Chapter 26
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
WREN
Thankfully, the team didn’t have anywhere to be until noon the next day. If they’d been required to leave their room before ten, there would have been a really good chance that they wouldn’t have made it. Any alarm that went off between their phones had been immediately silenced.
They hadn’t even fallen asleep until after the sun started to filter in through their curtains. It wasn’t until Wren’s stomach grumbled against the side of Rebecca’s face, that either of them finally stirred.
“Food,” Rebecca mumbled, as if Wren’s stomach had somehow signaled her own.
Wren let out a pitiful little harrumph sound. She didn’t want to move. Her whole body was a puddle—a very happy puddle—with Rebecca comfortably cuddled on top of her. “What time is it?”
“It’s eleven-thirty-five,” Rebecca mumbled. She snuggled back in, this time a little more directly on top of Wren.
“No,” Wren grumbled, wrapping her arms even tighter around Rebecca. Wren absolutely did not want any of this to end. She didn’t want to have to deal with the real world or other people. She wanted their perfect night to go on forever.
“Come on, Wrently,” Rebecca said, gently kissing up Wren’s neck. “We need to get up and get dressed so we can make the team lunch. We’re going to be cutting it close as it is.”
Wren nodded, her green eyes fluttering open slowly. “Good morning,” she said, a small smile pulling up at the corners of her lips.
“Good morning,” Rebecca whispered in return. She leaned forward and kissed Wren for real.
Wren’s heart stopped, panic rolling in like heat on a summer morning. What if Rebecca ghosted her again? After the night they had just shared together, what if that’s all it would ever be?
“Your hair looks really sexy right now.” Rebecca reached up and combed her fingers through Wren’s hair. “And by that I mean, you might have to re-shower.” She let out a soft laugh.
But Wren couldn’t seem to get enough air. The fear of Rebecca even remotely disappearing on her cut through her like a serrated knife.
“Hey, I’m just teasing,” Rebecca said, her face suddenly concerned. “You really do look sexy. It’s just not how it normally looks.”
Wren shook her head. “No, it’s fine. I don’t give a shit about my hair.” It came out sharper than she intended it to.
“Wait, Wren?” Rebecca asked, sitting up. The blankets pooled around her waist. “What just happened?”
“I don’t think I can take you shutting me out after last night,” she whispered. “I probably should have thought about that before, but I”—her voice cracked. She shook her head. She was not going to cry right now. Not after the best night of her life.
“I won’t,” Rebecca whispered, cutting her off. She ducked into Wren’s line of sight. She shook her head. “I won’t, Wren.”
Wren frowned. “Really?” She couldn’t help the way disbelief coated her question.
“I don’t think I could take it either,” Rebecca said with a small shrug. “I don’t know what this is or how to do this. I know the contracts complicate everything tenfold, but I want to explore it.” She shrugged. “Whatever that means, or whatever you feel comfortable with. I want to try.”
“I want to, too,” Wren said, undeniably hopeful.
Rebecca’s concerned face melted into a smile. “Okay. So, how do we feel about exclusively trying to figure this out?”
“I like the exclusive bit,” Wren said, a small smile spreading across her lips. “And I really like the figuring this out bit.”
Rebecca leaned forward and kissed Wren’s cheek. “Me, too,” she whispered. “And the contract?”
“We just try to keep to ourselves?” Wren said, though it sounded much more like a question. She’d never wanted the spotlight on her romantic pursuits. She had no issue keeping her love life to herself.
“Can I tell Katie?” Rebecca asked. “If the answer is no, the answer is no.” She blushed, adding, “but I really should warn you that she’s probably going to guess.”
Wren thought about it for a second, if Katie was already going to guess, there was no point in denying Rebecca the joy in sharing. “Yeah, I think that’s okay. Can I tell Molly?”
Rebecca let out a small, amazed laugh. “Of course you can tell Molly.” She scrunched up her face as another realization settled in. “Is your best friend going to hate me?”
Wren moved her hands up and down like she was weighing something on a scale. “I’m not sure Katie is exactly going to love me given our one interaction was me bolting from your apartment after destroying your hallway.”
