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“One day, Gal Gadot will accept me as her love slave.”
“I think she’s married.”
Mac waved that away with a scoff. “Everyone knows that’s a front. She can’t have the world realizing her true identity is in actuality Wonder Woman—”
I groaned. “Not this again. If she’s your ideal woman, why didn’t you call dibs?”
He held up his hands. “Whoa. We don’t call dibs, man. They’re people.”
I raised a brow at him. “Do you remember last week with Gretchen or whatever her name was?”
“You really need to work on your name retention skills. And I didn’t call dibs. I just saw her first, so it’s only fair I get to talk to her first.”
“You looked at me and said ‘dibs’ before sauntering up to the bar.”
He pursed his lips. “Look, it’s not important. I could tell RJ wasn’t looking for a hook-up. She smacked me down before I had the chance to ease her into loving me. Which makes sense now that I know she wasn’t just using the empty room to get her work out on.”
Curiosity got the better of me. “And if she’d shown any interest?”
“I’d have tripped your ass on the way into the room.” He eyed me. “But it wasn’t me she reacted to.”
I shook my head. “No. There are so many reasons that’s a bad idea. Starting with Coach and ending with the fraternization rule. If she’s going to play, I’m not going to disrespect her by treating her like a ball bunny.”
“You mean again,” he quipped deadpan.
“I hate you.”
Mac slapped my back. “No reason you can’t be friends then. She’s got a wicked mouth on her.”
Heat rushed me. I had to grit my teeth to get rid of the image he’d conjured of Riley on her knees in front of me. From his evil grin, I assumed he’d used those words on purpose. This season was going to be pure hell.
The weak metallic chime of the broken doorbell interrupted us before I could retaliate by smothering him with a couch pillow.
“Pizza!” Mac hollered down the hall, then answered the door.
Noah appeared a second later in sweats with his wet hair a mass of short curls. He detoured to the kitchen as Mac set a stack of three steaming pizzas on the tiny breakfast bar. My stomach rumbled at the scent of tomato sauce and pepperoni.
We ate in silence for a few minutes, and Mac’s last comment wouldn’t let me go. Not about Riley’s mouth, though the image would probably haunt me in the shower later, but about being friends with her.
I didn’t have a lot of female friends—mostly just Eva, Nadia, and Vi. Though I’d slacked on the last two after they’d moved away. My social circle was pretty much non-existent compared to Mac’s. Could I be friends with her like I was with my other teammates?
Why not? Riley was hot, but the campus was bursting with attractive women. I could picture any one of them naked instead of her. On cue, my imagination called up Riley tangled in my sheets, wild hair spread across my pillow.
I swallowed hard and carefully tucked the image into a tiny corner of my mind reserved for all the things I’d seen in the locker room. That section was strictly off-limits. I didn’t picture any of the other guys naked—I’d seen the real thing enough times that I actively triednotto picture it. Duke had an ungodly amount of body hair.
Friends. Definitely. With luck, I’d get over this stupid obsession by getting to know her. It’s not like I had to see her all the time. There were some guys on the team I’d barely exchanged a few words with.
A beep sounded next to me from Mac’s phone, then an excited gasp that ended in a coughing fit as he choked on his pizza. Noah got up to—I don’t know, do the Heimlich?—but Mac shook his head as he sucked in a rasping breath.
I swallowed my bite and checked to make sure his lips weren’t turning blue. “You okay?”
Instead of answering, Mac swiped at the screen then turned his phone toward me. He’d pulled up the door cam app. I recognized our landing, but at a different angle.
I sent him an incredulous look. “Do you have Eva’s door cam linked to your phone?”
“Don’t judge me,” he wheezed. “It’s for her protection.”
There was no way Eva knew about this. I’d need to have a talk with Mac about privacy and overstepping bounds before Eva de-balled him. Movement on the screen caught my attention. I watched as the door opened, expecting to see a dude come out, or maybe Eva’s new roommate.
