Logan didn’t even look up from his beer. “I’m still waiting for the stabbing part.”
Adam grinned. “You would. Anyway, love ruins good nights out. Kieren’s proof.”
I snorted. “Yeah, I’ll pass.”
Adam’s eyes flicked toward me, grin turning sharper. “Oh, right. You and romance — oil and water. Or maybe nitroglycerin.”
“Don’t start,” I said, cutting him a look.
“Just saying,” he went on, undeterred as always, “you’ve looked tense lately. Like maybe you’re thinking about someone you shouldn’t.”
I didn’t answer.
Adam lived for reactions, and the best way to lose with him was to give him one. I focused on my drink, tapping my thumb against the glass, pretending I didn’t feel the heat creeping up my neck.
But Adam wasn’t stupid. He saw everything. “Got it,” he said, leaning back with a satisfied smirk. “Struck a nerve.”
Derek chuckled. “Careful, Hart. You poke the bear, you deal with the claws.”
“Please,” Adam said. “Mason’s claws are just for show. Underneath all that brooding, he’s secretly sentimental.”
That earned him a glare sharp enough to cut steel. “You done?”
He raised both hands. “Hey, I’m not judging. Just saying it’s good for you. Builds character.”
“Character’s overrated,” I muttered.
Derek raised his glass, smirking. “So is denial, but here we are.”
Logan finally looked up, eyes calm, voice quieter but somehow heavier. “He’s got a point, though. You’ve been… different lately. Focused, but not the usual kind of focused.”
I gave a dry laugh. “Didn’t realize I had a fan club tracking my emotional state.”
Adam grinned. “We’re teammates, man. It’s part of the job. Besides, you’re usually angry at everything. Now it’s like you’re angry at yourself.”
I stared into my drink, jaw tightening. “Drop it, Adam.”
That should’ve been the end of it, but of course, it wasn’t.
He smirked, eyes glinting like he’d found a crack in armor I didn’t even know I had. “Fine. I’ll drop it. But if this mystery girl’s the reason you’re suddenly skipping post-match drinks and showing up early for drills, she’s either a miracle or a disaster.”
Derek laughed. “Knowing Mason, probably both.”
They moved on; the conversation flowing toward something else — a new sponsor, a teammate’s bad haircut, the next away match. But I barely heard them.
Adam’s words stuck like a splinter.
Someone you shouldn’t be thinking about.
I finished what was left of my whiskey, the burn doing nothing to chase away the image that flashed through my mind — Ellery’s tired smile, her hair coming loose as she leaned over a stack of paperwork, the quiet steel in her voice when she told me I didn’t understand what showing up meant.
Yeah. Adam had struck a nerve all right.
And I hated that he knew it.
The whiskey had finally unclenched whatever knot I’d been carrying all day. For a minute the banter was just noise — good, soft, brotherly noise that let me forget the field and the cameras and the whole stupid headlines machine.
Then Derek leaned in, all grin and danger. “You hear about Kyle? Scouts from the national team are watching him next month.”
