“I just thought it was funny.” Thompson shrugs. “Freddie’s such a firecracker.”
“Pay attention to shit that actually matters,” I say. Several pairs of eyes lift to me. Thompson looks dumbstruck, and I know I’m overreacting, but I don’t care. I’m burning to pull out my phone for once and scroll until I find exactly what they’re talking about, but I know if I don’t shove all of these thoughts into an airtight mental box right now, I’m going to be useless for the match later. I get up and head for the showers before I say anything else I’ll regret.
I have to stop caring about this. I have to stop caring about her.
I spend the next couple of weeks fighting my hardest to get out of her orbit. It’s easier than I thought it would be with games to focus on, but I still catch her watching me. At least I don’t really have to direct her anymore. She knows the team now, knows how we play. They all high five and fist bump her in the training center like she’s one of them now. She’s a lot better at this than I ever thought she’d be, which is even more frustrating.
I think I’ve almost moved past my fixation when Poirier gets a text on Thanksgiving night. What started out as a ritual of ours—a Canadian whose Thanksgiving falls in October, and a Swede who’s unfamiliar with the holiday—has become a tradition for the non-American guys on the team. They’ll be over anytime now.
He reads it, then settles back into the sofa with a smirk on his face.
“What is it?” I say.
“Freddie said the holiday special is gonna drop soon.”
“She texts you?” I balk. Worse, I’d almost forgotten about that thing. Soon there are going to be clips of me in a fucking Santa hat all over social media.
“Not confident in your cooking skills?” Poirier raises a brow.
“That’s not it,” I reply stiffly.
“Does it have something to do with the fact that I never see you and Hearst flirting before games anymore?”
My jaw clenches. “We were never flirting.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She understands the game now. I no longer need to waste my time lecturing her.”
“You know I can tell when you’re bullshitting, right?”
I scrub a hand over my face. “Please fuck off.”
Poirier cackles. “You fucked her, eh?”
“No,” I say firmly.
“Does her dad know?”
“Hålkäften,” I say. He’s known me long enough to understand what that means.Shut the fuck up.
“It’s okay to like her, you know.”
I level him with a murderous look—only to feel my face fall. For once in his life, he looks sincere and it makes my stomach fold in on itself.
“No, it’s not,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Her father and Coach Marshall have both made it explicitly clear. Even if they hadn’t, the last thing I need this season is a break-up.”
He ignores the last part. “Who cares what they say? She’s a grown woman and she should be able to make her own choices about who she dates.”
“You know what the Cup means to me.” I don’t say it outright, but the weight of what I mean presses down on us. He knows about my father. How he died supporting a glimmer of a dream and left me holding the torch.
“Plenty of guys in the league have relationships.”
“And look at their stats.”
