“Shit,” Matteo lamented. “Emma was right, and she is nevergoing to let me live this down.”
Levi glanced to where the three women seemed to be leaning over the tea cart conspiratorially, and dammit if looking at Haddie didn’t turn his blood into something molten.
“Live what down?” Levi asked, but the defensive tone of his voice gave him away. He wasn’t an idiot. After what happened in that fitting room today, Levi didn’t have the resolve left to hide whatever it was that Haddie Martin was doing to him.
Matteo’s only response was to sit back in his seat, cross his arms, and gloat.
“You’re going to make me say it, aren’t you?” Levi asked with a groan.
His brother shrugged. “Say what…dingus?”
Levi ran a hand up the back of his neck and over the top of his head. “It’s complicated,” he finally admitted.
“It’s actually not,” Matteo countered without missing a beat. “‘Complicated’ is pretending like you don’t feel what’s all over your damned face.”
His brother was right. The pretending drained his focus and his energy. It was probably the reason why he couldn’t wrap his head around how to help his team. His brain short-circuited whenever Haddie was around, whether he wanted to admit it to his brother or not.
“Fine,” Levi relented. “I have cannonballed off the high dive into the deep end, and I might actually be drowning. Which makes zero sense because we barely know each other.”
“Except you feel like you’ve known her for twenty years,” hisbrother countered.
“Yes! What is that?”
Matteo shrugged, unfazed. “When you live with someone, time moves exponentially faster. When I was…um…locked up…”
Levi winced at his brother’s mention of his short time in prison, the worst of the fallout following their mother’s death.
Matteo cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he continued. “By the end of my first week, I knew the names of all my cellmate’s pet rabbits, and I meanallof them. Living or dead. Do you want to hear about how Snuffles insisted on sitting on his shoulder like a parrot, even when she was full grown? Or about how Skipper could hop up onto the kitchen counter and wreak havoc with the battery-powered salt and pepper shakers?”
“Rabbits?” Levi asked.
Matteo nodded. “Rabbits. So. Many. Rabbits.”
Levi groaned. “Fine. Maybe Haddie and I know each other better than we would if we weren’t roommates, but what would even be the point of pursuing this…this…”
“What are we pursuing?” Emma asked, and Levi startled so hard that he almost tipped over his chair but caught himself at the last second.
He sneered at this brother, who was grinning back at him in a way that said,You were so wrapped up in your feelings about your roommate that you didn’t even notice her heading to the table…butIdid.
Levi coughed. “Um…a…strategy for my team to maybe actuallyscoreat our next game, which is Tuesday right after school.”
Haddie made eye contact with him for the first time since thefitting room, and Levi had the sensation of falling all over again, except this time his chair had all four legs on the floor.
“Tuesday?” she said, eyes wide. “Why didn’t I realize your game was on Tuesday? We should be home drawing up plays. Or…or on the field so we can demo the plays. Emma and Matteo, you could come too! If I have someone to represent the opposing team, maybe I can finally help get it through Coach Rourke’s head what the hell ‘offside’ means!”
“I thought it was ‘offsides,’” Levi replied.
Haddie shook her head. “The proper way to say it is ‘offside,’ but of course, America colloquialized it to ‘offsides.’ But if I’m going to teach you, I’m going to teach you correctly.” She crossed her arms and raised her brows.
This was all it took to get her out of her head about what had almost happened between them but didn’t…again? Soccer? How was she able to redirect while Levi—who’d been living and breathing football since he was barely able to tie his own shoes—was pretty sure he’d forgotten how many points a field goal was worth.
“Can’t,” Emma replied, just as Matteo said, “I’m sure we could…”
But Emma cut her fiancé off with a look, solidifying the response to Levi’s unanswered question.
He and Haddie weren’t hiding shit. Emma and Matteo were betting on the wholeWill they or won’t they?And Levi and Haddie had been too caught up in their own worlds to notice that everyone else was noticing.
“Sorry, Bro,” Matteo amended. “I guess you two are on yourown for Sunday afternoon P.E. class. Emma and I have—”
