12. Milo #2
We needed a subject change.
“But yeah, that’s been my bye week. Tell me about your trip.”
That did it. Liam’s eyes lit up, and he started talking about the island paradise where he and Jonesy had spent bye week.
The food arrived as they told me all about the food they’d eaten, the beaches, the villa they stayed in, and everything they’d done.
It sounded like the best bye week ever, and I was happy for them.
Happy and jealous.
When we returned to practice the next day, it was like nothing had changed.
Rowan and I didn’t exchange any secret smiles or stolen touches at practice.
We didn’t ride to and from practice together anymore either, not now that he had a car.
If it weren’t for the fact that we still spent time together in our condos, I might have thought I’d imagined the entire bye week happening.
Even as it was, we were both too tired after practices and preparing for the upcoming Louisville Lions game to do more than exchange the occasional lazy blowjob before we retreated to our own apartments.
We hadn’t shared a bed since bye week ended, and I missed him.
I knew I’d miss him more when we were in Louisville.
We weren’t Liam and Jonesy, and people might give us funny looks if we were caught going into one another’s hotel room the night before the game.
Besides, I knew that Rowan had his pregame rituals, and they were sacred to him.
I didn’t want to be the person to throw him off his game.
So, of course, the universe decided to be extra cruel.
There was an adjoining door in my room, and Rowan was on the other side.
It took every ounce of my limited self-control not to knock on that door after I ordered room service for dinner.
It took every ounce of willpower I possessed not to text him and invite him over when I saw that one of the movies available on the television was a movie he’d mentioned loving when he was a child.
I didn’t break until I saw how big the hotel room showers were. The normal hotels we stayed in had fairly standard showers, but this hotel? The showers were glass monstrosities with double waterfall heads. I snapped a picture of the shower and sent it to Rowan in a text.
Milo: Is your shower this big?
I didn’t expect to get an answer, but one came minutes later. It was a picture of a normal hotel shower.
Rowan: No.
Rowan: That’s not really your shower.
Milo: Yeah it is.
Rowan: Prove it.
Rowan: Take a picture in the shower.
I thought about it. It would be easy to take a picture of me in the shower. I could send him something teasing and sexy. Or I could do one better.
Screw superstition.
Milo: Come see for yourself. I’ll let you in.
Less than a minute later, Rowan knocked on the adjoining door.
I opened it and led him to the bathroom where I proved that not only was my shower that big, but the water pressure was great.
We jacked each other off under the spray of the water, and I felt a strange sense of pride when he left my room an hour later smelling of my apple body wash.
“Stay.” My voice still sounded wrecked from the way Rowan had me crying out in pleasure fifteen minutes before. We’d gone straight back to my condo after we got back to Tucson.
We’d won our game against Louisville, but we’d had to delay any private celebrations we might have wanted to have in our hotel room.
Liam and Jonesy dragged me to some restaurant downtown, and by the time I got back to the hotel, I was too tired to do anything other than collapse into my bed alone.
We hadn’t sat together on the plane back to Arizona.
He’d chosen to sit with some other defensive players, and I bounced around between groups like I always did, always finding my way back to Liam and Jonesy.
Just like with practice the week before, nothing had changed since we started to hook up.
Except for the way he lingered at my door instead of walking on to his.
Except for the way I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him in for a kiss.
Except for the way he pushed me the rest of the way into my apartment and pinned me to a wall.
Except for the way we spent hours taking each other apart and recovering in one another’s arms just to do it all over again.
Except for the way that I didn’t want him to leave now, even though I knew I had nothing left in me.
I wasn’t ready to say good night.
“Stay,” I repeated when he didn’t answer right away.
I looked up at him, studying the way the lamp on my bedside table cast shadows on his face.
His eyes moved up my body to my face and a small smile formed on his lips.
He collapsed down onto the bed next to me and laid flat on his back, his hands folded behind his head.
I turned off the lamp and settled beside him.
