“Yes. Yes, you do. For putting up with my vomiting.”
This makes him reconsider. “It was nothing,” he murmurs with a shrug, but there’s no more complaints when I read the menu out loud to him on our way back to the dorms.
***
“Soooo, how was training?”
I narrow my eyes at my brother’s voice. There’s a slight smugness drowning out the feigned innocence of his question.
“An experience,” I answer dryly before pressing on with my most stressful subject of the day. “What is theWordle?And what evenisa Wordle?”
Hart pestered me about a hint again on the way to the dorms. I’m lucky he hasn’t figured it out either, so I kept on pretending I was holding all the cards close to my chest. In reality, I’m clueless.
“It’s a word puzzle,” Nate explains with a sigh. “You have six tries to figure out the five-letter word of the day.”
“And what’s your deal with it?” I’m trapping my cell between ear and shoulder while I try to ice my knee and get my rehab stretches in at the same time. Hart is currently waiting downstairs for the delivery guy, so that gives me an opportunity to care for it without drawing his unwanted attention.
“It’s a superstition thing. If you solve it, you score in the next game,” Nate continues reluctantly. “Sometimes we set stakes.You know, like who solves the Wordle first doesn’t have to do laundry that day.”
Okay, this gets my attention.
“So, what’s today’s Wordle?”
“It’s lymph. But seriously, it’s not that diff–”
“Lymph?!”
“Yeah. You know, those little nodes you have under your arms and shit.”
“I’m a biology major; I know what fucking lymph nodes are,” I interrupt my brother’s anatomy lecture. I was about ten light years away from figuring that out, but the prospect of having Hart sort through my sweaty practice gear has me grinning.
“So, how was training?”
I grimace when Nate circles back to this.
“Apparently, you improved your stick handling a lot,” I decide to tell him as I throw my cooling pad onto the bed. The cell almost drops to the floor in the process so I miss his answer. “Want to know how you did it? By training with your lame-ass brother.”
Nate is quiet on the other end, and I immediately feel guilty.
I know those were Hart’s words, not Nate’s. I also know that I have always been the better stick handler, so I didn’t need to rub that one in. But fuck, it felt good to get that pat on the back after training.
“Xan doesn’t mean it, Nicko,” my brother tells me seriously, like he is whole-heartedly convinced that “lame-ass” leaves room for misinterpretation. “If you had given him a chance over the past three years, you would know that he’s a good guy. And also pretty lame himself.”
He says that last part teasingly, but I can’t help the eye roll. I want to point out that Hart wasn’t exactly trying to become my friend, before or after our viral interview with campus radio, when the door opens. Speak of the devil…
“Gotta run. And cheer up, little bro!” I chirp.
Fuck, I always wanted to say that.
“Lymph!” I yell before Hart can say anything. He’s peering down at me from behind a small stack of takeout boxes while I currently reside in the cobra position to give my body a good stretch.
“Lymph?” he repeats, black brows raised. His gaze travels down my curved spine, and I suddenly feel exposed.
“The Wordle,” I tell him as I sit up, pulling down the hem of my shirt. It’s unnecessary since he has already turned away to arrange our food on his desk. I wander over to pick up my order and carry it back to Nate’s side.
Stepping into his space feels weird—like I’m doing something forbidden.
“Oh. Well, I still had a guess left, so thanks for spoiling it for me.” He frowns, but there’s no real heat behind his words.