“Yeah, but I’ve already told her to be nice,” Rebecca teased.
“If it makes you feel any better, Molly is the one who called me out for still having feelings for you.” Wren grinned, thinking about it. “I think as long as we keep it to just our best friends, it's all going to be just fine. In the meantime, you and I can work on figuring this out together.”
Rebecca broke into the most beautiful smile Wren had ever seen. “I like the sound of that.”
Being in an undefined, yet exclusive—and horribly forbidden—situationship with her teammate, travel buddy, first love, and college rival was certainly a choice, but Wren had tried the alternative and it had sucked.
For a whole week she had regretted how she had left things between her and Rebecca and really, when it came down to it, Wren thought it would be asinine to deny their chemistry.
They were a good fit. The timing was unfortunate. Their coaches might genuinely kick one or both of them off the team. But, for the first time, everything about this morning felt like Wren was doing exactly what she was supposed to be doing.
Distracting Rebecca with kisses while they were supposed to be getting ready for a team lunch, to the point that Rebecca had to lock her out of the bathroom, made Wren’s heart pound in her chest in a way it hadn’t since she’d been sixteen.
Thankfully, their travel buddy status would allow for them to have some degree of inseparability this morning.
Wren sat on the edge of the bed they’d shared for the whole trip and played on her phone, waiting for Rebecca to emerge so they could go down to the team bus together.
She rolled her eyes when she saw a clip of Rebecca’s response to that asshat of a reporter from their pre-game press conference.
Masochistically, she clicked on the clip and scrolled to see what the masses were saying about them now.
Wow. That was a surprisingly solid response from Rothschild, one person commented.
Wren had to resist the urge to like it. One day, she’d probably break down and create a burner account, but today wasn’t going to be the day.
Good on Becky for saying something. That reporter was a dick. Wren pumped her fist in the air.
“Agreed,” she muttered.
Soooooo… is no one else going to mention that neither of them denied the dating allegations???
“Ooff,” Wren whispered. “I was hoping that nobody noticed that.”
Wrecky forever. Wren huffed out a laugh at that one. At least they had an apt “ship-name.”
Rebecca stepped out of the bathroom looking radiant. She had an actual glow about her and Wren couldn’t help but smile up at her mischievously.
“What?” Rebecca asked, narrowing her eyes at Wren. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because,” Wren said, her smile widening. “You look fully blissed out. Kind of like you orgasmed five times last night or something.”
Rebecca snorted out a laugh. “Well, then I’ve done a great job concealing something because I orgasmed six times last night.” She nodded towards the door. “Come on. We’re supposed to be down to the bus in four minutes and neither of us like to be late.”
Wren was too busy counting on her fingers to move. “Wait. When was the sixth time?”
The blush that crept up Rebecca’s neck made Wren hop off the bed and catch her wrist before she could open the door.
“Hey, wait. Don’t push us into public on that note. You don’t have to tell me. I just can only remember five and I want to remember every second of last night,” Wren said softly. She traced a circle with her thumb on the inside of Rebecca’s wrist.
“I happened to come with you on that fourth round.” Rebecca looked a little bit embarrassed about that fact.
Wren lifted an eyebrow, thinking of the moment.
The only reason Rebecca could be embarrassed about that is because that meant she had come just from fucking Wren.
She’d gotten off with no stimulation other than watching Wren fall apart around her fingers.
“Well, damn. Six it was.” Wren kissed Becky’s cheek.
“Thanks for telling me. Team lunch time?”
Rebecca nodded, but before Wren could open the door, she was pulled into a quick real kiss. “Yeah. Team lunch time,” Rebecca murmured after they broke apart.
Wren had to actively remind herself to not reach for Rebecca’s hand everywhere they went.
She couldn’t grab her hand as they walked down the hall.
Or once they got in the elevator. Definitely not when they got on the bus.
Not even under the table at the club house where they were eating.
She had to think about how she looked at her, even.