It didn’t take long before he pulled me closer to his body.
My head settled onto his chest, and we made small talk until his words slowly died off and his breathing grew deep and steady. He’d fallen asleep.
I tried to fall asleep, but without Rowan’s low voice, my thoughts started to get loud.
Why had I asked him to stay? Why had I gotten jealous watching Liam and Jonesy together? It hadn’t just been when I’d gone to see them after bye week. Every time I saw them together lately, my vision tinted green with jealousy. I wanted what they had.
I wanted what they had with Rowan.
The realization hit me like a defensive lineman, and just like when I got hit by one of them, it knocked the breath out of me.
I didn’t just enjoy the physical thing I had with Rowan Rangecroft.
He hadn’t just caught my eye like Aunt Ethel had said.
If that were the case, then I wouldn’t have asked him to stay the night.
I wouldn’t have felt jealous seeing the love Liam and Jonesy had for one another.
I would have been content with getting off and him going home.
It was more than that.
It was the conversations. It was the meals he cooked. It was the way he made me laugh. It was the gentle way he cupped my face when we kissed, like I was something precious to him.
The more I thought about it, the faster my thoughts went.
I couldn’t lay in bed anymore.
I carefully lifted the heavy arm he had draped over me and rolled away from him. Once I extricated myself from the bed, I pulled on the underwear I’d worn on the plane and crept out of my bedroom.
I needed to think, and for some reason, I thought better when I had a project.
My pantry could use a good organizing. It had been too long.
Every time I put away groceries, I just piled everything into empty spots on the shelves.
I never knew what I had. Not that it mattered, because I didn’t really cook much.
Rowan’s pantry was so organized. Aunt Ethel’s was, too.
I started to pull everything off the shelves and placed them on the counter.
I had a lot of food for someone who didn’t cook.
I didn’t even remember buying all of it.
Why did I have three unopened boxes of instant rice?
Why did I have so many packages of instant mashed potatoes?
I didn’t even like creamed corn, but I somehow had six cans of it.
Oh wait, that one I remembered. I’d been ordering food for Easter dinner at Aunt Ethel’s and I’d clicked the wrong corn. I hadn’t wanted her to know, so I hid it in the back of my pantry where I’d forgotten about it.
Maybe I should make a pile of food to donate.
Did I really need three boxes of instant rice and that many mashed potatoes?
I started moving food that I didn’t want any more to the end of the counter.
I’d find some place to donate it another time.
It shouldn’t be too hard. I was pretty sure the Scorpions had contacts at local food banks, and our social media director would know who I needed to reach out to.
Thank goodness I had a good relationship with her.
My brain started to quiet down as I sorted food into types: packets, boxes, cans.
I started focusing so hard I didn’t hear the bedroom door or Rowan’s footsteps.
I didn’t notice him leaning against the kitchen wall until he cleared his throat, causing me to drop a pack of muffin mix Ray had bought for me after a failed attempt at homemade muffins.
I’d forgotten about that pack of muffin mix, too.
“Is everything okay?” Rowan asked as I bent down to pick up the muffin mix.
I sighed and put the packet with the others. “Couldn’t sleep.”
Rowan raised an eyebrow and took a step closer to me. He looked at the food spread around the counter. “Do you—uh—do you regularly organize your pantry when you can’t sleep?”
“No,” I answered honestly. I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment, but I didn’t want to start being dishonest with him now. “I clean when my head’s getting too loud.”
Rowan took another step forward. He cocked his head to the side. “And your head was too loud tonight?”
“Yeah.” I nodded and picked up a box of macaroni and cheese. I put it with the other boxes. “So, I decided to clean out my pantry. I didn’t know I had this much food.”
“Since you don’t cook?”
“Since I don’t cook.”
Rowan plucked the can of peas I’d just picked up out of my hands and put it with the other cans. “Do you want to talk about it?”
No.
“Probably.”
Rowan looked over at the couch and then back at me. “Couch?”