Page 33 of Offside Angle

I stare at him. “What do you want, Santi?”

“My best friend back.” The answer comes so easily that it knocks some of the irritation out of me, but then his gaze stays on mine and, naturally, he ruins it. “And maybe to see if he’ll let me do what he didn’t let me do back then.”

I drop my forehead onto the table with a dull thud.

Of fucking course.

“I don’t like men,” I mumble into the wood, reaching levels of desperation I would prefer nobody ever document. “You understand that, right? I like women. Very much. Huge fan.”

Santi doesn’t answer, which should probably worry me more than it does.

Then his fingers slide into my hair. The touch is slow and almost absentminded, his fingertips moving gently through the strands, and every argument I had prepared immediately abandons the building. A shiver runs straight down my spine before I can stop it, dragging goosebumps over my arms and the back of my neck while I bite down hard on the sound threatening to escape.

Fantastic.

My body has apparently chosen Santi’s side.

I stay there, face pressed to the table, trying to breathe normally while his fingers keep moving through my hair in slow, soothing strokes.

Then I feel him lean in close. His breath brushes against my ear as he speaks, quiet enough that only I can hear it over the music. “Both things can be true, chulito.”

I stay there, breathing against the table while my entire body burns and freezes at the same time. My heart is hammering so hard I’m surprised he can’t hear it.

“Mats, are you okay?”

Lena’s voice comes from behind me, and I straighten so fast it’s almost embarrassing, every guilty instinct in my body firing at once.

“Yes, pretty girl,” I say quickly, forcing a smile as I turn toward her. “Just tired.”

Before I can think too hard about it, I pull her straight into my lap. She laughs softly and settles against me, one arm looping around my shoulders. It feels natural. It should feel natural.

But the second she’s there, I realize why I did it.

It wasn’t just because I wanted her close. It was because Santi was sitting right there. Because I needed to prove something — to him, to myself, to whoever the hell was watching. The realization makes me grimace internally, even as I keep my arms around her waist.

Santi slides the beer bottle back across the table toward me, his eyes moving slowly between Lena in my lap and my face. That calm, unreadable expression is back, but there’s something sharper underneath it now. He doesn’t smirk. He doesn’t tease. He just watches.

Lena shifts a little in my lap, completely unaware of the silent exchange happening over her shoulder. “You sure you’re okay?” she asks again, softer this time, her fingers lightly tracing the back of my neck. “You look a little… off.”

“I’m good,” I lie, giving her a small smile and pressing a quick kiss to her temple. “Just a long night.”

For the rest of the night, I keep my focus on Lena. I pull her closer on my lap, laugh at her jokes, kiss her when she leans in, and do my best to stay present. She’s warm and soft, her usual perfume carrying the faint scent of the club, and normally that would be more than enough to keep me grounded.

But my attention keeps drifting.

Every few minutes, I catch myself searching the crowd without meaning to, and even after Santi gets up and disappears into the sea of people, my focus keeps returning to the last place I saw him. My brain won’t shut up about his fingers in my hair, the low whisper against my ear, or those six simple words that refuse to stop looping in my head.

Both things can be true, chulito.

I keep trying to shove it down. I keep trying to focus on the girl currently curled up against me. But the thoughts won’t leave.

Lena eventually notices.

She pulls back just enough to look at me properly, her fingers gently tracing along my jaw.

“You sure you’re good?” There’s a small crease between her brows. “You’ve been kind of… distant for the last hour.”

“How about we go home?” I ask, my voice a little rougher than I mean it to be.