“I know.”
She huffs a breath. “Do you? You seemed annoyed about it.”
My tongue presses to my molars, my brain trying to keep the words that claw up my throat down. I don’t want to admit Ididn’t like it, don’t want to admit that it made me angry in ways I’m all too familiar with.
Cold air moves between us, her hair lifting lightly in the wind. She’s looking at me like she wants an answer I’m not interested in giving.
The smart move is to say yes, I’m aware that she’s capable of dealing with comments.The smart move is to keep walking.The smart move is one I stopped being good at the moment she stepped foot in my home.
“I didn’t like it,” I rasp, admitting defeat to myself.
The way she watches me, like she’s trying to figure out a riddle, is almost unnerving. “Why?”
I should lie. “Plenty of reasons.”
“That’s not an answer,” she scoffs.
“It’s the one you’re getting.”
She takes a step toward me, and I stiffen. “Why are you being weird?”
I laugh once, short and humorless. “I’mbeing weird?”
“Yeah, you are.” She crosses her arms over her chest, looking up at me like she expects me to give some kind of meaningful explanation. “You’ve been in a mood since we got on the field, and now I’m somehow the problem.”
“I didn’t say you were the problem.”
“You’re sure as hell acting like it.”
My jaw clenches, aching worse. “I said I didn’t like it. That’s it.”
“And I asked why.”
I look away for half a second, out toward the field, then back at her. “Drop it, Carly.”
Her eyes flash. “No.”
Of course she won’t. Of course she pushes me, looks at me like I owe her honesty when I can barely stand being inside my own head with it. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“You do.”
I turn to her fully, my hand flexing, frustration bleeding in more than it should. “Stop,” I warn, taking a step toward her. “Just fucking stop.”
“No—”
I glance past her first, toward Maddox.His back is to us, attention on the drill at the far end of the field. The team is preoccupied. The kid is still running suicides.
I close the distance in half a second, grab her jaw, and press my mouth to hers with every bit of irritation pouring into the stupid, thoughtless, angry gesture. It’s not gentle, not romantic, not anything I want it to be, and it’s over before I let it morph into anything else.
But I’m fed up with the players looking at her, fed up with myself for caring, fed up with this constant push and pull with her that fucks with my brain every time she’s within arm’s reach.
I tell myself I pull away because I’ve come to my senses, but I know damn well that I pull away because I don’t want them seeing.
She freezes under my hand, her breath fogging between us. But then she pulls back and out of my grip, her eyes going wide as saucers.
The field keeps moving around us, a whistle blowing, someone bleating about being tired.
But she’s staring at me like I’ve just lost my goddamn mind. It’s probably warranted.
