Chapter 64
JORDAN
Not even three minutes after Noah and I step inside Tate’s home, Tate bursts through the door, his eyes flared with heat and frustration. He holds my gaze and my stomach dips.
“Go,” he says.
My eyes widen. “Me?”
“Not you. You stay.” His eyes look possessed. His gaze shifts to Noah. “You. Go.”
Noah takes a big bite of pizza, entertained. “Go where?”
“Your hotel room. The woods. The moon. I don’t care.” Tate stares at me and something shivers down my back. “Just don’t be here.”
In an instant, Tate’s in front of me, leaning down, and flipping me over his shoulder like I weigh nothing.
“Tate,” I squawk, my world tipped upside down as he moves. I think we’re headed to the stairs.
“You kids have fun,” Noah says with laughter in his voice before the front door opens and closes.
Upstairs, Tate deposits me right side up in his bedroom, and I walk to the windows. Noah doesn’t have a car. How’s he getting back to his hotel—oh. He’s going to the guesthouse. He’s keying the code in and yep, the lights are on and that’s him flopping down on my bed.
I make a disgusted noise. “He’s eating pizza on my bed.”
“Jordan.”
“He just wiped crumbs on the duvet.” I turn back to Tate, who’s pressing a thumb into his eye socket with an agonized expression. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“No. No, I am not okay.” He looks up, meeting my eyes, and the poor guy. He looks so frustrated and helpless and hungry. “Don’t kiss my brother, Jordan. Please.”
I blink. “The kiss cam thing? Tate, that was just for fun. It was just on the cheek.”
“You don’t kiss anyone on the cheek,” he says like it hurts him. “I’ve never seen it, anyways. But you kissed Noah on the cheek.”
“Because I feel . . .” I shrug. “Comfortable with him, I guess. It was just for fun. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“Please don’t date him,” he says. “Don’t date anyone, actually. I can’t take it.”
Date him? Noah’s a flirt, sure, but he spent the entire game talking Tate up. As if he needed to.
“We’re not supposed to . . .” I trail off, gesturing between us.
“I know.” His eyes close and he lets out a tired sigh.
“We can’t.”
“I know.” He opens his eyes, approaches until he’s right in front of me, a torn expression in his eyes, like he’s hanging on to the last of his control. “What do you want from me, Jordan? Anything.”
Anything? Anything?
Seeing him broken down like this demolishes me. I forget all the solid, rational reasons why we shouldn’t.
“I want you to take what you need,” I whisper, an urgent, insistent feeling buzzing through me. “I want you to lose control like you did the other night.”
“You liked that?”
I nod. So much.
He searches my eyes. “You didn’t come.”
“I don’t care,” I admit, my face going warm. “I think that’s part of what I liked about it.”
He laughs, short and frustrated. “Me, too. Fuck. I liked that, too, that you went home all wired up and thinking about me.” His eyes meet mine, a question in them. “Were you? Thinking about me?”
I nod.
“Good.” Another deep breath as he studies me, gaze dropping to my mouth.
“I’m trying to stay away from you but I can’t.
” He searches my eyes, a flicker of vulnerability in them.
“What if we see where it goes until the end of playoffs? We can keep it casual and fun and just . . .” He holds my eyes, exhaling hard, shaking his head a little.
“We don’t need to commit to anything or tell anyone.
Bea doesn’t need to know. It can just be between us. ”
Casual. Fun. No commitment. It’s how I’ve always done relationships, if you could even call them that, but with Tate, it doesn’t feel comforting. It just feels like I’m missing something, like doing a puzzle without a handful of pieces or buying a cake with a slice cut out already.
Like I’m not getting all of the good thing.
He’s right, though. We can’t seem to stop this. And I’m attracted to him. Selfishly, I want him, and I want whatever I can get from him, even if he’s still protecting Bea from me. Even if he’s not interested in something long-term.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?” His eyebrows go up, hands coming to frame my face. “Yes? We’ll do this?”
“Until the end of playoffs.”
“Until the end of playoffs.” He lets out a long exhale like he’s relieved before he studies me again. “Do you trust me, Jordan?”
Without hesitation, I nod, and with that, he kisses me.