Chapter 10
Rhys
Team dinner should not feel like a chore.
It’s supposed to be fun. Mandatory, technically, because Coach Fitch has decided the solution to our losing streak is burgers, fries, and forcing twenty guys who already smell each other’s sweat for hours a day to make eye contact over shared appetizers. Team bonding. Very inspired.
But honestly, he’s probably not wrong. We need this. We’ve been eating massive shit lately and need some nice bonding off the ice.
The restaurant is loud and packed in the way college places always are on a Thursday night, every table crowded, every conversation competing with music that’s a little too loud to comfortably talk over, so we have to lean in just to hear the person next to us.
We’re shoved into the back section under a line of dim yellow lights, two long tables pushed together, sticks nowhere in sight but hockey still all over us anyway.
Guys are wearing team hoodies, backward hats, slides, that very specific exhausted-athlete look that says we all showered but barely.
I'm wedged between Bennett and Cooper, which is already a punishment I've done nothing to deserve.
Cooper has been telling the same story for ten minutes and somehow making it worse with every sentence.
The details keep changing. The timeline makes no sense.
There's now apparently a second girl involved who wasn't there five minutes ago.
"Wait," I say. "Where did she come from?"
"She was always there."
"You didn't mention her before."
"She's not important to the main story."
"Then why did you just spend two minutes describing her?"
"For context."
"That's not what context means, Coop."
Bennett loses it. Head back, wheezing, practically choking with how hard he’s laughing. Which only encourages Cooper, who straightens up like he's been given a standing ovation.
"Thank you," Cooper says to Bennett, who is still unable to breathe. "At least someone appreciates good storytelling."
"He's laughing at you," I say.
"He's laughing with me," Cooper says with a pout.
"He doesn't even know what's happening."
"I know exactly what's happening," Bennett manages, still panting. "I just don't understand any of it."
Across and a little down the table Kowalski sits with his arms folded, posture stiff.
He hasn't laughed once and he won’t. Kowalski doesn't laugh at things that don't deserve it and Cooper's stories definitely do not deserve it.
Which is probably why Jamie likes him so much.
Same terrifying commitment to never having fun.
Sick fucks, the both of them.
And then there’s Jamie Nash.
Captain America himself is sitting directly across, clean white shirt, hair still damp at the ends like he showered right before coming here.
But not like the others on the team. He looks as if he smells nice and clean, always.
He looks unfairly put together for a person who spent another morning telling me my wrist shot was too aggressive.
Which, rude.
I shouldn’t still be thinking about this morning. I should be thinking about literally anything else. This dinner. School. The fact that my chem lab report is due tomorrow and I am dangerously close to submitting something written entirely by caffeine and maybe Blake if he loves me enough today.
Instead I keep thinking about him on the ice.
Not yelling. Not looking at me like he wanted to skin me alive and use my bones as practice cones. Just watching me with that terrifying level of concentration he has, like once he decides to see something, there’s nowhere for it to hide.
Nowhere for me to hide.
And worse, he was good. Not good at hockey. Obviously he’s good at hockey. That’s old news and everyone knows it. He was good with me. We actually got along and I broke off a tiny piece of his hard shell.
I hate that I liked it.
I hate even more that I’ve caught him looking at me three times since we sat down.
Not glaring.
Looking.
Different thing.
Very, very different thing.
I pick up a fry and drag it through the ketchup slowly, more focused on the feeling of Jamie watching across from me than whatever bullshit Cooper’s talking about now. I bring it to my mouth and swipe my tongue along the end first, catching the extra ketchup before taking a bite.
When I look up, Jamie’s still staring, catching my every move.
“So then she says, ‘I don’t date hockey players,’” Cooper says, leaning forward like this is about to be profound. “And I’m like, okay, fair. But what about defensemen?”
Bennett loses it.
I stare at him in disbelief. “That was the line?” I ask.
Cooper points at me. “It worked.”
“It absolutely did not. That makes zero sense.”
“She gave me her number, man.”
“That’s called pity, Cooper. Learn the difference.”
Bennett wheezes harder, nearly choking on his drink, and Kowalski reaches over without looking, and slides a glass of water toward him, like it’s pure muscle memory. Like we all watch over Bennett because he has no survival instincts.
He probably should have someone hold his hand crossing the street.
Across the table, Jamie’s mouth twitches. The smallest fraction of a smile. Barely. So fast I almost miss it. But I don’t. Because apparently I’m watching his mouth and counting the fact I’m up to three smiles now.
