Insane.
I can’t do to this to myself again. Seriously, what is wrong with me? Am I only attracted to emotionally unavailable straight men? Is that the thing? Is that really my type now? I might as well just kick myself off this team or transfer. Again.
But I’m also not known for making smart decisions or learning from my mistakes.
By the end of dinner, I’m exhausted in a new way. Not physically. Not even mentally. It’s lower than that. Deeper. Like mybody has spent two hours waiting for something to happen and is furious that nothing did after I spent so much time talking myself into it.
We all spill out into the parking lot in loose groups, the cool air hitting hard after the humidity of the restaurant. Guys are laughing, shoving each other, making plans I’m only half listening to. Cooper is trying to convince everyone to come back to his place, because apparently one party every weekend isn’t enough for him. Jamie stands near the curb, hands in his jacket pocket, listening to Fitch give some final instruction about tomorrow’s workout.
Captain again.
Composed again.
Untouchable again.
Except when Fitch walks away, Jamie looks at me.
Just me.
Across ten feet of pavement and noise and through people moving between us. I hold his stare because I’m really incapable of making healthy choices. He doesn’t smile and neither do I. But his gaze drops, very briefly, to my mouth.
Then back up.
Quick.
So quick anyone else would miss it.
I don’t.
I feel it like a hand around my throat.
Suffocating me instantly.
Then he turns and walks toward his car and I stand there staring after him like an idiot, waiting for—I don’t even know what.
Bennett claps me on the shoulder. “You coming?”
I blink. “Where?”
He looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “Weren’t you listening? Cooper’s.”
“Oh.” I glance toward Jamie’s car again as he gets in. “Nah. I’m good.”
“Since when?”
Since my emotionally repressed captain looked at my mouth and now my brain has stopped functioning, apparently.
“Since I became a responsible student-athlete,” I say, clapping him back on the shoulder.
Bennett squints. “That sounds like bullshit.”
“It is. But I’m also tired and have to turn in some assignment.”
He accepts that because Bennett is trusting and sweet and probably shouldn’t be allowed to talk to strangers.
I walk to my car alone and the whole drive home, I keep replaying it.
The fingers.
