The machine behind me whirred uselessly, waiting for the next ball I no longer had in my hand.
I wet my lips. His gaze dropped to my mouth and stayed there one brutal second too long.
Then he stepped in and braced one hand against the wall beside my head.
“Did you meant it?” he asked.
My breath caught.
“What?”
His laugh was low and broken.
“Don’t do that.”
His other hand came up with the ball still trapped in it, pressing it absently against his thigh like he needed something to keep from reaching for me.
“At the coffee shop. Before that. All of it.” His eyes pinned mine. “When you said you wanted me back. When you looked at me like you still?—”
He cut himself off so sharply his jaw flexed.
The silence between us turned electric.
I lifted my chin.
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
That did something to him.
I saw it hit low and hard.
He stepped closer, close enough now that the front of my shirt brushed his hoodie every time I breathed.
“You want me back, Stells?” His voice was wrecked gravel, scraped raw from somewhere deep. “For real?”
My spine touched cinder block.
There was nowhere to go.
Nowhere I wanted to go.
“Yes.”
It came out steady.
His eyes shut for half a second like that one word had nearly finished him.
When he opened them again, they were darker. Hungrier. Honest in a way Tristan almost never let himself be.
“I leave in an hour.”
My heart dropped.
“For the away game,” he said. “First one.”
Of course the timing would be cruel and the universe would finally crack this open just to hand us distance.
I tried not to let it show. Maybe I failed, because his mouth twisted like he hated it too.
