“You, finding me at the bench,” she tells me in a nervous tone I’ve never heard from her before. “He was watching you all night because the scout was watching you. So he caught the exact second you found me, and what it did to you, and he caught you come back down because of me.”
“I thought I was your assignment.”
“He didn't see a compliance officer settle a player.” She drags her sleeves over her knuckles. “He saw something else. I watched it cross his face.”
“Did he say anything?”
“He said, ‘I didn't know you had Adams’ ear.’” She looks at me, and there's real fear in it now. “And then he looked at me like he'd just caught me drinking alcohol for the first time. My father doesn't ask questions out loud, Caleb. He goes quiet, and he starts watching. He just started watching.”
I want to tell her it's fine. Coach was fine with me five minutes ago. But I can't tell her that, because she knows her father better than I do. I’m out here playing checkers, and that man is playing chess.
“Okay,” I say instead. “Then we get smaller. No stairwell. No long check-in meetings. We only meet at my apartment.”
“I bent a paper clip at a hockey game, and it nearly undid us,” she laments.
“No, I was looking for you. I needed you to bring me down. I can’t do that again. I’ve got to figure that shit out myself.”
“We have to be really careful.” She presses the heels of her hands against her eyes, then drops them. “You’re so close to your dream.”
“Hey.” I step in close, the exact thing we can't do anymore, and I do it because she's shaking. “Listen to me. You're the only reason there's still a dream to chase. Whatever your dad thinks he caught, thinking it isn't proving it.” I tip her chin up with one knuckle. “He's about to find out how careful we both can really be.”
That one lands. A little of the fear comes off her shoulders.
“Give me something concrete,” she says. “A real step, or I spiral.”
“Hmm, how about I get a fake girlfriend for the next few weeks to throw him off the scent? I know a puck bunny who’d be up for it.”
Her eyes harden. “That's not a plan.”
A smile forms inside my chest. A jealous Jasmine is a sexy Jasmine.
“But that’s not such a bad idea,” she starts. “Maybe I date–”
I immediately walk her back against the wall of the tunnel. I don’t care who might see.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea, Dixon. You’ve never seen me take apart another guy’s face, but once upon a time, it was one of my favorite things to do.”
She almost laughs.
“I’m not fucking kidding,” I tell her, my lips on her mouth now. If I could, I would fuck her senseless in this tunnel to prove my point. “You’re mine and only mine.”
“I understand that,” she says as if she’s calming a wild beast. “And I need you and your dick to back up now before you actually blow this whole thing to hell.”
“Fine.” I back up and look around. Luckily, almost everyone has probably gone on to the Ice House to celebrate.
“The win looked good on you,” she says, low, the last soft thing before the wall goes up. “The clean kind. Keep it up. I like it.”
“You're the reason it was clean.”
“Go to the Ice House and celebrate. I’ll find you later at your place.”
“You’d better, because I’m going to teach you how to ride me tonight. You’re going to love it.”
Then she's gone, back into the noise, and I stand in the tunnel contemplating everything that went down. We crossed a line that we don't get to uncross. Not the kissing. Not any of her rules.
We got seen.
I hope I didn’t fuck all of this up.
