“Gummy bears.”
He blinks. “Seriously?”
“Dead serious. I could eat a whole bag in one sitting. But only the blue ones and the clear ones. The others are garbage.”
He lets out a soft laugh. “That’s gross.”
“You like chocolate, don’t you?” I accuse.
“Dark chocolate,” he confirms. “The kind that’s barely sweet. Bitter. Intense.”
“Of course you do,” I tease. “You’re like a broody romance novel hero.”
He arches an eyebrow. “I don’t brood.”
“You literally turned away from me during practice one day like you were in a dramatic telenovela.”
He chuckles, low and quiet, then reaches out to tuck a loose curl behind my ear. His touch is gentle. Familiar.
Comforting.
“I love classic films,” he offers next. “Stuff with substance. Character. Good storytelling.”
“You’d hate what’s in my Netflix queue.”
“Try me.”
I grin. “I rewatchCluelessandBring It Onat least once a year.”
“Okay, maybe nothate...” he says, lips twitching. “But don’t expect me to quote them.”
“You say that now, but one night I’m gonna catch you muttering ‘whatever’ with perfect valley girl inflection.”
He’s smiling again with a soft curve of his lips that I love.
“You’re surprising,” he says, voice quiet.
“Yeah?”
He nods, gaze steady. “And kind of addictive.”
My breath catches. Not because of the words exactly, but because of the way he says them. Like he means it. Like I’m not just some complication in his life, but something he wants to understand. To keep.
“We’re really different,” I whisper. “But this? This doesn’t feel hard.”
His hand finds mine, fingers lacing slowly.
“Some things are supposed to be easy,” he says. “Even when the rest of the world isn’t.”
His fingers are still threaded through mine. Neither of us is in a hurry to move.
“So we’ve got football in common,” I say. “And wildly different tastes in snacks.”
“Opposites attract,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing lightly across my knuckles.
I tilt my head. “What else?”
He thinks for a second, gaze flicking toward the ceiling like he’s cataloging memories.
