Chapter 11 #2
There’d be time enough for deeper talk, which was probably best left till we were back home.
Ryan would be able to disappear from the attention and microscopic lens he lived under here to the normality of the Sunny Coast. Sure there were Aussies who followed pro basketball, but with him being so out of media attention, it was less likely he’d be recognized.
“We have a lot to talk about,” I started, “and I think you have stuff you need to figure out too, but that can wait till we’re back home, yeah?”
His gaze was searching. “Okay.”
“But,” I said, the words already forming in my brain, the last things I wanted to share, but I had to, “what happened yesterday can’t happen again.
I’m your friend. You need to keep to those boundaries.
” Each word was just as much for me, but it wouldn’t help either of us to admit that.
“Let’s just enjoy the next few days, okay? ”
“I can do that.” His reaction was so easy to read, his relief visceral, but it weighed heavily on the dejection he struggled to shutter.
“So, plans?”
He bobbed his head once, and the resolve seemed to sweep over him, something I understood all too well. It was the only way I’d be able to survive the next few days in the States.
Ryan’s friends seemed to take their cue from Ryan. Not a word was mentioned about what happened, which was more than okay with me. It was proving difficult enough to shrug everything aside, so I latched on to each meaningless although entertaining conversation I could.
Jayden finished off his omelet with a belch. Sutton reacted immediately by smacking him in the gut.
“Jesus, manners. Let your momma hear that coming from you.” Sutton rolled his eyes, and I laughed at the pair of them, tempted to call him out on his own belch yesterday, but the more I thought about it, the less convinced I was that he’d been actually drunk.
“Shit, man, don’t play the mom card.” Jayden rubbed at his stomach.
“You know she likes me better than you, so just keep acting like a pig.”
“You two been friends for long?” I asked. Their friendship and how they interacted were different from how they interacted with Ryan. Sure, they were all friendly, but Sutton and Jayden seemed tight.
“This fool?” Sutton quirked his brow in Jayden’s direction. “He ain’t my friend. He’s too much of a pain in the ass for that.”
Wide-eyed, Jayden slammed his hand against his chest. “You wound me, asshole. Don’t listen to Gale here,” he directed at me, and my mouth twitched at Sutton’s sneer when Jayden said his first name. “Gale here is a big softie, especially when it comes to his love for me.”
“Their bromance is legendary,” Ryan added, eyeing his two friends with a smirk.
“You see, legendary.” Jayden nodded, apparently pleased by the description from the self-satisfied grin and puff of his chest. “But to answer your question, Nate, Sutton here and I go way back. Met at basketball camp when we were fourteen. Sutton now kinda stalks me.”
I expected Sutton to interject, but when I glanced his way, he was side-eyeing Jayden with the barest of smirks and offering an eye roll.
“We kept in touch and ended up playing for the Leopards out west for a couple of years, and a few years back, we landed here. Well, not LA, but Minnesota.”
“What Jayden here failed to mention was I got contracted first for Minnesota. He puts in special requests with his agent to make sure we’re on the same team or at least close by.”
I grinned at how deadpan Sutton was and quickly followed up with a chuckle at Jayden as he went off on some sort of diatribe.
Ryan’s soft “Hey” pulled my attention away.
I raised my brows at him, my smile still in place. The slip happened almost instantly, however, before I could control it. The hurt and memory of the kiss slammed in unbidden, though, as soon as my gaze caught on his.
Fuck, I was a fool and had all but set myself up for this gigantic fall. That said, I couldn’t regret last night’s kiss or just how hot it was. While there were no regrets, it didn’t stop me from wishing things were different.
The only tell he gave that he may have seen my reaction was the slight hesitation before he said, “We have to head off to a short team meeting before the guys head back. You okay with coming with me? It should only take an hour, then we can do something.”
It took more effort than I thought to get control of myself and bundle away my hurt enough to try to let go—or at least bury it down for a few more days. “I can wait, but I think we then need to head to one of the theme parks.”
Biting hard on my cheek was the only way to school my features. The arsehole wasn’t a fan of theme parks when we were kids, but I loved a good roller-coaster ride.
“We’d only have this afternoon.” His words were careful, eyes examining as he spoke.
I shrugged. “That’s okay.”
“What are you guys talking about?” Sutton asked, drawing my attention his way. From the corner of my eye, Ryan’s focus seemed to still be on me.
“We’re going to head to one of the theme parks this afternoon as soon as you guys are done.” This time my shit-eating grin appeared, and I side-eyed Ryan, maybe loving a little too much that his gaze was narrowed on me.
