“You’re moving in with Pink and Nessa, man. You know they have the guys over all the time, right? And Dani, the baby—fuck, you’re going to be doing couch karaoke with Coach Ward before you know it.”
He had me there.
But it was a different kind of noise.
Laughter. Netflix. Board games. A baby crying. The soft murmur of conversations I knew and voices I recognized, instead of the constant, unpredictable barrage of a city street.
“You’re still going to see me almost every day,” I soothed. “And you better fucking believe we’re rooming together on the road.”
We worked in companionable silence for a while after that. I packed up the last of my kitchen stuff while Diaz tackled the odds and ends, tossing them into a box labeled ALL THE OTHER SHIT.
At some point, his phone vibrated across the table. It happened again a few minutes later. And then again.
When he finally checked it, he smiled at the screen in a way I almost missed—small, soft, quick—before shoving it back into his pocket.
A minute later, his phone buzzed again.
“Okay, that’s like the ninth notification in ten minutes,” I pointed out.
He scowled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. They were too bright.Too dreamy.He pulled the phone out and turned slightly away, fingers flying over the screen.
I pretended to count the last of the forks as I watched him from the corner of my eye.
“Mom?” I asked.
“No,” he said too fast.
“Abuelita?”
“No.”
“Coach?”
He scoffed. “Fuck no.”
His thumb tapped out a reply, quick and sure, like he already knew exactly what to say.
My eyebrows lifted. “Boy?”
“None of your business,” he said, but his ears were pink now.
“Cuteboy?”
He shrugged one shoulder. “Still none of your business.”
My chest warmed.
Diaz didn’t date often. Or at least, not publicly. Everyone on the team knew he was gay, mostly because of his obvious obsession with Chris Evans, but beyond that, he kept things close to the vest.
I’d lived with him for two years and I’d never heard the front door creak open at 2 a.m. or seen an unfamiliar pair of shoes by the entryway or shuffled into the kitchen half-awake to find some guy in one of Diaz’s shirts eating cereal. Nothing.
Ifhe dated, he did it quietly. Privately.
Seeing him smile at his phone like that made something settle in my chest. Hell, it made me almost stupidly protective. I didn’t know who was on the other end of those messages, but I hoped he was good to Diaz. Gentle with him, worthy of him.
“You want to talk about him?” I asked, leaning against the wall.
“No,” he replied quickly.
