Matchup (Playing the Field #3)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

HENDRIX AVERY

I reluctantly trudge up the stairs of the ridiculously expensive mini-mansion. Behind me, my beat-up Civic sticks out like a sore thumb in such an affluent neighborhood. I am honestly half expecting it to be towed in the next five minutes by some vengeful HOA who thinks it isn’t up to code for their lovely little cul-de-sac. If they do, I’m making Ellingsworth pay to get it back.

Aleks had looked at me like I was crazy when I stopped him after practice to ask for Ellingsworth’s address, but I’d heard he was out sick and assumed it was my fault. He was fine at the game yesterday, so I suspect it appeared all of a sudden the way mine had. I’m actually almost one hundred percent better today, which means I most likely had a twenty-four-hour bug.

I figure the least I can do is return the soup favor. After finding Robby’s office and talking with him about getting Micah a pass for our upcoming home game, I went home to make some soup from scratch for Ellingsworth.

The huge front door opens after a few knocks, and I’m greeted by a man wearing a pastel yellow polo tucked into khaki pants. He looks a lot more put together than I do in my athletic tights, workout shorts, and sideless tank. A Rubies cap sits backward on my head, and I take it off as if that will make me look a little less relaxed, running my hand through my wet hair to try and tame it. I’m pretty sure all my efforts are in vain.

“Uh, I’m looking for Tahegin Ellingsworth.” I somehow manage to make the statement sound like a question. Does this guy call him Mr. Ellingsworth? That is, if he works here. He may just be a really well-dressed boyfriend. Jesus, Ellingsworth may have taken a sick day to have some sexy time that I am currently interrupting. I should have called—not that I even have his number. I guess I could have gotten it from Aleks. Fuck, this is a stupid idea.

The guy makes a weird face and looks behind him as if someone will magically appear to tell him what to say. “Are you . . . a friend? Sorry, I’m just a housekeeper. I don’t usually answer the door, but Mr. Ellingsworth is sick?—”

“Yeah,” I jump in, holding up the stainless steel thermos in my hand for him to see. “He wasn’t at practice today, and I heard he’s not feeling well, so I brought him some soup.”

Ellingsworth’s maid—the dude has a freaking maid —eyes the soup and the Rubies cap sandwiched between my fingers and the thermos. “Well, you don’t seem like a crazed fan . . .”

“I’m Hendrix Avery,” I tell him flatly. “I play for the Rubies. Wide receiver. You can google me.”

“Oh, good idea!” He slides his phone from his pocket and types away. Then, he pauses, looking back and forth from me to the phone screen. “Ha. Look at that. Number thirteen. Ooh, man. That’s unlucky, huh?”

I stare blankly in response.

He shrugs off my rudeness. “Okay, you can come in, I guess. He’s in his bedroom. Upstairs.” He points. “First door on the left.”

Not bothering to thank him, I shoulder my way into the ginormous house, locate the—ostentatious—staircase, and take the steps two at a time. The upstairs landing looks to be some kind of game area with every console any one guy could ever want. I ignore the excessive flaunt of wealth and turn to the closed bedroom door.

Ellingsworth answers my two soft knocks with a weak “Come in.”

I take a deep breath to steel myself for being nice . Even practice a small smile before quickly dismissing the absurd idea.

“What is it, Grant?” he asks as the door slowly swings open. A cough breaks up his words, and I wince as it’s confirmed that I did get him sick. He must have whatever I did—whatever I gave him.

“Not Grant,” I say, peeking around the door and taking stock of the large, pristine bedroom, all spotless white and hues of blue.

He’s curled on his side beneath the bedsheets and scrolling on his phone but sits up when he sees me. The blanket slips down, revealing an expanse of bronze skin and toned muscle. I can only hope he has shorts on under those sheets. “Avery? What are you doing here?” He sets his phone on the nightstand in exchange for a pair of glasses, which he slides onto his nose.

