“Of course I care about you. More than I should, more than is appropriate, but yes. I care about you.”
“Then stop punishing both of us for it.”
“I’m not punishing?—”
“You are. You’re punishing me by withholding the coaching I need, and you’re punishing yourself by avoiding something that made you happy.”
“It made me happy for thirty seconds. Then it made me feel guilty for seven days.”
“What if it didn’t have to?”
“What do you mean?”
I stepped closer, close enough that he had to tilt his head back slightly to maintain eye contact. “What if we found a way to separate the coaching from everything else? What if you could coach me the way you used to, and we dealt with the other stuff separately?”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because—” He stopped again, his gaze dropping to my mouth before snapping back up to my eyes. “Because every time I look at you, I think about kissing you again.”
The admission sent heat rushing through my system. “So kiss me again.”
“Adan—”
“I’m serious. If that’s what you’re thinking about anyway, if that’s what’s making it impossible for you to coach me properly, then maybe we should get it out of our systems.”
“That’s not how attraction works.”
“How do you know? Have you tried?”
“This is exactly the kind of thinking that got us into this situation in the first place.”
“No, what got us into this situation was you deciding that one kiss meant we could never have a normal working relationship again.”
I could see him struggling, see the careful control he’d been maintaining for a week starting to crack.
“I’m not asking you to risk your job. I’m not asking you to date me or declare your feelings in front of the team. I’m asking you to stop acting like I’m radioactive.”
“And if I can’t? If being near you makes it impossible to maintain professional boundaries?”
“Then we’ll figure it out when we get there. But this,” I gestured at the space between us, at the careful distance he was maintaining even now, “this isn’t working for either of us.”
He was quiet for so long, I thought he might not respond. When he finally spoke, his voice was rough with emotion. “I hate that I’ve hurt you. That I’ve made you feel like you lost your coach.”
“Then fix it.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Start by not acting like touching me is going to end the world.”
Before he could respond, I closed the distance between us, not to kiss him but to wrap my arms around him in the kind of hug I’d given him at the youth center. The kind of contact that had nothing to do with attraction and everything to do with the friendship we’d been building.
For a second, he went rigid, like he was going to pull away. Then his arms came up around me, tentative at first, then stronger as he let himself return the embrace.
“I missed this,” I said quietly. “I missed being able to talk to you.”
“I missed it too.”
