped on the bed, flat on my back.
"You have press tomorrow. You are supposed to be asleep," he said.
"I tried."
"For how long?"
"Forty minutes."
"That's not trying," he said. "That's lying down."
