Chapter 7 #3
Wow, smooth. Matt smiled, though, then seemed to catch himself because his mouth tightened an instant later. “Good. I just—” A tiny glance toward Reid, toward the corridor, like he’d remembered where we were: in public. He took a small step back. “You enjoy it?”
“Yes,” I said, almost too softly. “I did.”
His face changed, something bright and pleased cracking through before he got it back under control, a push-pull of come here, no, wait, stay over there, no, actually, tell me what you thought.
Cute. No. Absolutely not.
The arena still throbbed behind my chest, music and crowd noise that echoed in my bones, head too light with something I refused to name. “I get it now,” I told him.
His brows drew together. “Get what?”
Why everybody here looks at you like that. Why half the city seems to wear your jersey, why they trust you to carry the team. Why you wanted me to see this. See you.
I glanced at Naomi pretending to check her phone and Reid standing there with all the enthusiasm of a man waiting for a root canal. No one else was close enough to catch a word, but I dropped my voice all the same. “Why they all lose their minds over you.”
Matt lit up like a lighthouse, quick and unguarded, eyes crinkling with delighted disbelief he clearly hadn’t meant to show. “Good,” he said, much too satisfied, and I exhaled a laugh.
“Modest.”
“Never claimed I was.” His tone had gone easier now, warmer, and for a moment, it felt almost like we were just…
talking. Him fresh from the game, me still buzzing from the arena, this weird little pocket carved out for no good reason except that he’d wanted to see my reaction first-hand and somehow hadn’t talked himself out of it.
Reckless. A little wonderful.
Then he seemed to remember himself all over again. His gaze flicked over my shoulder, to the rest of his life waiting just outside this moment. The warmth in his face cooled a little, not gone but banked down. “You didn’t have to stay,” he said, entirely too casual.
But you wanted me to.
I shrugged, grinned, tried to reach for the same relaxed charm that usually came without thought—only I felt just slightly too warm, a tiny bit dizzy from it all. “Well,” I said. “You had me fetched. Captain’s orders, right?”
It tugged a smile out of him. “Since when do you take orders so well?”
“You just have to ask me nicely.”
“Yeah, well.” His words hung there, a little awkward, expression going through a flash of different emotions, and I realized he didn’t actually know where to take this. He’d wanted the minute. Wanted my reaction. Past that? Who knew.
Sweet, almost.
“We need to go,” Reid said, as if he’d finally decided this act of sheer stupidity had lasted long enough.
“Right.” Matt’s gaze stayed on me just briefly. “See you tomorrow, Stellan.”
“Yeah.” I made it sound casual, like my stomach wasn’t tying itself in knots, and watched Matt turn away, Reid already by his side.
He’d made the time. Just a couple of minutes in a corridor, nothing big, certainly not enough to mean anything sensible.
It still hit me in a way it shouldn’t, a little dangerous somehow.
Wistful, too, because this, here, was a taste of exactly what I could expect—a moment here, a text there, some sex with the lights off.
Whatever I could carve out for myself without disturbing the rest of his life.
And then, suddenly, Naomi’s posture sharpened. “Stellan,” she hissed.
What…?
I glanced at whatever had caught her attention, and shit. Shit. A woman in a cream coat strolled toward us, next to a man in expensive sneakers and a blazer that screamed corporate. Her hair curled over her shoulders in smooth waves, lipstick exact, posture flawless.
Marina Brown. Client-facing and high gloss, the kind of woman who arrived late to a dinner party and left two hours later with three new leads for the agency.
My lungs seized up.
She knew Naomi. Knew me. Not intimately, thank fuck, but enough to know what I’d once been good at. Enough to remember that I’d turned inconvenient and got fired over it.
Her gaze landed on me, flicked to Naomi, then to Matt walking away for the briefest second.
Fuck. She’d seen.
Hadn’t she? She must have—had come along the corridor in time to catch him talking to me. Fuck. Fuck.
The smallest pause and a fractional lift of her chin. Cold sliced through my chest because to her, this wouldn’t read like an innocent post-game moment. No, it would read like a risk: someone who knew how the agency worked back in contact with someone they’d once targeted.
She turned back to the man beside her and kept walking. Okay. So… the world still moved. No dramatic swell of frantic music, no confrontation, just one more polished woman passing by on her way to the premium lounge.
Matt was gone. Even if I were to catch up, Jesus—what the fuck would I say? Hi, okay, remember how we met? Yeah? So, funny story.
“Damn it,” Naomi said quietly, and when I glanced over, her whole face had changed—completely serious now, no tease left in it. “You think she saw?”
I drew a breath and couldn’t fit enough air into my body. “You know she did.”
Naomi stayed quiet just long enough to register, then sighed. “Well,” she said. “Fuck.”
Yeah. That just about summed it up.