CHAPTER 20
harrison
S o. Casey kissed me. In his kitchen pantry. While Sonny and Izak were out in his backyard. He actually kissed me. And I don’t think I will ever be the same.
I think I might be getting a taste of Casey’s restless mind syndrome because I have not been able to stop thinking about that kiss. Not for one single solitary second.
Not the next day when the team flies down to Melbourne for Saturday’s game against the Mornington Rangers. Not for any minute of the pre-match preparations and not for any minute of the game where Casey fights valiantly to the end in the Fever’s heartbreaking two-point defeat.
Jaylen Briggs suffers a hamstring strain in the final quarter which gives me something else to think about as I treat his injury on the sidelines. But the momentary reprieve does nothing to quash my mind from replaying on repeat that incredible, stolen kiss with Casey in his kitchen pantry.
Ben takes over Casey’s post-game injury management while I am still dealing with Briggs, monitoring him in the ice bath and applying a compression bandage to his hamstring.
The strain looks mild, but he will need an MRI when we’re back home tomorrow to confirm.
Best case scenario will see Briggs sidelined for a week.
My eyes flick to where Ben is treating Casey on the treatment bed.
I don’t miss the brief grimaces of pain when Ben prods him in certain spots—the spots I know exactly how to find like it’s second nature.
It kills me, the way Casey carries so much pain.
We’re getting so much better with his injury, have made vast improvements to both his daily and match time pain levels.
But we’re still not there yet and watching him hide his agony after a game kills something fundamental inside me.
His eyes catch mine and he shoots me a soft smile, just a little one that’s full of secrets that nobody but us knows. And maybe Sonny Ingram. Quite possibly Sonny Ingram. But I don’t think it helps Casey to know that one of his best friends is highly suspicious of us.
Because I do not for one minute think that Casey has thought through the full implications of what it would mean if he and I do cross any more of those very blurred lines between us.
He is already one of the biggest names in the game.
This could blow up his career—and the entire league while we’re at it.
And I don’t know if he can truly, honestly grasp the full magnitude of what that will mean for him.
I don’t think I truly know either.
At least the weirdness of the past week is gone. Even if it has been replaced by a new, different kind of weirdness. But it’s a good weirdness, a butterfly-inducing weirdness instead of the clawing dread and sickening anxiety of the past week.
I had no idea what to make of the way Casey had seemed to freak out so badly after finding out I’m gay.
Of course, I had thought the worst, assuming he was replaying every one of our past interactions with each other and reanalysing it through a different lens.
I should have known that Casey would need time to process.
That’s just how his beautiful, sometimes slightly manic mind works.
I did not expect where that time to process would end up with us in that kitchen pantry.
Even if that now makes me the slightly oblivious one because surely, surely Casey can see that what we have between us is more than the way best friends treat each other.
I have always kept a very clear delineation between friends and potential lovers but with Casey, that space has been murky from the start.
I am still dealing with Jaylen Briggs when the team bus departs for the hotel so I don’t see Casey again until the next morning when we’re heading to the airport.
He somehow manages to sweet talk Emma into switching seats with him on some made up pretence about needing his physio’s advice which is how we end up seated beside each other for the short flight home.
Casey doesn’t say much but the way he briefly rests his head on my shoulder speaks volumes.
It’s not until I’m back home in my apartment where it really hits how much I’m missing him. I’ve grown used to Casey encroaching on all my space and time and now I’ve gone a whole week with limited contact and I’m missing him. And not just because I want to kiss him again.
Even still, I’m not at all surprised when my phone lights up with a call later that evening as I stretch out on my sofa, knowing exactly who it will be even before I answer.
“Casey,” I smile, snuggling down into the cushions.
“Harry,” he replies with a sweet softness that melts my insides. “I miss you,” he adds on a sigh.
“I miss you too.”
“Do you think … will you come over tomorrow? After practice? We can swim again …”
I can’t hold back the smile that spreads across my face. “Will you be inviting half the team this time?”
He chuffs out a soft laugh. “No, Harry. Just us.”
I let out a breath of air. That sounds dangerous. And exhilarating. “Yeah, Case. I’ll come over.”
