I frowned. “I mute that shit.”
He smirked, tilting the phone so I could see.
There it was.
A picture, grainy but clear enough.
Me, in the back of the bus.
Her, asleep on my shoulder.
My arm around her.
The two of us looked like something out of a damn movie.
The caption:Captain’s got himself a girl.
The group chat was eating it up. Hundreds of messages under it, teasing, emojis, stupid jokes.
He laughed. “Coach took it, he said it was cute, and we all thought—”
“Are you done? I don’t care.”
I turned away and continued walking towards the bleachers where she was. Still waiting, probably thinking I was busy packing up or ignoring her like usual.
I pocketed my phone, forcing my breathing to level out, jaw so tight it hurt.
They didn’t get it. None of them did.
They didn’t know how careful I was. How fucking hard I tried not to scare her, not to touch her, not to ruin the one fragile thread between us.
And now there was a damn photo.
Now the whole team thought she was mine when she barely even looked me in the eye.
I slowed down, watching the wind brush her hair over her face.
No one got to make her a joke.
No one got to look at her like that.
Not the team.
Not the coach.
Not anyone.
“Hey,” I said, voice low.
Her head snapped up. She blinked, eyes wide, notebook half slipping off her lap before she caught it.
“You done?” I nodded toward the papers spread around her.
She hesitated, then gave a small nod. The quiet kind.
For a moment, I just stared at her and maybe at the faint smudge of ink on her thumb, or the way her shoes didn’t quite touch the ground from the bleacher step. I don’t know.
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Bus’ll be packed again.”