Clearing my throat, I step further into the room and replace my backward cap just for something to do. “You missed our date . . .” My attempt at a joke falls flat, so I try to smile as a last resort. Pretty sure it looks like a grimace. “Okay. Um. I brought you some soup. Just . . . paying you back . . .” I trail off when I notice the half-eaten bowl of soup already on his bedside table.

Awkward .

But Ellingsworth looks anything but discouraged. In fact, his eyes light up with interest behind the thick-framed glasses I have only seen him wear between the hotel bathroom and the bed. “Please tell me you got it from somewhere that doesn’t count macros. I love my nutritionist, but that soup was horrible. Don’t tell Emma I said that.”

A maid and a personal nutritionist. Of course.

Be nice , I remind myself.

I look at the thermos in my hand. “Well, it’s healthy, but I wasn’t paying attention to carbs or calories when I made it.”

He sits up straighter. “You made it? Gimme, gimme.” The grabby gesture he does kind of makes me want to chuckle, so I hesitantly let the sound fall from my mouth.

“Haha, yeah.” I nervously adjust my cap. “I didn’t know your dietary preferences . . . If you don’t like it, I won’t be offended.”

“I’ll eat pretty much anything,” he admits with a carefree shrug. “What kind is it?”

I pass him the container of soup and watch as he carefully opens the lid before pulling the spoon from his discarded bowl. “It’s vegetable. Like the one you got at the hotel. Which I never thanked you for. So, um, thank you.”

“No worries, man.” He gives me a genuine smile, one side a little crooked. “Is it your favorite? I noticed you didn’t try any of the others I got.”

“I’ll pay you back for the ones I wasted.” I’m quick to reply, but he isn’t paying attention. His eyes have drifted closed with the spoon full of soup in his mouth.

He moans as he pulls the utensil out, gently chewing the soft veggies in the stew. “Mmm, ’mygod. This is fucking amazing. Holy shit.” He quickly shovels in a few more bites.

“Careful,” I warn. “I did throw up when I was sick with that bug.”

“You’re right. It’s just so good,” he compliments but lowers the spoon. “No wonder it’s your favorite. Oh, have a seat. You don’t have to stand in the doorway.” Pulling his legs up, he gestures for me to sit at the foot of the bed.

I take the offered spot and manage a tight “Thanks.”

He pauses, spoon halfway to his mouth. His blue eyes flicker to the soup, then back to me. “You’re being . . . nice.” He winces. “Sorry, that was rude. I meant?—”

“No, I get it.” Picking at a loose thread on his comforter, I try to get my words together. “I realized yesterday that I . . . Well, I know I can be an asshole, and-and maybe I don’t want to be an asshole, you know?”

He hums thoughtfully before taking another bite. “Our teammates call you Sour, you know.”

I blink in surprise. “I . . . did not know that. I guess it’s because of my attitude?”

Nodding, he lowers the soup container. “That, and we’re matched up at practice. They call me Gin, and there is a brand of gin called Hendricks, and a gin sour is a type of drink . . . It was actually pretty well thought out.”

“Yeah,” I chuckle. “It was.”

Those sapphire eyes study me for so long I worry I might have something on my face. “You should laugh more,” he says after a moment.

My reply is one hundred percent honest. “I’d like to.”

Ellingsworth’s jaw drops dramatically. “Wow! Are we friends now? I need us to be friends because friends share their soup recipes, and I need this recipe.”

“Whoa there, Ellingsworth. Recipe sharing is reserved for best friends, sorry.”

“That implies we’re at least friends, right?”

I swallow a lump in my throat, trying to force down my apprehension. “Yeah.” My voice cracks. “Let’s be friends.”

His grin is shit-eating. “You know the first rule of friendship, right?”

I stare blankly back.

“No last names,” he declares, nudging my hip with his blanket-covered foot. “I get to call you Hendrix. Or do you go by something else?”

