Page 111 of Faking the Goal

"Jealous?"

"What else would you call it? You saw another guy touching her, flirting with her, trying to take her back to his hotel, and it drove you fucking crazy. You said it yourself—you wanted her to tell him no."

My jaw tightens.

Fuck.

"Kidding aside," he says, his voice losing some of its teasing. "I think Taylor gets under your skin so much because you're starting to like her, and your brain's fighting you on it. She's the exact opposite of everything you thought you wanted, so you keep trying to convince yourself you shouldn't want her instead of dealing with the fact that you do." He shrugs. "But you can't reason your way out of being attracted to someone, man. That's not how it works."

The locker room noise seems to fade into the background as his words settle somewhere uncomfortably deep.

Because maybe that's exactly what I've been doing.

Fighting it.

Finding a reason for every reaction I have to her because the alternative never made any fucking sense to me.

Taylor Lewis is not the kind of woman I ever imagined myself wanting.

And yet...

Maybe I do.

The admission feels strange even inside my own head.

I'm attracted to Taylor.

That much I can finally admit.

But if it were only physical, I don't think four days without talking to her would bother me this fucking much. I wouldn't care that she ignored my messages. I wouldn't have spent an entire hockey game noticing that she wasn't standing where she normally stands. And I sure as hell wouldn't be sitting here feeling like shit because I might have destroyed whatever had started forming between us.

So maybe Zach is right about the rest of it too.

Maybe I like her.

Fuck.

Maybe I like her a lot more than I realized.

I lean back against my locker and stare at the ceiling.

Well, this is fucking inconvenient.

I finally figure out how I feel about her when I'm almost certain she'd happily shove me into oncoming traffic.

I knock the back of my head against the locker.

Thunk.

What the fuck am I supposed to do with this now?

Thunk.

Tell her?

Yeah. Great idea.

Hey, Taylor. Sorry I was a colossal piece of shit the other night. Fun update, though: I like you.