He stumbles away, leaving just Brooke and me nearly pressed up against the giant flat screen that hangs on the wall.
"Brett was doing a good job, you know." Brooke crosses her arms and nibbles at her bottom lip.
I dare to take half a step closer to her and shove both hands into my back pockets. "I'll try to do better."
Brooke swallows, dropping her arms and standing up straighter as if I'm talking about more than the tour.
Because I am.
"Alright, well, where were we?"
"No, he was right. We literally only made it this far. I think you got here like two minutes after us."
"Oh." I nod toward the short hallway behind her. "Let's hit the showers then."
Brooke's lips part slightly as I brush past her, only half-grinning to myself.
I walk the few feet it takes to cross from the locker room into the showers, feeling Brooke at my heels as I do. "Alright, well, I'm guessing you'll never need to see this again, but here's where we all get naked."
She glances over slyly, rolling her eyes. "Yeah, I know Levi gave me free reign, but I have a feeling the organization might have an issue with their players being exposed on social media."
"True," I agree. "Which is kind of a shame. Some of the guys have killer shower voices."
Brooke drops her head in an attempt to resist responding, but she fails. "NowthatI'd love to see."
"I'll try to record it sometime," I say, causing Brooke to look at me curiously. "The audio, I mean. Just the audio."
She nods through a smile. "Do you ever harmonize? Maybe drop some bars?"
Now it's my turn to gape ather. Not just because of what she says, but that she's continuing conversation at all. "Drop some bars?"
She huffs, shoving my chest like she did before, my skin filling with goosebumps like it also remembers. "You know what I mean."
I shake my head. "No, I don't harmonize." I lean into her. "Or drop bars. That's not really my style of music."
"What do you listen to?"
I purse my lips, inhaling deeply. "Angsty shit," I say, going with Burnsey's favorite description.
Brooke tilts her head, looking me up and down. "Huh… I can see it."
I don't ask her why although the question threatens to burst from my throat. Brooke lit up the second I mentioned music. I'm not risking all of that coming to a grinding halt by going too deep on my end—even if she strangely makes me want to. Instead I say, "How about you?"
"Oh, I definitely sing in the shower. Bars too." She looks at me sideways, giving me maybe the first authentic smirk I've seen on her.
I flash her one back. "I mean, what do you listen to?"
"I like everything."
I nod, though I'm a little disappointed—and pretty surprised—that her response is so cookie-cutter.
"But not in the way that most people say," she continues. "Like they could listen to whatever and be fine with it."
My attitude weakens as she steps forward, beginning a slow circle as she continues taking in the room. "I genuinely think there's good inall music. Country calms you down. House pumps you up. Rap songs have that beat that makes you feel alive. And the angsty shit?" She turns around, smothering a smile. "That's the kind of stuff that makes you feel like you're dying inside. But in a good way, ya know?"
She turns back around, continuing to circle, but I don't move or speak because I don't want her to stop—talking or reading my soul. "Like you're being ripped apart. Stripped raw." She completes her journey, landing back in front of me. "Seen."
Looking into her eyes, I find her again. The girl from the gala that somehow seesmewhether or not she even realizes it. "Exactly," is all I manage to say, though my voice comes out soft.