His eyes flick to mine.
I raise my brows like, what?
He looks away first, reaching for his water, but there’s color creeping up the side of his neck.
Oh.
Interesting.
It probably means nothing.
Jamie Nash seems like the kind of guy whose body reacts to any human emotion by overheating. Anger, embarrassment, mild inconvenience. Maybe laughter if he ever allows himself to experience joy.
Still.
I keep watching.
Not obviously.
Jamie says something low to Kowalski, who nods, serious as always.
Then Jamie looks down the table toward Bennett, focused on whatever random girl Cooper is talking about now.
He’s doing the captain thing without making it look like the captain thing.
Keeping track. Noticing who’s quiet, who’s too loud, who’s halfway into their second beer when Coach definitely said one.
Like part of his brain is always monitoring the room whether he wants it to or not.
Jamie catches Cooper's hand halfway up flagging the waitress. Like he’s psychic, he pulls Cooper’s hand down before he even has a chance to say anything.
"No," he says.
“Come on, Captain. Shots are a part of team bonding.”
“No,” he repeats.
“For the team? For me?”
“It’s just an excuse for you to take your shirt off later and no one wants to see that shit.”
I snort before I can stop myself.
Jamie looks at me immediately.
There it is again. That charged little pause where everything around us keeps moving but something between us just stops.
His expression doesn’t change much. It never does.
But his eyes do. They settle on me, green and steady, and for a second I get the strangest feeling he’s not irritated that I laughed.
If anything, he looks almost pleased that he made me laugh.
Or I’m delusional.
Could be both. There’s no way Jamie is even remotely interested in me. Let alone any guy. I’m just starved for attention and desperate to make him smile again. New hobby of mine, I guess. Since I’m not spending all my energy pissing him off anymore.
The waitress comes by with another round of waters and more fries, and the table breaks into movement.
Plates shift. Elbows bump. Cooper nearly knocks over the ketchup and Bennett saves it with a dramatic dive that earns him exactly zero applause because he caused the problem by bumping into him in the first place.
I reach for the basket at the same time Jamie does.
Our fingers brush.
Barely.
It’s nothing. A half-second of skin against skin. Casual. Accidental. The kind of thing that happens constantly when too many giant hockey players are crammed around one table.
Except Jamie freezes and so do I.
He doesn’t pull away immediately.
It’s not long. Not enough for anyone else to see.
Not enough to mean anything if anyone else even noticed.
But it’s enough that I know.
Enough that my stomach tightens.
Enough that his eyes lift to mine.
Enough that the noise around us blurs for one stupid second.
Then Bennett reaches between us and grabs half the basket. “Thank you,” he says cheerfully, unaware he may have just saved both of us from spontaneous combustion.
Jamie drops his hand and I sit back.
Fine.
Okay.
Normal dinner. Normal team dinner where my captain’s fingers just touched mine and I’m now thinking about what his hand would feel like somewhere else. I take a long drink of water and force myself to look away from Jamie.
But I go back to watching. There's something about Jamie that keeps pulling my attention back to him, no matter how many times I tell myself to stop.
For the next twenty minutes, Jamie is civil.
That’s the weirdest part. Not nice, exactly.
Nash doesn’t do nice. Nice would probably make him break out in hives.
But he’s civil. He asks Kowalski about his shot adjustment from practice.
He tells Cooper his defensive reads were better yesterday.
He even looks at me once and says, “Your follow-through was cleaner this morning.”
I blink at him. The whole table keeps talking like he didn’t just say something insane. “Was that a compliment?”
He immediately looks irritated with himself for even saying anything to me. “It was an observation.”
“That is the closest thing to praise you’ve ever given me.”
“It wasn’t praise, not even close, just a fact.”
“Oh my god.” I put a hand over my chest. “I’m going to remember this for the rest of my life.”
“You need significantly bigger life events.”
“I disagree. This feels huge for us, Captain.”
Cooper laughs. Bennett laughs. Even Kowalski’s mouth twitches. Jamie doesn’t laugh, but his eyes stay on me. And there’s that color again. That faint, betraying flush that starts at his collar and creeps up slowly, like his body knows what his face refuses to admit.
I should leave it alone.
I don’t. Obviously.
Because I like seeing this side of Jamie. I like to push him past the point where he usually sits comfortably. He acts like he hates me, but he watches me too closely for that to be true.
