17. Miles
17
MILES
S he’s in bed next to me when I wake up. Her body is warm, her face tucked into her pillow and her lips parted.
I’ve never wanted to hit the snooze button so much in my life.
“The hell is that?” Brooke mumbles as I switch off the alarm. “Did I leave my door open…”
Her eyes crack open, and my heart cracks with them.
“Morning,” I whisper, aware we have to be quiet.
“Hey.”
Her nose points up with a slight curve, and her full lips are parted. Her thick lashes fan across her cheeks.
I lower my mouth to hers, brushing once and then again because I can’t resist.
“Merry Christmas, Princess.”
“You too.”
Her slow smile lights me up.
That’s when it hits me.
Brooke Ellis is not a hookup. She’s never been a hookup.
Not from the moment as a rookie that I agreed to watch out for her as a favor to her brother.
Not when my fist slammed into another man’s face because of what he did to her.
Not once in the years of teasing jokes and half flirting and buried longing since.
The realization is a living thing in my chest.
I can’t go another day thinking I could lose her.
In my bed.
In my home.
In my heart.
I glance toward the door. “I should get back to the guest room.”
“My mom will be up soon but Jay sleeps like the dead.”
“I know. One time when we had adjoining rooms on the road, Rookie and I broke in. We gave him an entire neck tattoo with henna before he woke up.”
She laughs silently, her eyes crinkling at the corners.
I pull on the borrowed pajamas as she slides out of bed.
A sound down the hall makes us both glance toward the door. Brooke tiptoes across to crack it.
“Waffles is sleeping in the middle of the hall,” she murmurs.
“Shit,” I curse softly.
“Don’t worry. No one else is up.” Brooke returns to the window and opens the curtains. The bright morning light dances on her hair.
“Storm’s over,” I comment as I straighten, adjusting my pajama pants.
She turns back to me.
“Hope so.”
* * *
Jay: Merry Christmas Kodiak Fam.
Clay: Let’s get a win today.
Rookie: Is there any doubt?
Atlas: Saw you drinking last night so I’d say so.
Rookie: Psssh. It was soda.
Miles: I’m expecting to see a solid cheering section.
Clay: Nova’ll be there, and Mari.
Nova: I have the best feeling about this, you guys!
Rookie: Brooke going?
Miles: Yeah.
* * *
I’m still hoping me responding to Rookie’s question wasn’t weird while I make us both coffees.
After having breakfast at her parents’ place, we drove back to my place in the Range Rover.
Now, she emerges from her room wearing a jersey.
Every thought in my brain evaporates.
“Princess, you look…” I trail off as she turns and I realize it’s not my jersey.
It’s her brother’s.
Of course it is.
She’s not going to wear my jersey to a game in front of everyone.
Even if it’s suddenly the only thing I want.
“I, uh, have something for you,” I say.
“You already got me wine.”
“That was for your mom. This is something else.”
I get the package. “It’s a phone. I didn’t know what color you wanted, so I got you three.”
“Three?!”
“You can take the other ones back. Or keep them all.”
“Thank you. I have something for you too.” She grins and bounces off to her room, then returns with a wrapped package.
“Shit, it’s so beautiful I feel like a prick wreaking this.”
“It’s even prettier on the inside.”
I scan her with my eyes. “So’re you.”
“Shut up.” Her smile lights me up.
“Nah, I know you’re trying to be a brat, but it’s too little too late. You can’t convince me otherwise with that mouth. Worst that’ll happen is I’ll have to punish you for it later.”
I unwrap the package and my hands still as I see what’s in it.
It’s a picture frame, or rather a series of them. One of the photos is of me and a few guys from the team before we won. Another is me and my grandma and Waffles back when I was a rookie. Plus one of my parents, smiling on vacation with me as a kid. Of course, I’m still dressed in a hat and basketball shoes even at age ten.
“I found them in your closet,” Brooke explains. “I was planning to put them up in the living room, but I wanted to check first.”
