Page 260 of On His Team

Me: Hotel. Meeting at 7.

Gianna: Okay.

Gianna: Boyfriend.

I’m smiling at my phone at the end of a hotel bed, and Mackey’s on the other one with his laptop open.

“Gianna?” he asks.

I nod. “Yeah.”

“You two are official?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“Huh.”

I look over. “What?”

“Nothing,” Mackey says. “You make a good couple.”

I look at him. “Thanks.”

I get twenty minutes with G because there’s a family window before the pre-game meal. The hotel’s got a room off the lobby set aside for it, because thirty players have about a hundred and forty people between them in this building. It’s noisy.

Gianna comes across the room in a Camden hoodie with her hair up. She smiles when she sees me.

“Hi, boyfriend.”

I grin. “What’s up, G?”

She kisses me. “Have you eaten?”

“Not yet. Twelve-thirty.”

“What is it?”

“Chicken and pasta.”

“Every time?”

I laugh. “Every time.”

“That’s insane.” She’s got hold of the front of my shirt with one hand. “That’s genuinely insane. You eat the same lunch.”

“It works.”

Across the room, her mom is talking to Aspen with both hands on Aspen’s arm.

“Are you nervous?” Gianna asks.

“Yeah.”

She stops. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t look nervous.”