A ridiculous glee unfurled in my gut, knowing I was being a bit of a cock, but I did genuinely want to go to a theme park. Not only that, but with the obvious tension between us, this was the relief I thought we both needed.
“For real?” Surprise lifted Sutton’s words. His “Huh” pulled my attention toward him. “I thought Ryan here hated theme parks.”
With my smile still in place and very real, I shrugged and paid attention to the man at my side. Ryan stared at me for a beat before huffing out a defeated breath.
“Nate here loves the damn things.” He lifted one shoulder in a “what you gonna do?” gesture.
“That’d be cool. Maybe we could stay, watch Ryan squeal like a baby pig.” Jayden chuckled and earned a flipped middle finger from Ryan.
“Nope.” Sutton shook his head, and I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed they wouldn’t be coming. “You promised your cousin you’d be at their house tonight for dinner.”
Jayden groaned, and I couldn’t help but think they behaved like an old married couple at times. “I could say the flight was canceled.”
“You’ve canceled the last three times. Just suck it up and go.”
The grumble that followed was enough to get us all laughing. “Fine, but if I’m going, so are you.”
“And it’s time to go,” Ryan said quickly, standing and slotting some cash in the folded bill that had arrived a few minutes back.
A few hours later, I was grinning like a fool, high on sugar and having a blast. At my side, though, Ryan was looking a little peaky. “Seriously, you don’t have to go on the ride with me.”
Ryan’s focus was solely on the monstrosity before us. The roller coaster looked epic. It was all loops and twists and set so damn high, I imagined you could all but touch the clouds.
Not that there were any in the sky. There was only vivid blue holding together the bright sun up above.
The humidity wasn’t all that bad either.
It was mild compared to spring back home.
My hair, though, was plastered to my head underneath the baseball cap I’d swiped from Ryan, courtesy of the rapids that drenched us.
The man at my side didn’t seem to be coping as well.
Sweat coated every visible inch of his skin, and his shirt stuck to him in such a way, my attention was constantly drawn to it.
“You hot or just shitting yourself?” I asked, aware he still hadn’t answered me.
Finally, he tore his gaze away from the 450-feet-high beast. “Both.”
I laughed at his honesty and clapped him on the shoulder.
“You going soft in this heat? Has the Australian been whipped out of you with all of the air con you’re used to, mate?” I ribbed.
Ryan quirked his brow, sending me the stink eye, and I was so glad we’d done this. Messing around at the theme park effectively cut through all the tension. It made it easier to file away the conversation we needed to have for another day.
“Minnesota is as cold as a polar bear’s asshole in winter. I may have acclimatized a little.”
“It’s a good job that when we get home, it’s the end of autumn at least. A nice twenty-seven degrees Celsius should sort you out.”
“Fuck, that’s what, almost ninety degrees Fahrenheit or something?”
I laughed at how shocked he looked.
“Laugh now. When I left Minnesota a few days back, it was just about sixty degrees Fahrenheit.”
My smile slipped. “At night?”
The bastard laughed. “Those are the highs.” I did the maths in my head, figuring out that was about seventeen degrees Celsius or something. “Shit, I didn’t bring a coat. Why didn’t you tell me how cold it still was?”
His laughter continued to ring out. “Nate, that is so not cold.”
“Yeah, it bloody well is for my Queenslander blood.”
“I’ll hook you up with warm clothes. We won’t be there long anyway before we head to Australia.”
I quirked my brow at him. “Do you have team jackets, like they have in the movies?” Seriously, the idea of wearing his sports jacket sounded fun and dreamy and seriously hot to me. Dangerously so.
I was playing with fire, but fuck if I hadn’t been ruined by years’ worth of watching teen and college romances. I was a sucker for teen drama, one of my few guilty pleasures. And the bastard grinning widely at me knew that too.
“You want to wear my sports jacket with my name and number on it, Nate?” The teasing in his voice was overshadowed by the intensity in his eyes.
Warning bells went off loud and clear. The thought of wearing anything of his was the subject of too many of my fantasies.
I cleared my throat. Today was about getting back to where we used to be. “So, you in or what?” For several beats his gaze roamed mine. I worked hard at offering nothing but a friendly, teasing smile. Anything more would mean I was a glutton for punishment.
“I’ve got your back, Nate.”
Unable to resist, I shouted, “No take backs,” and legged it to the VIP queue, which I was so on board with, knowing Ryan would be on my tail.