"U23 scouts," Liam said.
"Yeah."
"They want to see us."
"Yeah."
He turned to me. The grin he'd been holding back in the meeting broke across his face—wide, real, the one I only saw when nobody else was around.
"Alex.U23 scouts."
"I heard. I was sitting right there."
"This is insane. This is actually insane."
"It's good."
"It's more than good. It's—" He stopped. Ran his hand through his hair. That gesture. The one that pulled his shirt up just enough to show a strip of stomach above his waistband. "Fuck.I need to shower. I've been in these clothes since five AM and I smell horrible."
The thought that was supposed to stay in my head in public slipped out.
"I don't mind it," I said.
"Shut up." But he was smiling.
We walked toward the locker room. The door was propped open. The tile floor was still wet from the morning's traffic but the room itself was empty. Lockers closed. Benches bare.
Nobody here.
We grabbed our stuff from our lockers. The routine. Normal.
Except nothing was normal because we were alone and we'd been alone maybe three times in the last five days and every single time we'd had to cut it short because of footsteps or voices.
Liam pulled his hoodie over his head and tossed it on the bench. Then his t-shirt. One motion. Casual. Like he wasn't standing three feet from me peeling off layers of clothing in an empty room.
I busied myself with my locker. Combination lock. Towel. Soap. Very focused on the soap.
But my peripheral vision was a traitor. Liam's bare shoulders. The muscles across his back shifting as he reached down to untie his shoes. The bruise on his hip from a rough turn earlier in the week.
He kicked off his shoes. Hooked his thumbs into his waistband—shorts and boxers together—and pushed them down.
I looked away. Stared into my locker like there was something fascinating inside it.
Don't look. Don't look. Don't—
I looked.
Just a glance. A fraction of a second. But it was enough—Liam naked, stepping out of his shorts, his body in profile. The line from his shoulders to his waist to his thighs. Everything tightand lean and still flushed from the morning's row. He reached for his towel and I watched the muscles in his arm flex and my mouth went dry.
Fuck.
I turned back to my locker. Pulled my own shirt off. Then my shorts. Tried to move quickly, mechanically—the way you undress in a locker room when other guys are around.
Except I could feel him watching me. The same way I'd been watching him. That prickling awareness on my skin that meant his eyes were on my body.
I didn't turn around to confirm it. Didn't need to. The air between us had changed—charged, the way it did every time we were alone and pretending we weren't aware of every inch of each other.
I wrapped my towel around my waist. Grabbed the soap.
