Her hand still under mine.
And my dick remembers too.
At 11:58 pm, my cell phone lights up the ceiling. There’s a calendar invite.
WEEKLY CONDUCT REVIEW.
Recurring. Tuesdays, 7:45 a.m.
Conference Room B
Organizer: Dixon, J.
I hit accept before the screen even thinks about going dark. It’s the fastest I've agreed to anything in my whole life, and I once agreed to a fight before the other guy finished the sentence.
The phone buzzes again. She's edited the invite. One line added to the notes field, and I swear I can hear it in her voice, flat, two octaves under fine.
Bring your own pen.
I smile and lie back on my shitty mattress with a bent paper clip on the nightstand and exactly one strike left in my entire career. Yet the only thing on my mind now is anticipation for Tuesday.
When the phone buzzes one more time, I’m still grinning when I grab it, because some idiot part of me wants it to be her again.
But it isn't.
It’s a text from Coach Dixon.
Coach: Remember what I said.
Yo, is there a freaking camera in here? Does he know I’m in here smiling like an idiot over his damn daughter?
I mean, the text could mean nothing. Coaches are always trying to be intimidating, but I’m not stupid. His warning could very well mean he was standing close enough this morning to clock the exact half second my hand stayed on his daughter's and didn't move when it should have.
I look at the paper clip on the nightstand. Bent into nothing. Sitting there like a damning piece of evidence.
One strike left in my whole career, and I just spent my first quiet night in Nevada lying awake over the one girl on this entire planet I’m not allowed to want.
Oh boy…I’m fucked.
Jasmine
There are eleven things on my morning to-do list. I’ve done ten. The eleventh one was don’t think about Caleb Adams, so technically I’m batting zero before seven a.m.
It’s not my fault. Okay, it’s a little my fault. But mostly it’s his, because yesterday in that conference room he did the thing nobody does.
He paid attention.
We both reached for the same pen. His hand landed on mine, and I froze, the way I freeze, the way I’ve spent my whole life hoping nobody notices. He noticed. I watched him notice. And then instead of making it weird, instead of the head tilt and the soft little are you okay you’d use on a scared puppy, he just pulled his hand back and gave me my space.
That’s the whole crime.
He gave me room.
He didn’t give me a side eye or look at me like I was a head case, which is…unusual.
Now I can’t stop thinking about him, which is humiliating, and which I plan to fix by going to the one place in this building where my brain finally shuts up.
The rink at six in the morning is mine. Empty seats. Cold air. Nobody talking. The machines hum one note instead of forty. I come here before the building wakes up because it’s the only hour when it isn’t too loud to just sit.
