“Give it a rest.”
“Where were you last night, then?” He chuckled. I had the childish urge to stick my leg out and trip him. The vision of his coffee and sandwich scattering across the floor almost brought a smile to my face.
“Stop it. You sound like a needy boyfriend.”
“Classic deflection—I loveit.”
“I wasn’t deflecting.”
“So, where were you?”
“You know where I was. You have me on Find My Friends, idiot.”
“I know, but I want to hear you say it.” He held the door open for me, and I narrowed my eyes at him as I walked through.
“Matilda’s,” I groundout.
“That must be why you’re in a stellar mood this morning,” he jabbed playfully. “How could you possibly end up back there?”
“We were watching the recording from yesterday.” Somehow, I had persuaded myself last night that it was a good enough reason to go to her place, but in the light of day it seemed like a flimsy excuse. The evening had been the opposite of relaxing—Matilda’s warm thighs against my waist were burned into my memory, ensuring I’d been restless ever since.
“You had to watch the tape at her house over dinner?”
“How did you know we had dinner?” I spun to look at him but found him smiling.
“I didn’t, but I do now.” He laughed. “Netflix and chill, hmm?”
“It wasn’t like that.” I wanted to tell Jack what had happened, but another part wanted Matilda and me to return to how we had been before our truce. She was occupying more and more of my thoughts everyday.
And that text?Jesus fucking Christ.
Did the text from Lily insinuate that Matilda had been celibate for the past year? A strange part of me enjoyed that small fact, which in turn pissed me off even more. I shouldn’t have cared about her sex life, but my brain and cock obviously hadn’t got the memo because that was all they’d been thinking about since the night before.
“Sure it wasn’t.” He slapped my shoulder. “Where’s Matilda this morning?” Jack asked as we rounded the corner toward our dressing room.
“She got caught up with Taylor, but she managed to get a slot on the training rink at eleven-thirty so we can clean up the lift.”
“Why is she always looking after Taylor?”
“Her sister is a pretty absent parent, I think. Not sure about Taylor’s dad.”
“So Matilda stepsin?”
“Yeah, she and Taylor are close. They spend a lot of time together.” It was obvious to anyone with a functioning temporal lobe that Matilda adored Taylor. But every time Lauren demanded Matilda take care of her, I had to bite my tongue. Of course, Matilda said it was fine, but she was so clearly wearing herself thin trying to balance everything.
Jack hummed thoughtfully but changed the subject. “Are you both ready for the press conference afterward?”
“Yeah, it’s with the other skaters, so I doubt we’ll get too much screen time anyway,” I replied as we entered the room that had become more familiar than my own home over the past six weeks. I grabbed the TV remote, flicked on the television, and collapsed onto one of the sofas, with Jack taking the opposite side.
Our warm-up wentwell. It was hard to skate the whole routine, since we shared the training rink with three other pairs, so we settled on going over the most challenging segments. We practiced the lift that had been causing issues, and thankfully it went smoothly.
Neither of us acknowledged the previous night, which was probably a good thing. Discussing the near-kiss was a guaranteed way to make things awkward, which wasn’t exactly what we needed when we were attempting to sell a romance to the viewers.
Wardrobe had gotten me dressed in a pair of stretchy black jeans almost identical to the ones I’d rehearsed in, and a skintight black T-shirt. It left nothing to the imagination, but I didn’t care; most of the world had seen me almost nude in a movie at one point or another.
It was around six-fifteen, so we needed to head to the live studio lounge area where the partners sat while others performed. The program was set to start at seven, allowing enough time for us to be briefed and prepped beforehand.
Knocking on our dressing room door, I entered when I heard a muffled “Comein.”