They had to appear normal. Like they hadn’t just spent the entire night inside each other.
She chugged her glass of water at the thought.
Rebecca frowned, giving her the smallest “You good?” look that Wren had ever seen.
Wren smiled awkwardly in return, not wanting to say something like “Yeah, just thought about how good you look around three of my fingers.” Instead, she said, “I just realized I feel kind of dehydrated.”
“Oh. Here,” Rebecca said, passing her a pitcher of water that was on her end of the table.
“Thanks,” Wren said, doing her best to move her thoughts to literally anything that didn’t contain flashes of images from the night before. She tried to catch up on whatever discussion was happening at the table to her right.
Courtney and Danielle were deep in a conversation about their upcoming club match up. Danielle played for the San Diego Sirens—the team that Riptide was playing next week.
“Hey, don’t give her any insider info,” Wren said, nudging Courtney with her shoulder.
Courtney laughed at Wren’s comment. “Do you think I would give the captain of our rivals information about us?”
Danielle winked at Courtney, but turned her gaze to Wren. “Don’t worry, Wren. We’ve got y’all locked in.” She flipped her hair over her shoulder.
“Oh,” Wren said, nodding really slowly for dramatic effect. “I see. Is that so?”
“That’s so,” Danielle repeated.
“Hey, I love a good rivalry.” Wren bit back a laugh as she checked to see if Rebecca was listening. Rebecca absolutely was listening and watching Wren with a “please, do go on” face. Wren cleared her throat. “Historically speaking, I have a good track record with them.”
For half a second it looked like Rebecca was contemplating pushing Wren out of her chair, but thankfully she thought better of it—probably because the coaches were in the room.
And—maybe—because they were officially an undefined exclusive thing and pushing each other out of chairs was likely frowned upon in arrangements such as those.
“You’re brave, Eames. Did you not witness Becky truck that Swedish chick last night?” Courtney said with a laugh. Courtney leaned around Wren to high-five Becky again. “Seriously, you made my year with that. Have you seen it as a highlight reel yet?”
Becky laughed. “No, I haven’t watched the highlights from last night yet.”
We were too busy making a much more exciting highlight reel, Wren thought.
“You should,” Courtney said.
“No, seriously,” Danielle added. “I saved it to my phone for when I’m sad.”
“I’m just honored that you would truck someone for me,” Wren said, grinning.
Rebecca narrowed her eyes at Wren. “When do I play against you again?”
“In three weeks,” Courtney said. “But for real, don’t hurt Wren. I didn’t like wanting to fight you. You might actually win that.”
“Please don’t flatten me again.” Wren dared a glance at the coaches. “I don’t know if my body can take another conditioning practice like that.”
“Jesus,” Rebecca said, shuddering. “Deal. That sucked more than I will ever want to run you over again.”
“Aw,” Courtney said. “You two have come so far.”
“I know. I’m so proud of them,” Danielle teased. “Real talk though, Wren. How’s your ankle after yesterday’s game?”
Wren shrugged. “I’m glad it's a cooldown practice today, but it’s fine. Nothing a little R.I.C.E. can’t fix.”
Courtney nodded. “Good. I’m glad we’ve got today before we all get stuffed back onto a plane. I can talk to the coaches and see if you can get you your own row. You know, so it can be elevated more comfortably on the way back if you want?”
That thought made Wren want to scream. She was already going to have to go three weeks without seeing Rebecca.
The last thing she wanted was to not get to sit next to her on their plane ride back to the states.
She shook her head as casually as she could make it seem.
“Nah, it’s not that bad. I don’t want them to think it’s worse than it is—or that I’m asking for special treatment.
That’s the last thing I need. And I don’t want them talking to Coach Kim and it cause me to have to sit out a club match. Not for this.”
“You sure?” Courtney asked again.
“Yeah, I’m sure. It’s really not that bad. Just a little tweak,” Wren assured her. Wren could feel Rebecca’s eyes on her, but she didn’t turn to catch her gaze. If she did, she’d blush. Pretending to be oblivious was better than blushing furiously in front of all their teammates.