Chapter 20 Maverick
maverick
“Blink twice if you’ve eaten anything other than stress.”
Chloe looks up from where her head was buried in her textbook, and a flicker of surprise passes her green eyes when they find me.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers, looking around the library.
“I can’t let my girl go hungry.” I lift my arms, one hand holding a take-out box, the other holding a crispy Diet Coke, as she calls it. “I brought you some slices from Enzo’s.”
Her confusion melts into a smile, and I take that as my cue to pull out the chair beside her and sit.
“How was your game tonight?” she asks as she sets her glasses on the table and rubs her eyes.
“How long have you been here?” I blurt out, taking in the stacks of books she built around her like a mini fort.
“I had a tutoring session from three to four.” Her gaze lifts toward the ceiling as she tries to recall the last few hours. “Then I forgot I had an online quiz due tonight, so I did that. I had another session from five to six, and I’ve just been studying since then.”
I look down at my watch, adjusting it on my wrist, in case I’m reading it wrong. “You’ve been here for seven hours?” I shout.
Chloe's eyes widen as she shushes me. She looks around the room, but the only people looking at us are the girls at the end of the twelve foot table, and they don’t count because they’ve been watching me since I walked in.
“I’ve gotten a little behind lately, and now I need to make up time. It’s no big deal.” She pulls the sleeves of her navy blue sweater over her palms and runs her hands over the wisps of hair escaping the messy bun on top of her head.
As someone who is banking on my hockey career, I understand putting all of yourself into something, and riding that thing till the wheels fall off, but Chloe is putting herself in fifteen different cars and they're all taking off in different directions. I’d be surprised if she even knew what it was she wanted anymore.
I’ve spent every day since I was fourteen with the goal of going pro.
I can’t imagine what it’s like running yourself into the ground and to not even be sure of why.
“So, how was the game?” She shuts her laptop, reaching for the bag I brought and she might as well be holding a neon sign that says, ‘I’m done talking about it. Move on.’
“We won.” I pull the lid off, taking a sip from the drink I brought her and her eyes track my movements before she blinks, quickly looking away.
“When do you play Hartland?” she asks.
I lean forward, resting my forearms on the table, my hand close enough to touch hers, but not yet touching. “I think the next time we see them is at an away game.”
Chloe nods her head and brings the drink to her lips, turning it just enough that her lips cover the same spot mine did.
“What’s your interest in Hartland?”
“That’s Leo’s team.”
I sit back, eyes knitting in confusion. “Who?”
“Leo Alvarez. The number one draft pick last year. Your coach’s son. Your best friend's future brother-in-law. Any of these ring any bells?”
There’s a vague memory of some of the guys trying to figure out if he was the coach’s kid last year, but I was more concerned with who the coach’s daughter was hooking up with.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know who he is. I just didn’t know you were that interested in him.”
She tilts her head, a mock-pity pout tugs on her lips, and she drops her hand to my thigh. “Aww. Don’t be jealous, Hall.”
The second she labels it, the foreign grip in my chest finally starts to make sense.
I can’t remember ever feeling like this before I met Chloe, and now it’s one that plagues me often.
Usually when she’s talking about or around Nathan.
I’ve chalked it up to annoyance, but the thought of her having any sort of interest in Leo Alvarez creates the same feeling.
Chloe pacifyingly pats my thigh, before bringing her hand to her neck, and letting her head drop to the side.
“Here.” Instinct I didn’t know I had takes over, and my hand is reaching for the spot she’s currently rubbing.
She doesn’t tense up, but rather, melts into my touch, and I let my thumbs press gently into the tight line along her upper back.
Her muscles ease beneath the pressure of my thumbs, and she lets out a barely there moan that shouldn’t affect me the way that it does.
I slide to the end of my chair, close enough that I can work both of her shoulders. She always smells like lavender, but this close to her, I’m able to make out the faint traces of something sweet like honey coming from her hair.
She leans into each press of my fingers, while her calming scent pulls me closer, and I let my eyelids fall. Before I know what I’m doing, I feel my forehead dropping to her shoulder.
“I think you lied,” she whispers.