“Hendrix is fine,” I rasp. “Or some people call me Rix.” And by some people, I mean my only other friend , I add silently. “I’ll call you . . .”

“Tahegin. Or T.”

I notice he doesn’t suggest “Gin” like our other teammates call him. Do only best friends call him by that nickname? Or, perhaps, did he get his nickname the way I got mine—without being asked if he liked it?

“So, is it your favorite?”

“Huh?” I replay our last few minutes before realizing what he means. “Oh, um. Kind of? It’s more like a lack of options. I like potato soup if I make it. Most everyone else puts bacon in it, so I don’t even bother trying to order it when I go out. Did you know people have started putting ham in broccoli cheese soup? I mean, come on. It’s broccoli cheese, not broccoli-ham-cheese.” I shut my jabbering mouth, cheeks going warm. He probably doesn’t want to hear me go on and on about soup, of all things.

The frown on his face seems to back up my last thought. That is, until Tahegin speaks again, and I realize he was intently studying my words. “You didn’t eat the other soups. You don’t like bacon or ham. Is it only in soup or all food?”

A painting hanging on his wall suddenly has all of my attention. It’s teal and sapphire blue, reminding me of his eyes, and textured. It’s really, really interesting.

“. . . Rix?”

“I don’t eat meat.” The confession grates against my throat on the way out. Throughout my entire adulthood, I haven’t told anyone except Micah and the Rubies’ nutritionist once I signed with the team. As a kid, others my age would tell me I was weird, so I learned to keep it to myself.

“Oh, that’s neat,” Tahegin says, surprising me. “You really should have sat with us at the hotel restaurant in Denver. The vegan burgers were so good.”

“Hmph.”

He studies me. “I’m guessing not everyone in your past has had the same reaction as me.”

I fall back with a sigh, arms over my head as I sprawl across the foot of his bed. Cool air kisses my exposed ribs on either side, and my hat tumbles to the floor. Too lazy to get up, I leave it there for now. Then, I throw an arm over my eyes so I’m not tempted to meet Tahegin’s inquisitive gaze. “Nope. Kids are fucking ruthless.” I repeat his words from yesterday.

That gets a chuckle out of him. “Since you were a kid? That’s a long time to be a vegetarian.”

“Hey, I’m not that old!” I feign appall. “But, yeah. I, uh, had Alpha-gal as a kid. They say it can go away over time, but I was always too nervous to try meat again. And now . . . I don’t know. I’m good without it, I guess.”

“I get it.” He sounds as if his mind is far away. “One time when I was, like, eleven, I ate my dinner and went to bed, then got up a few hours later feeling . . . off. I thought I was hungry again, so I rummaged around the pantry for a snack. Eventually, I settled on—” He pauses to stifle a gag. “God, I’m so sorry. Anyway, I ate some str—” Another muffled gag, and I have to hold back my laughter with a hand over my mouth. “—st-strawberry applesauce. Later, I woke up feeling super sick and made a mad dash for the bathroom. I tried, Rix. I tried so hard to make it, but the”—gag—“applesauce just exploded out of my mouth and nose. I left a trail of it all the way into the bathroom—luckily, the floor was all tile. When I was finally done puking, I had to clean up that lukewarm, pink—” He breaks off with another heave, and I can’t keep my laughter in any longer.

I guffaw so hard my belly hurts, and tears slip from the corners of my eyes. Tahegin laughs, too, so I don’t feel too rude for my outburst.

“Deadass,” he manages around his laughter. “I can’t even look at you-know-what in the grocery store when I pass by. Hell, I can’t even say the name of it without gagging. It was so horrible.”

“I can imagine.” Wiping my eyes, I prop myself up on my elbows and look at Tahegin. His blue eyes are watery, though I’m not sure if it’s from gagging or laughing. I realize I’m smiling at the same moment I realize that we’re just silently looking at each other, a smile on his lips, too.

“What changed?” he asks before the moment can become awkward.