It feels like a long time since my parents were that happy, since we had anything that looked like a family unit. After they split, I focused on having a big group of more casual friends.
“You just looked like you were having the best time in all of these,” she fills in quickly. “No matter what happened before or after, I thought you might want to remember some of the moments that brought you so much joy.”
She’s right. Looking at these pictures doesn’t hurt like it used to.
Brooke shifts on her feet. “But if it’s a bad idea...”
“No.” I shift the photos into one hand and pull her against my side with the other. “It’s a great idea.”
* * *
brOOKE
Miles: I want to take you on a date
Brooke: A date? I’m at your game - which looking at the clock you should probably get off your phone to play. That must count.
Miles: No way. You, me and 20,000 people is about 20,000 people more than I have in mind.
I meet Nova and the rest of the Kodiaks Fam in the box at the arena.
Mari’s here with Harlan, plus Chloe and some other girlfriends and family. There are extra nods to the holiday before the start of the game, including T-shirts made to look like ugly sweaters.
My parents came, plus Sierra and her dad who, one game day a year, stays closed until after the game.
“So much for a relaxing holiday morning,” Chloe says, waving her iPad.
“Come on, you love it,” Mari interjects.
“Mimosa?” a server asks.
“What the hell.” Chloe tucks her tablet under an arm and takes one, toasting with Mari.
The servers pour more mimosas and I take one as I follow Nova to seats at the front of the box.
“Did you guys have a nice time waking up for your first Christmas in your new house?”
“It was better than I imagined.” She smiles with a sigh. “It would have been fun to have my fave roommate there though. Did you stay at your parents’?”
“More than just me.” I fill Nova in on how Miles wound up staying over last night, skipping the part where he came to my room and we had sex.
Unexpected, hot sex with a surprisingly sweet side.
Forget eggnog. It turns out hooking up in secret with the most popular player in the league in the bed you grew up in is a lip-bitingly decadent holiday treat.
The things he said to me, the way he touched me, felt as if I was the center of his damned universe.
I shouldn’t want that from someone. I know from experience that talk is cheap but actually having another person’s back is hard.
They announce the starters one at a time, starting with Rookie. Miles is third, jogging out with a sexy smirk and shoulder-bumping Rookie.
It’s a turn-on simply watching this man exist.
My brother follows his teammate, offering a wave to the crowd, then an extra one to the box.
“Did you see how Miles jumped on that text this morning?”
I pull out my new phone and open the group chat, studying it. “It’s innocent enough. We’re roommates.”
When I look up, Miles is watching us in the box, his grin heart-stoppingly sexy.
“Right. Roommates.” Sierra appears at my other shoulder.
“Nice phone by the way,” Nova chimes back in. “When did you find time to have that delivered?”
I angle my chin. “My roommate got it for me. In three colors,” I add under my breath.
She hears me, clapping her hands. “Oh, he’s got it bad.”
The texts he sent me after he went to get ready come back to my mind.
A date with Miles.
After last night, maybe I shouldn’t be shocked.
So why does this feel like uncharted territory?
I look between them. “You know you guys are like the angel and the devil on my shoulder, right? Only right now, you’re both the devil.”
Sierra snorts, shaking her head before leaving to get a drink.
“You’re falling for him.”
Nova’s words, uttered quietly enough we’re not overheard, make me snap back.
“No. Not even.” I try to laugh, but there’s a hint of panic in my throat. “He’s beautiful. And thoughtful. And makes the best coffee I’ve ever tasted. But that’s not the same thing.”
“Listen. You might be the expert when it comes to branding and how things look. But I see people as they are, and that man is in it with you.”
My heart stops as I watch him.
What would it look like to actually have a relationship? One not based on us being roommates, or the illicit thrill of sneaking around behind my brother’s back?
How long before he expects me to do and be things that I don’t want?
The shadow of Kevin is still there, even after all these years.
“You think I should go for it.” I bite my lip, my eyes never moving from the court.
“I think you deserve to be happy, and I haven’t seen you smile as much as you do when you’re around Miles Garrett.”