“Careful, Captain,” I say, leaning back in my chair. “Keep being nice to me and people might talk.” The table noise dips around us, not fully, but enough. A couple guys hear it. Cooper definitely hears it because Cooper is nosy and has the subtlety of a car alarm.
Jamie’s face goes blank and for half a second, I think I pushed too far. Then his foot knocks into mine under the table.
Not hard.
Not accidental either.
Not like he hated it.
My entire body goes still.
Jamie looks away, calm as always, and reaches for his water.
I gape at him.
What the fuck.
No, seriously. What the fuck.
I wait for him to look back. He doesn’t. He starts talking to Kowalski again like he didn’t just kick me under the table like we’re in middle school or flirting or whatever the hell this is supposed to be.
Maybe it was an accident.
No.
No, absolutely not.
Jamie Nash is too controlled for accidental contact. The man knows exactly where his feet are at all times.
I look down at my plate, fighting a smile.
This is stupid.
Dangerous.
Insane.
I can’t do to this to myself again. Seriously, what is wrong with me? Am I only attracted to emotionally unavailable straight men? Is that the thing? Is that really my type now? I might as well just kick myself off this team or transfer. Again.
But I’m also not known for making smart decisions or learning from my mistakes.
By the end of dinner, I’m exhausted in a new way. Not physically. Not even mentally. It’s lower than that. Deeper. Like my body has spent two hours waiting for something to happen and is furious that nothing did after I spent so much time talking myself into it.
We all spill out into the parking lot in loose groups, the cool air hitting hard after the humidity of the restaurant.
Guys are laughing, shoving each other, making plans I’m only half listening to.
Cooper is trying to convince everyone to come back to his place, because apparently one party every weekend isn’t enough for him.
Jamie stands near the curb, hands in his jacket pocket, listening to Fitch give some final instruction about tomorrow’s workout.
Captain again.
Composed again.
Untouchable again.
Except when Fitch walks away, Jamie looks at me.
Just me.
Across ten feet of pavement and noise and through people moving between us. I hold his stare because I’m really incapable of making healthy choices. He doesn’t smile and neither do I. But his gaze drops, very briefly, to my mouth.
Then back up.
Quick.
So quick anyone else would miss it.
I don’t.
I feel it like a hand around my throat.
Suffocating me instantly.
Then he turns and walks toward his car and I stand there staring after him like an idiot, waiting for—I don’t even know what.
Bennett claps me on the shoulder. “You coming?”
I blink. “Where?”
He looks at me like I’ve grown another head. “Weren’t you listening? Cooper’s.”
“Oh.” I glance toward Jamie’s car again as he gets in. “Nah. I’m good.”
“Since when?”
Since my emotionally repressed captain looked at my mouth and now my brain has stopped functioning, apparently.
“Since I became a responsible student-athlete,” I say, clapping him back on the shoulder.
Bennett squints. “That sounds like bullshit.”
“It is. But I’m also tired and have to turn in some assignment.”
He accepts that because Bennett is trusting and sweet and probably shouldn’t be allowed to talk to strangers.
I walk to my car alone and the whole drive home, I keep replaying it.
The fingers.
The foot under the table.
His eyes on my mouth.
Maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Maybe Jamie is just trying to be better for the team. Maybe this is him taking Coach seriously and pulling me in instead of pushing me out. Maybe that’s all this is. A captain doing his job. A guy trying to be civil because he was told to. I mean, I’m trying to do the same, for the team, right?
Maybe I’m turning scraps into a meal because I’m used to wanting things I shouldn’t have. That thought cools me down fast. Like ice cold water in my veins. By the time I get home, I’ve almost convinced myself it meant nothing.
Almost.
Then I pull out my phone.
One unread text.
Jamie:
Good work today.
I stare at it for way too long.
Then another one comes in.
Jamie:
At dinner too.
I sit down slowly on the edge of my bed.
My thumb hovers over the screen.
Then I type back.
Rhys:
Careful. That’s two compliments in one night. You feeling okay?
Three dots appear.
Disappear.
Appear again.
Finally:
Jamie:
Don’t ruin it.
I smile so hard it feels stupid.
Rhys:
Too late, captain. I’m a ruiner.
I toss the phone onto the bed and drag both hands down my face. I am absolutely reading too much into this.
Probably.
Maybe.
Fuck.