I TIP MY HEAD BACK, letting the water wash over my face. While Vermont’s visitor locker room isn’t anything to write home about, the water pressure is decent, and right now, that’s good enough to keep my mood from going totally sour.
Penny came to the Vermont game.
I saw her out of the corner of my eye the whole time, the only dot of purple in a crowd of green. She sat a couple rows back from the boards behind one goal, her hair pulled into a braid, chewing on her lip as she watched.
When she texted to tell me that she planned to tag along to the last game before the break in the season, I was thrilled—and then she hit me with some shit about wearing someone else’s sweater. We’ve teased each other plenty, but seeing her show up to the game in Brandon’s sweater—of all the players on the team—stung like a shot to the face. She doesn’t know about the trouble I’ve had with him, but still.
She’s my girl. Maybe it’s not official, but it’s the truth. She’s mine, and the second she admits that to herself, I’m going to shout it from the fucking rooftops.
Until then, though, I have to put up with shit like this. Watching her cheer on the team while she’s wearing Brandon’s #19 instead of my #24. Knowing that when I see her, if there’s anyone around, I can’t kiss her. I’m planning to sneak into her room later, but that’s not the same as kissing her in the lobby and watching her sleep on my shoulder on the team bus. I don’t know when, exactly, I became the sort of guy who daydreams about getting to watch a girl sleep, but with Penny, it seems natural. Inevitable. It’s like I never dated anyone else because I was waiting for her to come into my life. Why would I have wasted time with someone who isn’t her?
Not that we’re actually dating.
That reminder makes me scowl. I grab the shampoo and lather up my hair. My side is aching from a hard hit that ought to have resulted in a penalty but somehow didn’t—Coach yelled at the referees about it—and despite the warm water, I have a chill that won’t go away. I pick up the body wash, but before I can uncap it, the shower curtain rustles.
My teammates are so fucking impatient sometimes. “Can’t you hear the water, asshole?” I call to whoever is out there. There are a bunch of stalls, so it’s not like I’m hogging the bathroom.
“Is that how you talk to the guys?”
I peer around the curtain. Penny is standing there, still in that patently offensive sweater, one eyebrow raised like she’s about to scold me. I glance around, but none of my teammates are out and about. Someone is singing, though, horribly off-key; I’d bet, considering the karaoke night at Red’s a couple weeks ago, that it’s Remmy. “How did you get in here?”
She shrugs. “Not important.”
“You interested in seeing another dude’s junk, Red?”
She just rolls her eyes. “Even if I did, it’s just a dick. Dicks, generally speaking, are not that special.”
I put on a wounded face. “And here I thought you liked my disco stick.”
Her snort is loud enough for the guy in the next stall to hear, so I shut off the water, shaking out my hair before reaching for my towel. Penny gulps, her gaze darting down to my crotch as blush colors her cheeks. Whatever bravado she came in here with is fading, and good thing, too—she might be cheeky enough to get away with wearing the sweater in the first place, but there’s no way I’m letting her flaunt it around post-game. I wrap the towel around my hips and pull her close. She muffles a shriek against my bare shoulder as she wriggles against me, but I hold on tight. “You thought you could get away with wearing someone else’s sweater, babe? Think again.”
She shudders as I cup her jaw, pressing my thumb against her mouth. This is reckless; anyone could finish up in a second and see the two of us standing here, but I don’t move away. Not now, when I have her caught and looking at me like she wants nothing more than to be devoured. She recovers the smirk she came in with, biting down on my thumb.
“It’s just a sweater,” she says. “And I told you in advance.”
“To torture me.” I lean in, letting her feel my breath against her ear. Even though it’s cold in this room without clothes on and she’s wearing the wrong sweater, I’m halfway to hard, my cock straining for attention. “Such a fucking brat, Red. Take it off before I rip it right off your body.”
Her breath hitches. I press against her, knowing she can feel the outline of my dick through the towel. “You wouldn’t.”
I stretch the hem taut. “Watch me.”
“What is it with you and destroying my clothes?”
“This isn’t yours. If it was my number, it would be yours.”
Her eyes widen slightly at the rough edge to my voice. Wrapping up the semester, preparing for this last game before the break, holding back the part of me that wants to beg Penny to just tell me if I have a chance at being her boyfriend—it’s all been grinding on me, and the sweater is the last straw. She swallows hard, those gorgeous blue eyes searching my face. I’m about two seconds from getting onto my knees in this locker room and begging for a chance—just a chance—to show her how things have changed for me, and to ask if they’re changing for her too, when the shower shuts off in one of the stalls. I whip my head around, but apparently the universe has decided to spare me at least some embarrassment, because it’s Evan who reaches for his towel.
