"No," he says.
“Come on, Captain. Shots are a part of team bonding.”
“No,” he repeats.
“For the team? For me?”
“It’s just an excuse for you to take your shirt off later and no one wants to see that shit.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
Jamie looks at me immediately.
There it is again. That charged little pause where everything around us keeps moving but something between us just stops. His expression doesn’t change much. It never does. But his eyes do. They settle on me, green and steady, and for a second I get the strangest feeling he’s not irritated that I laughed.
If anything, he looks almost pleased that he made me laugh.
Or I’m delusional.
Could be both. There’s no way Jamie is even remotely interested in me. Let alone any guy. I’m just starved for attention and desperate to make him smile again. New hobby of mine, I guess. Since I’m not spending all my energy pissing him off anymore.
The waitress comes by with another round of waters and more fries, and the table breaks into movement. Plates shift. Elbows bump. Cooper nearly knocks over the ketchup and Bennett saves it with a dramatic dive that earns him exactly zeroapplause because he caused the problem by bumping into him in the first place.
I reach for the basket at the same time Jamie does.
Our fingers brush.
Barely.
It’s nothing. A half-second of skin against skin. Casual. Accidental. The kind of thing that happens constantly when too many giant hockey players are crammed around one table.
Except Jamie freezes and so do I.
He doesn’t pull away immediately.
It’s not long. Not enough for anyone else to see.
Not enough to mean anything if anyone else even noticed.
But it’s enough that I know.
Enough that my stomach tightens.
Enough that his eyes lift to mine.
Enough that the noise around us blurs for one stupid second.
Then Bennett reaches between us and grabs half the basket. “Thank you,” he says cheerfully, unaware he may have just saved both of us from spontaneous combustion.
Jamie drops his hand and I sit back.
Fine.
Okay.
Normal dinner. Normal team dinner where my captain’s fingers just touched mine and I’m now thinking about what his hand would feel like somewhere else. I take a long drink of water and force myself to look away from Jamie.
But I go back to watching. There's something about Jamie that keeps pulling my attention back to him, no matter how many times I tell myself to stop.
