Chapter 11 #2
And the space between us felt charged enough to spark.
The locker room felt smaller than it had seconds ago. Jason’s chest kept rising and falling, too visible, and I tracked the movement because looking anywhere else meant acknowledging what was happening.
“Alright,” Jason said. His voice had gone quiet, stripped of the usual performance. “You want blunt.”
I nodded. My throat had sealed shut.
He ran a hand through his hair, then dropped it. “I think about you. A lot. More than I should, probably. More than makes sense for someone who’s supposed to be learning pivot tables.”
My knees locked.
“I think about you when I’m running plays,” he continued.
“When I’m in practice. When I should be focused on literally anything else.
” He gestured vaguely between us. “And then you’re here, and I can’t stop looking at you, and I don’t know what to do with that because you’re so…
” He stopped, jaw working. “You’re smart, and you’re mean in this way that’s actually funny, and you showed up at my house when you didn’t have to. ”
My lungs had forgotten how breathing worked.
“And I kissed you,” Jason said, quieter now. “I kissed you, and then I panicked because I didn’t know if you wanted that, and I made it worse by calling it a mistake when it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.”
The air between us felt too thin. I wanted to sit down. There was nowhere to sit.
“I don’t do this,” he said, motioning at himself, at me, at the space that had become unbearable. “I don’t get nervous. I don’t stumble. But you make me stupid, Bennet.”
My hands tightened around the towel until my knuckles went white.
“I like you,” Jason said, flat and certain. “I want you. And I don’t know what you want, but I needed to say it because pretending it’s not happening is making me insane.”
Silence.
The locker room hummed with the distant sound of showers running. Someone’s locker slammed two rows over.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Jason watched me, still standing there in his underwear like this was the most casual thing ever. But the tension around his eyes told me the truth. He was anything but casual.
“Say something,” he said.
I tried. My brain had turned into static.
He took a step closer. Not crowding. Just closer. “Bennet.”
“I…” The word cracked. I swallowed and tried again. “I don’t know what to do with this.”
His brow furrowed. “With what?”
“With you. Like this. Saying things like that.” My voice came out unsteady, too raw. “People don’t just…”
“I do,” he interrupted gently. “I just did.”
I stared at him. At the honesty in his face, the lack of calculation. He wasn’t performing. He wasn’t angling. He’d just laid himself open and was standing there waiting.
“You confuse me,” I said, because it was the only true thing I could get out. People didn’t say things like this to me. Sure, they may have done speeches and gestures toward each other, but I wasn’t anyone’s romantic target. I just wasn’t.
His mouth curved, small and almost sad. “Yeah. You said that before.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” He hesitated, then added, “Do you want me to take it back?”
“No.” The answer came too fast. “No, don’t.”
Something shifted in his expression. Relief, maybe. Or hope.
I looked down at the space between us. At the few inches of tile that felt impossible to cross. “I don’t know how to do this,” I said.
“Do what?”
“This. Whatever this is. I’m not good at it.”
Jason’s laugh was soft, disbelieving. “You think I am?”
I looked up. He was closer now. I hadn’t noticed him move.
“You make me nervous,” I admitted, and it felt like the most dangerous thing I’d ever said.
His eyes went soft. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s good. I make you nervous. You make me stupid. We’re even.”
My chest felt too tight to breathe. I could see the faint sheen of sweat still clinging to his collarbone, the way his pulse jumped in his neck.
“I don’t want to mess this up,” I said.
“You won’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I don’t care,” Jason said. His voice had dropped lower, rough at the edges. “I’d rather you mess it up than not try at all.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t know how to tell him that I’d spent the last two days trying to convince myself I didn’t want this, that I’d failed completely, that the thought of him regretting it again was worse than not having it at all.
So I didn’t say anything.
I stepped forward instead.
Jason’s breath caught. He didn’t move. He didn’t reach for me. He just stood there, letting me close the distance at my own speed.
When I stopped, we were close enough that I could feel the warmth coming off his skin. Close enough that I had to tilt my head slightly to meet his eyes.
“I like you, too,” I said. The words felt clumsy, too small for what they were supposed to hold. “In case that wasn’t obvious.”
His mouth twitched. “It wasn’t.”
“Well, now you know.”
“Now I know,” he echoed, and his voice had gone soft again.
We stood there, breathing the same air, not touching but close enough that it didn’t matter.
Jason leaned in slowly enough that I could have stopped it if I wanted to. I didn’t.
His mouth met mine, tentative at first, then firmer when I didn’t pull away. His hand came up to my jaw, thumb brushing along my cheekbone. The kiss deepened, his lips parting slightly, and I felt the careful control in the way he held himself back, like he was afraid of breaking something fragile.
I kissed him harder.
A door banged open. Footsteps echoed against tile, water dripping, someone humming off-key.
We jerked apart.
Jason’s hand dropped. I stumbled back half a step, heart hammering so hard I could hear it in my ears.
A guy rounded the corner from the showers, towel around his waist, hair dripping. He glanced at us, nodded vaguely, and headed toward his locker on the far end.
Jason cleared his throat and grabbed his shower kit. “I should, uh…”
“Yeah,” I said, too fast. “Me too.”
We moved toward the showers without coordinating it, walking parallel paths that didn’t quite meet or intersect. The air between us still hummed.
I stepped into a stall and yanked the curtain shut. The water came out cold at first, then scalding. I adjusted it and stood under the spray, letting it pound against my shoulders.
My hands were shaking.
I pressed my palms flat against the tile and tried to breathe normally. It didn’t work. My mouth still tingled. My chest felt like something had cracked open inside it, spilling heat everywhere.
He’d kissed me.
No. I’d kissed him. We’d kissed each other.
And this time, he hadn’t pulled back apologizing. This time, he’d leaned in like he meant it.
I scrubbed soap over my skin, too rough, trying to ground myself in something ordinary. The smell of cheap bodywash. The sound of water hitting tile. The cold shock of air when I moved out of the spray.
It didn’t help.
I was buzzing. I was overheating. I was hard to the point it hurt. Every nerve in my body felt live, electric, like I’d been plugged into an outlet.
By the time I stepped out, towel wrapped around my waist, the locker room had mostly emptied. Jason was at his locker, already dressed in jeans and a hoodie, his hair still damp and curling slightly at the ends.
He glanced up when I approached. Our eyes met.
The silence stretched.
I focused on getting dressed. Underwear under the towel. Socks. Jeans. Shirt. Each movement felt too slow, like I was teasing him when I wasn’t. I could feel him watching me, could feel the weight of everything unsaid sitting between us like a third person.
When I finally closed my locker, we were alone.
Jason shifted his weight. “So.”
“So,” I repeated.
He rubbed the back of his neck, then dropped his hand. “Next Stats session. You could, uh…you could come to my room again. If you want.”
My pulse kicked.
“If you want,” he repeated, quieter. “We can also keep it slow. Casual.” Then he remembered I preferred blunt and direct. “But I would like it to be in my room. If you want.”
I looked at him. I looked at the careful hope in his face, the way he was trying to sound casual and failing.
“I want,” I said.
His smile broke through, small and real and unguarded.
“Okay,” he said. “Good. That’s…yeah. Okay.”
We stood there for another beat, neither of us moving toward the door. Jason was probably giving me a moment, and I needed it desperately, trying to remember how to walk and breathe and blink again.
Then Jason slung his bag over his shoulder and jerked his head toward the exit. “Come on. I’ll walk you back.”
I followed him out into the cold.