“What do you mean?”

“Between Saturday morning when you hated me and this afternoon when you decided we could be friends, what changed?”

I fall back again, studying the nonsensical designs on the textured ceiling so I don’t have to look at his face. His open, honest, and emotional face. I might go my entire life not making facial expressions as expressive as the ones that come so naturally to him. “I’ve kept people at a distance for a very long time. It’s practically instinct now. Yesterday when we won, I saw everyone hugging and smiling and celebrating together . . . and I realized that even if I had played, I would have been standing off to the side instead of with everyone else I don’t . . . I don’t want to be on the outskirts forever. I want hugging to come naturally. To smile without it looking like a grimace or feeling like someone else is puppeteering my mouth.”

Tahegin shifts slightly beneath the sheets before asking in a soft voice, “Why me?”

Now, I turn to gaze at him. Watch him bite his bottom lip and crack his knuckles. He might be nervous to ask that question, but his eyes aren’t. Sapphire blue burns me with such solid contact that I want to look away, but I’m trapped. “You were nice to me,” I confess. “And I think . . . you’ve always been nice to me. I was just too stubborn to realize it.”

He shifts again, this time slipping from beneath the sheets as he takes off his glasses and sets them aside. Thankfully, he’s wearing shorts, but he’s coming closer, his chest still bare as I fight my automatic recoil when he enters my personal space and doesn’t stop.

“Wh-what are you doing?”

“We’re going to get you so used to hugs you won’t feel awkward at all around our teammates.” He smiles as if this is a perfectly normal thing.

“I— You, um. I don’t think?—”

“Good.” He grins. “Don’t think.” And then he’s hugging me, but I’m still lying down, so it’s more like we’re cuddling. His head rests on my shoulder, the tightly coiled hair atop his head tickling my chin. One arm is thrown over my waist, and the other is tucked beneath the shoulder he’s lying on.

Me? I’m frozen, stiff as a board, unsure what to do. “T?—”

“Rix. Just relax, okay? Friends hug. Teammates hug. Get used to it.”

“I really?—”

“Shh. Just let it happen.” His voice is a soothing whisper as he nuzzles closer. I remain motionless beneath him, not sure what to do with my hands. When I suggested I get used to touch, I was thinking more along the lines of high fives, back slaps, and bro hugs. This . . . This is way more than I ever considered. Hell, I’ve never even spooned with a hookup after the fact.

What seems like five seconds later—but could really be five hours for all I know in my state of awkward shock—soft snores begin to fall from Tahegin’s mouth, hot breath fanning over the sensitive flesh of my neck. I’m warm where he’s touching me, which reminds me that he is sick, so I can’t hold it against him for falling asleep. I practically fell asleep in the hotel lobby chair while holding a to-go container of soup; I understand his exhaustion.

Truthfully, I know I can slip out from beneath him. Tahegin is a big guy, but he’s only halfway on top of me and listless with sleep. Knowing I can leave whenever I want and that there isn’t a foster parent downstairs who will get angry if they find us alone in a bedroom together makes it easier for me to relax slightly. My hands fumble to find comfortable purchase, another reason I’m glad he is asleep, so he doesn’t witness my awkward flailing.

But then my arms magically fall into place—confident and natural. The one without Tahegin’s weight drapes up and over me, cushioning my head, and my bent knee on that side relaxes against the mattress. My other arm, the one beneath him, wraps around his back and over his waist, my fingers lightly trailing my stomach.

After a weekend of being sick and practice earlier today, I can totally go for a nap. Especially when I realize how fucking comfortable and warm Tahegin’s bed is. Well, the warmth is his fault, but the mattress is holding its own on the pedestal of greatness in my mind. No springs are digging into my back, and my body isn’t slowly being pulled low into a well-worn crater.

It’s so heavenly I don’t feel one bit awkward or like I’m overstaying my welcome as my eyes drift closed and I drift into a peaceful rest.