Penny scrambles away from me anyway, her face so red I can hardly see the lighter freckles. Evan freezes, water dripping everywhere; at least he has a towel wrapped around his waist. He raises his eyebrows so high they nearly hit his hairline. “I’m gonna—um—”
“I’ll see you,” Penny squeaks. She darts out of the room.
I scrub my hand over my face. It’s a good thing she left, because if we’d had another moment alone, I’d either have spilled my guts to her or tried to fuck her against the wall, and I don’t know which would have been worse for someone to walk in on.
“Man, you have it bad,” Evan says. He crosses the room to where I’m still rooted in place, clapping a hand onto my shoulder and squeezing. “I didn’t even realize.”
“I don’t,” I snap.
“Dude, you were looking at her like she—what do they say? Hung the moon? You were looking at her like that. Like she climbed up on a ladder and put it in the sky just for you.”
I practically bare my teeth at Evan, who just grins, clearly delighted by this entire situation. “Don’t worry,” he adds. “It happens to the best of us. What was she doing in Finau’s sweater, though?”
SCREW WAITING until everyone settles down for the night to see her again. As soon as we wrap up at the arena, I grab an Uber to the hotel and head straight for her floor. She’s on the same one as the coaching staff, which means I could run into anyone from the equipment manager to Coach himself, but at the moment, I don’t give a shit. I’ll lie my way through it if I need to. I’m desperate to finish what we started in the locker room.
She slipped me her room key earlier, but I knock anyway. She peers through the peephole first, good girl, and then unlocks the door.
Before she can say a word, I crowd the doorway, pulling her into my arms and kissing her hard. I kick the door closed, then spin her around, pressing her against it as I devour her mouth. She tastes like mint, and there’s something sweet mixed in with the lavender of her perfume, and when I finally break away, gasping, she whines and tugs me back.
“Callahan,” she murmurs against my mouth. “What’s gotten into you?”
I pull away, even though it’s torture; I’m rock hard in my jeans. Every particle of me is dying to kiss her, to taste her, to swallow down her moans, but instead, I tilt up her chin. She gulps as we lock eyes, her tongue darting out to wet her lips. I bite back a curse. “You know my name.”
“But—”
I push my thigh between her legs, effectively shutting her up, and drag my hand down from her chin to her throat. Not squeezing, not hurting her—just holding it there like it’s a necklace. There’s a blue-hot fire in her eyes, passion crackling in the air between us like a live wire. I can tell she’s three seconds from launching herself into my arms, so I press my thumb against her pulse to still her. It jumps just underneath her skin.
“You’re calling me Callahan because it helps you pretend there’s nothing deeper going on here,” I say in a low voice. “Cut the shit, Penny. You know my name. Say it.”
She stares at me for a long moment, defiance in her eyes and the upturn of her nose, but then she pushes me away—and pulls the sweater off her head.
She lets it crumple to the floor.
“Cooper,” she whispers. “I’m scared.”
“Is that why you wore his sweater?”
She wraps her arms around herself. Without the sweater, she’s just in a tank top with a bralette underneath; both are canary yellow. The sight of the freckles clustered on her shoulders like so many constellations make my ribs ache. I want to pull her into my arms, but the energy in the room has shifted; one false step and she might shove me back into the hallway.
“Maybe you’re right,” she admits. “Maybe it was another layer of distance.”
“I don’t want distance.” I reach out, taking one of her hands in mine and squeezing. “I just want you. Not as friends. Not as the person you fuck. I want to be with you in all those ways and more.”
She shakes her head. “You don’t know the whole story.”
“I don’t need it to know I want to be with you.”
“Cooper, it’s not—” She stops herself. Her eyes are swimming in tears. “You heard my dad. There’s a reason I wanted to go through a list in the first place.”
“And I don’t care what it is.”
“You say that now, but you don’t know.”
“So tell me.” I brush away the tears on her cheeks. My heart is breaking for her, but I don’t even know why, and that doesn’t sit well with me. How can I help her—truly help her—if I don’t know the whole story? “Tell me, Red.”
She shakes her head, pulling me into a bruising kiss instead of answering. Her hands tug at my shirt until I go along with letting her pull it over my head; she takes off her tank top, too, and then her bra. She presses in for another kiss. I can feel her trembling against me. I bite her lip gently. I don’t want to stop talking, but if she needs this, I’m more than willing to give it to her first.
I’m just about to pull her over to the bed when someone knocks on the door.
“Penelope? You in there?”
It’s Coach’s voice.