I quickly lift my head but leave my fingers resting at her back. She turns toward me, her heart shaped face is soft in the warm lighting, and her full lips are parted just enough to distract me. “I think you’d do alright as a boyfriend.”
This close to her, with our noses nearly touching, the memory of kissing her overwhelms me. I have to remind myself that when we’re alone, and with no one else around, I don’t have any excuse for wanting to kiss her. Except for the fact that I’ve never wanted to kiss someone as badly as I do now.
“You should take a break.” I clear my throat, letting my hands fall from her shoulders. “We should go for a walk or something."
Her eyes dip down to my mouth, watching—waiting.
The suggestion was meant to be casual, but the way she’s looking at me now, all I can think about is her, and how impossible it feels to just sit still beside her.
She blinks once, followed by a quiet single nod.
I stand from the chair, and my instincts are begging me to take her hand, but I don’t want to freak her out. It doesn’t stop me from resting my hand on her lower back, though.
The Emillian Library is known for its combined total of thirty-two miles of bookshelves, and it would be my luck that the floor we’re on now is practically a corn maze of shelves. Perfect for taking a little stroll. It’s not often that I’m in here, but I’m still surprised by how empty the place is.
Chloe walks beside me, never pulling away or second guessing the space between us.
She’s so soft and pure—the complete opposite of me.
There’s no one around to question what the hell she’s thinking by being with a guy like me, but there’s also no one around to make her feel like she needs to be doing this for show.
“It’s so loud for being completely silent in here.”
Chloe stops walking beside me and I turn to face her. “What?”
“Nothing, that was just so…I don’t know. Poetic?”
“Nah.” I smile leaning against the next shelf. “It’s probably just not expected from someone like me.”
I know what my reputation is in every aspect of my life. I know people think I’m just a hothead on the ice, or that I run through women. I know vastly intellectual isn’t the first term to come to people's minds when—if—they bother to think of my academics.
Chloe leans on the shelf opposite me as her exhaustion sets in. She closes her eyes, drops her head to the side, pulls the thick blue scrunchie from her hair, and sends her tousled waves around her shoulders.
I step forward on instinct. My fingers close gently around her wrist, stopping her hand midair. She stills, eyes flicking up to mine, and there's a soft hitch in her breath like she's trying to decide whether to pull away or let me keep her here.
When she doesn’t say anything, I slide the scrunchie from her grip, stretching it once, before looping it around my own wrist and letting it snap softly into place.
I don’t pull away. I slide my fingers through her hair, slow and deliberate, working along her scalp until her breath catches.
Even if the room weren’t silent, I’d still notice the way her breathing shifts.
My gaze drifts to her throat, to the small swallow she doesn’t hide.
She’s wearing her usual chain of necklaces: a gold one with her name written in script, another gold one with some kind of deep red stone—if I had to guess, I would put money on it being her birthstone—and then there's the black one. The thin black band hugs her neck so tight that it lifts a little when her throat bobs. Without thought, I reach for her neck, my fingers splay all the way around to the back of her head, while my thumb runs along the velvet material of the necklace that’s choking her.
Her gaze moves from my left eye, to the right, then down to my mouth, and I follow it without thinking.
Her lips part on an inhale, but she quickly covers it by pulling her bottom lip between her row of perfect white teeth.
All I can think about is the way those lips felt on mine.
The last time I kissed her might have been because Nathan was watching.
But the second my mouth met hers, everything disappeared, and all I could think about was when I’d get to do it again.
There’s a pull between us, and even with my arm braced above her head, I feel myself leaning in anyway.
We’re close enough that every breath feels heavy, close enough that all I can focus on is her mouth. My eyes fall shut, muscle memory taking over, ready to close the last inch of space between us.
“It’s late,” she breathes.
The words land like a hand to my chest. Not pushing me, away but just reminding me of who we are—or rather what we’re not. “Yeah.” I pull back, dropping my arm, pasting on a smile I don’t feel. “And we’re leaving early tomorrow.”
She nods her head a few too many times, like she’s trying to settle herself back into place.
Chloe’s made herself very clear since day one. This was never going to be anything. The only reason we’re standing here at all is because of a situation I dragged us into.
And I would be better off remembering that.