I try to think of all the times I found him under my window, smoking. Was it always before a test or a game? Because he was stressed about it?
“And why are you smoking now?” I ask.
A breeze comes in and ruffles his hair further and I don’t know if it’s the fact that his hair is messy or if it’s my question, but Arrow seems even more tense, the set of his jaw more strained.
“Because it helps me forget,” he replies after a few moments.
I tighten my hands around the metal railing. “Forget what?”
“The fact that I’m here. Instead of where I should be, winning the fucking cup for my team.”
“But you’ll go back, right? You’ll win the next cup.”
His jaw pulses once. Twice.
“But not this one.” A third pulse ripples through his jaw. “And it’s on me. It’s on my fucking stupidity. All because I broke the first rule of soccer.”
“But you just made a mistake,” I insist like I did back at the library. “One mistake should be allowed, right? You can’t be perfect all the time.”
I mean, I knew he worked hard. He still does.
I also knew that Leah expected him to be the best. She still does. Sometimes I thought that she was being a little too hard on him. But then again, his father was a great soccer player himself and with that, comes a tremendous responsibility.
I never knew this about him though. I never knew that he is so crazy intense about all of this.
“Yeah?” Arrow asks, studying my distressed face.
“Yes,” I say vehemently. “You can’t be. No one can be. You just slipped up a little, okay? And that’s fine. You can’t beat yourself up like this, Arrow. You can’t kill yourself by smoking just because you have to sit out a season. It’s crazy. Besides, you’re already the best player they’ve got. You…”
My thoughts break when I notice his body move.
Like last night at the library, he advances on me. We were already so close though that it’s hardly an advance. It’s more likeshifting, inching closer, but since he’s so big and tall and he’s got muscles for days, it feels like it.
It feels like he’s advancing on me and arranging my tiny body as he likes with the metal railing digging into my ass.
And again like last night, when he puts his hands on either side of me to cage me in, it looks like he’s doing a push-up, his chest dipped, his body curled, that silver chain swinging.
“The best,” he drawls.
I raise my chin. “Yes. You are. Everything I learned about soccer, I learned from watching your tapes and YouTube clips. And Beckham’s.”
“Beckham.”
“Yes.”
He hums. “He’s all right.”
“He’s amazing.”
“He’s okay.”
“Are you kidding? He’s a legend. They made a movie about him. But that’s not even the point. The point is –”
“I thought you were my groupie.”
There’s a frown sitting between his brows. A few of his messy strands are dancing over that deep line and I’m so confused right now. “What?”
He flexes his grip on the railing, his frown growing deeper. “I don’t like sharing.”