***
Casey waits for me to finish up at work on Tuesday afternoon. I’m more nervous than I really have any excuse to be which may explain why I don’t even try to interrupt Tim Masters regaling me with an overly detailed account of Malakai Kantilla’s groin strain.
Casey just waits patiently, leaning up against the wall in the hallway, flicking through his phone. But his smile is soft and ready, waiting there just for me.
I’m not sure why I agreed to this invitation for a swim.
I mean, yes, I love Casey’s heated swimming pool in his beautiful, tropical backyard.
But swimming brings with it a certain … intimacy which becomes all the more apparent when Casey drops his shorts to reveal a pair of tiny, multi-coloured budgie smugglers—Australian for speedos—and somebody send help because I am not okay.
The grin he sends me is smug and pure evil as I grapple to pull my eyes away from the perfection he is presenting right in front of my eyes. I mean, I’ve seen the guy naked more times than I can really count so this should be a breeze. Right?
“You coming in?” he grins, watching me flop and flail, my eyes darting all over his body. He turns before I can answer and I know it’s intentional as it suddenly brings my full and undivided attention to his perfectly shaped ass, clad in bright blue, pink and orange.
I steady myself on the nearby sunlounge and take in a well-earned breath of air. This is the point I should be thinking with my head, the one on top of my shoulders at any rate, but he’s suddenly gone very quiet as I strip down to my far more modest swim trunks and step into the pool.
Casey’s blue-green eyes are on me, lashes thick and clumped with water, dirty blonde hair pushed back from his face. Absolutely, heartbreakingly beautiful. He grins as I glide towards him. I feel like I’m completely weightless.
“Hi,” he says, biting on his lower lip as I dip my head under the water.
“Hello,” I reply when I reemerge right in front of him. He reaches out a hand to tug on a curl, running his fingers down the length of the lock.
“It’s sad when your curls go away,” he murmurs.
I snort out a laugh, trying to ignore the butterflies that flock to my stomach. “They’ll be back. Don’t worry.”
We circle each other in the water, eyes on each other the whole time we’re in the pool.
It’s a stark contrast to how he behaved when Sonny and Izak were here last week, how he played with them and tackled them in the water, no gentleness with either of the footballers unlike his interactions with me.
I’m the first to leave the pool. It’s still only April in Sydney but the air has a bit of a chill to it despite Casey’s heated pool. It’s still too early for the flame heaters but I towel myself off before stretching out on a sunlounge.
Casey follows not long after, stepping out of the pool, dripping wet, completely unfair.
He grabs his towel and dries himself off before plonking down right on the sunlounge I am resting on.
These lounges are designed for one and I am both amused and admittedly turned out by the feel of his warm, damp skin alongside me.
“You do know there are plenty of other seats here, right?” I mention.
“I want this one. It’s my favourite,” Casey replies with a casual shrug.
“I could move …” I lie, intending nothing of the sort.
Casey glances up at me, amused grin tugging at his lips. “Or … or … just hear me out for a sec, H. I know you tend to get all skittish around me.”
“I do not get skittish, thank you,” I huff indignantly.
“Beg to differ,” he returns with a wave of his hand. “But anyway, I’ve been thinking.”
“A dangerous activity.”
“Yes, well. I’ve been thinking about how you said you want me to be sure about this before … well, I’m sure you remember what you said.”
“I remember.” My voice is gravellier than I intended.
“So I was thinking, what better way of knowing I’m sure than if we become those kinds of friends who kiss on occasion.” He says it so casually, like we’re discussing menu options instead of potentially exchanging another life changing kiss with him.
I do my best to mimic his tone. “Oh? You have those kinds of friends do you?”
“Well no but I’m always in the market.”
I whoosh out a breath of air. “It’s an interesting idea,” I dangle as we angle our bodies towards each other.
“So, what do you think?” he asks, breath hitching ever so slightly. Not as cool as he’s pretending then. His eyes dip to my mouth and back up to my eyes as something swirls in my gut.
“Well, it’s not a no.”
“No?”
“No.”
Casey watches me for a few seconds before he glances down, peeking up at me from under his eyelashes and I’m defeated before he even speaks. “So if it’s not a no … it’s a yes?”