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I wanted to ask him if he was okay, but I knew the answer.
The deep sigh coming out of his chest told me what I needed to know. So I reached up with my other hand and began kneading the other side of his neck. Sure, he had trainers who did this, and he had enough money to pay a professional, but I massaged the tops of his traps anyway. The people surrounding us seemed so insignificant and small in that moment, in life in general, that I didn’t care they were around.
“That’s nice,” Aiden kind of whispered.
I only dug in harder with my thumbs, earning a small smile from the man who passed them out like they were golden tickets to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. I swore he was grumbling with pleasure like a big bear. “Better?” I asked once my fingers began to get tired, drawing my palms across his shoulders.
He nodded. “Much.”
“I’ll make you dinner when we get home. What do you say?”
“I’ll say okay.”
“Are you ready to go?”
He nodded once more, the small amount of pleasure on his face slowly draining.
Stepping back, I hesitated. Had I done too much? Was he already regretting kissing me? Which was stupid because if I gave myself the chance to think about it, I’d know Aiden didn’t do things he would regret…. Unless it was what he’d done to me before I quit. But I didn’t let myself think about it. “Do you mind giving me a ride, big guy? Zac took off.”
“He brought you?” he asked as he raised his chin, his gaze meeting my face.
I nodded.
“I’ll take you.” I smiled distractedly and let him lead me through the hallway, blatantly ignoring the teammates we passed, and nodding only at the venue’s employees who greeted him or wished him a good night.
Reaching his SUV, he unlocked the doors and opened the front passenger door, waving me in and closing the door behind me. By some miracle, I managed to keep my level of dumb-face to a minimum. Afterward, he threw his bag into the back and got inside. The silence wasn’t necessarily heavy on the drive home. I knew he must have had a hundred different things going on in his head, and I wanted to let him have his space.
Leaning my head against the window, I yawned and thought about all the things I needed to do when I got home, so that I wouldn’t think about the things I had no business putting too much thought into. Like that kiss in front of his teammates’ families and Three Hundreds’ staff.
“What are you thinking about?” Aiden asked out of the blue.
“I was just thinking about everything I need to pack for my trip to Toronto. Remember I told you I was going to that convention?” I explained. “What about you? What are you thinking of?” I asked before I could think twice about why I would ask him something I didn’t actually expect him to answer.
But he did.
“How ready I am to move on with my life.”
“You mean switch teams?” I grasped onto that with two hands. I could easily imagine how hard it was for him to be such a good player on such an inconsistent team. How could it not be discouraging?
He made a noise deep in his throat, his attention focused on the road ahead of him.
“Have you talked to Trevor about it anymore?”
“No. Last time we talked, he said there wasn’t a point in making plans until the season was over. He knows what I want to do. I don’t want to keep repeating myself. If he wants to pay attention, he can; if he doesn’t want to, he knows my contract with him is going to end right before I’m eligible to sign with another team.”
Huh. “Do you… know where you want to go?” I realized why we hadn’t talked about this topic before. He wanted to focus on the season, not on the what-ifs that would all take place afterward. But suddenly, there seemed to be so much pressure and focus on all the possibilities. The moving. The future.
Casually, casually, casually, he raised a shoulder. “How do you feel about heading up north?”
North? “How far north are we talking about?”
Those coffee-colored eyes peered at me over his shoulder. “Indiana… Wisconsin…” he threw out.
“Ah.” I looked forward to collect my words and put them in an order I wouldn’t regret. “I can live just about anywhere. I’ll just have to buy better winter clothes.”
“You think so?” Why did his voice sound so amused all of a sudden?
I snorted. “Yeah. Some winter boots, a scarf, and some gloves, and I’ll be fine. I think.”
“I’ll buy you a dozen jackets and winter boots, if that’s what you need,” he threw out there in a tone that was getting more amused by the second.
It made me perk up a little bit. “You don’t need to do that. You do enough for me as it is, big guy.”
His fingers drummed the steering wheel and he seemed to shake his head. “Van, I’ll buy you a jacket or ten if I want. We’re in this together.”
Ovaries. Where were my ovaries?
“Aren’t we?” Aiden suddenly asked in a hesitant voice.
I lifted my head off the window and really turned to look at him. There was something so devastating about his profile it was annoying. There was something about him that was so great it was annoying. He was so dumb sometimes I couldn’t handle it. “Yeah. Of course. We’re Team Graves.”
He made an amused sound and I suddenly remembered what I’d kept making myself put off asking him. “Hey, are you… when are you going to Colorado?” I mean, the season was over. The last two years, he’d left as soon as he was able to, yet this year, he hadn’t said a word to me. Then again, why would he? I wasn’t the one leasing out a house or making plans to rent a car or anything.
