He nods.
“I’m sorry I got weird, Tanner. I panicked and didn’t know what to do. I still don’t, honestly. Auston has always been great at messing with my head. But it wasn’t,isn’tonly that. Saturday night was?—”
“Incredible.” His tone is so low and gravelly that my next words don’t come. “I’ve spent the last few days replying what happened and I need you to know that I wanted it, too. Just because you instigated it, doesn’t mean I didn’t want it. I meant what I said, Annie, I like?—”
“Annie, are you all set?” Colton appears as if from nowhere.
“Ah, yeah,” I say. “Hey, could you give us a minute?”
Colton looks back and forth between Tanner and me, as if he can see right through my promises to stay away from his friends. Those promises weren’t empty but I crossed a line on Saturday and now, I feel deservedly guilty.
“I’ll be outside,” he says, frowning but leaving.
I step closer to Tanner. “I don’t want to ruin our friendship.” I shrug. “No one makes me laugh like you do and I’ve missed it this week.”
His eyes meet mine, then my lips, then somewhere in the distance. I want his gaze, his mouth, his hands on me. Is thislikeI’m feeling?
“Me neither,” he says, after an eternity. I’m simultaneously inflated and deflated by his words.
He covers the distance between us and I hold my breath. Would he kiss me? Will he kiss me?Here.
I’d let him if he tried. Despite all the reasons I shouldn’t, I’d let him. Because on Saturday, he set my entire body ablaze and I want to know how it would feel if he did more. To have him inside me.
My eyelids are heavy as I look up to him. He reaches out to me and… with a clenched fist, sticks up his pinky.
“You can always come to me when you need a laugh, Annie. Friends forever, no matter what?”
Laughter bursts from me – giddy relief after the intensity of the way I’m feeling in his proximity. “You’re making me pinky promise?”
Sighing, I wrap my finger around his. “BFFs.”
Colton is waiting in his car and ends a call with Sas when I slip into the passenger seat, dropping my bag into the footwell.
“All set?”
“Yeah,” I tell him, genuinely happier than I’ve felt in days for seeing Tanner, trying not to listen to my inner voice yelling,I don’t want to be friends.
Colton’s quiet in a way that feels loaded. Call it sibling intuition. So I’m not surprised when he tells me, “Annie, we need to talk about Auston.”
My Tanner-zen is zapped in an instant.
Colton scratches his head, procrastinating.
“Say what you’ve got to say, Colton.”
His face contorts but he must decide against griping at me. “The rumors about the trade are true. Auston requested a trade and our GM thinks it’s a good deal. Coach wanted to give Pace, Omar and me a heads up and ask our views, but ultimately, if the GM thinks it’s a good deal?—”
“What did you say?” I ask calmly.
“That I don’t want him.”
“How about Omar and Tanner?”
“Omar told it how it is. And Pace. He said he’d work with Lamar to make him the best quarterback we can.”
“He doesn’t want Auston here?”
He rolls his jaw. “He doesn’t want Auston near you and our family. But everyone knows how well Auston and I used to play together.”
