Page 224 of On His Team

“If you want.”

“You are aware I have an apartment.”

“Yeah.”

“And clothes here.”

“Bring them.”

I smile. “Are you asking me to move into your room for spring break?”

“For a week.”

“What if you get sick of me?”

“I won’t.”

The answer comes so easily that I stop teasing.

Rowan looks at me for a second.

Then he reaches up and pushes my hair behind my shoulder. “Stay.”

There it is again. Simple. Direct. No giant declaration attached to it.

I kiss him. “Okay. Yeah.”

Friday night, Camden wins four-two.

I watch from Hawthorne with Lucy, Mara, Aspen, Melly, Mila, and Penelope. Nobody officially organizes these things anymore. If the guys travel, everybody seems to know where to end up.

The first game is tense without ever feeling desperate. Camden gets the lead in the second, extends it in the third, and holds it well enough that I only spend the final six minutes wanting to throw up instead of the entire game.

When the horn goes, Lucy exhales beside me. “One.”

Aspen nods. “One.”

Nobody celebrates much beyond that.

They have to do it again tomorrow.

Rowan calls me from the hotel before he goes to sleep.

“You played well,” I say before he can correct me.

He laughs quietly. “Thanks.”

“I’ve learned.”

“Proud of you.”

I joke, “I’m basically an athlete now.”

“No.”

“Why do you always ruin this for me?”

“I’m honest.”