Goldie’s suppressing a smile while she shoos Fletcher. “Go put your clothes on and quit torturing Holt.”
“Torturing Holt is my favorite hobby.”
“Torturing Silas is your favorite hobby.”
“Was. Got too easy. I’m moving on to bigger fish.”
Silas, Goldie’s little brother, is also on the team. He and Fletcher butted heads hardcore before Fletcher and Goldie hooked up. Even more in the weeks immediately after they hooked up, but the two of them came to some kind of understanding and are mostly tolerable together. Still have their moments, but this past season was much easier than Fletcher’s first season with the team.
Fletcher says it’s because Silas is growing up.
I think Goldie got to both of them and helped them both grow up. She’s good like that.
“I see you naked almost every week,” I remind Fletcher. “Try harder.”
“Happily. Wait until you see the next pair. You need a picture to remember these?” He strikes another pose, this one like he’s a bodybuilder, or like he’s trying to show off all of the tattoos on his arms. “Goldie. Snap a pic.”
She smiles at him. “Pretty sure I can remember these without a picture.”
“Completely positive? This would help you when you’re missing me the next time we’re apart for an hour.”
Andnowhe’s annoying me.
“I want a picture.” I lift my phone, switch on the cameraapp, and aim it at him while he poses again. “Also, I have your sister’s number. She’ll love these.”
His face freezes, which is a massive fucking victory when it comes to Fletcher.
Goldie sees it too, judging by the way she laughs even harder. “So thesearen’tfor your socials to wage a fan campaign for mascot. You’re losing your touch, Fletcher.”
As I’m hitting the shutter button for the seventh time, a new text comes in that startles me enough that I get three blurry pictures in a row.
Ziggy:I called the plumber. He can have everything out of your bedroom today and the bathroom functional in two days.
My heart leaps. I sit up—why, I don’t know, to think better to reply to her?—but it’s too fast and I pull a hamstring, which sends a lightning bolt of a cramp down my calf inside my boot.
I drop my phone and grab my leg as low as I can reach it while the pain flares so hard my shin bone aches too. “Fuck.”
Fletcher’s at my side in an instant, with his hairy chest and tattooed arms and the fucking tight briefs.
“Down,” he says.
“I’m lying down,” I grumble, once again flat on my back while I breathe through the cramp.
“When did you take your last meds?”
“Hour ago. I’m—fine.”
Fuck, that hurts.
But it’s fading.
He grabs my phone to hand it to me but pauses and tilts his head at my screen. “Who’shouse sitter?And where are they staying?”
I snatch my phone back from him, relieved that I hadn’t got around to changing Ziggy’s name in my phone. “Nobody.”
“You have a house sitter while you’re staying here?”
“Had one here while I was in Europe.”
