Page 81 of Lovefool

My eyebrow shoots up. “Have you been eavesdropping on us?”

“In my defense, you guys talk at an abnormally loud speaking volume,” Foster ribs.

Oh, the amount of times my significantly smaller teammate has made me want to throttle him. He has no sense of personal space or any social etiquette whatsoever. It’s what I love about him.

“None of this is up to me. It’s up to Coach,” I clarify, nodding toward the hulkingly large figure sitting at the front of the bus. Even from far away, his aura is imposing, and I probably couldn’t touch the authority that man wields with the tip of my pinky finger.

Somebody flicks me in the back of the head and I hiss, holding the affected area while listing to the side to get a look at my attacker.

Surprisingly, Harlan is the culprit, uncharacteristically calm despite his nervous chihuahua disposition. “We can’t do this without you, Sutton. You’re a pillar of this team. Even if we did win…it wouldn’t be a celebration unless you were out there playing with us.”

Crew has one of his earbuds in—either blasting his FUCK IT UP playlist or entertaining one of Merit’s wholehearted yapping sessions from a measly hundred miles away. She would’ve tailed after us if she didn’t have an in-person midterm that she couldn’t miss.

I never really understood Merit and Crew. I mean, I did, but not on a deeper level. I thought that kind of love—the kind that transcends a father’s approval or a long-held grudge against the hockey player species as a whole—didn’t exist in real life. Star-crossed lovers were a thing of fairy tales. I never questioned how much they cared for each other, but I couldn’t wrap my head around dedicating so much of yourself to another person.

Until now.

I can’t imagine my life without Lake in it. I can barely go a few hours without bothering her. And sure, the threat of losing her often looms in my mind like a storm sweeping across the horizon, but I’d rather love and lose than never love at all.

I scan Crew’s face with a subtle rove of my eyes, and judging by the boyish smile tilting over his mouth, the crinkles springing up at the corners of his eyes, and the softness of his overall gaze, it’s clear Led Zeppelin isn’t who’s beating against his eardrum.

“Don’t worry about Coach. I’ll talk to him. Most of us have gotten into worse fights. He’d be a hypocrite to bench one of our strongest players,” Crew remarks, steadfast, his tone free of doubt as if he’s suddenly become omniscient since the last time I spoke to him.

I appreciate the faith he has in me, even if it makes my belly pitch like the bus just rolled over an unsuspecting pothole.

Lake—my sweet, sweet Lake—stares up at me, echoing their proclamations without ever opening her mouth. She’s a human-sized sieve for all the bad thoughts I have in my head, bending the edges of my self-doubt with her superhuman compassion.

My next sentence grates up my throat, getting stuck somewhere because of a sudden blockade of tear-jerking emotion. “Thanks, guys.”

Lake caresses the side of my face. “You’ve got this. And I’ll be with you every step of the way, no matter what happens.”

“I can’t believe Foster let me switch rooms with him,” Lake says, dropping her duffel bag onto the floor of the hotel room and launching herself onto the neatly made bed.

I snort. “Foster is a sex enthusiast. Pretty sure he’d trade a kidney to hear us bang.”

My girlfriend, starfish-splayed on the gigantic mattress, lifts her head in amusement. “Are we?”

I stoop over to open the mini fridge and place my water bottle inside. “Are we what?”

I have no idea why my sensibility is on sabbatical right now, but it wouldn’t take a genius to anticipate her next set of words. Unfortunately for me, I suck at reading social cues and usually take Foster’s playful teasing with a grain of salt.

“Are we going to bang?”

There’s no time to brace for impact, and there’s certainly no room to misinterpret her words. A flash-chill scales up my spine, no doubt draining all the color from my face and draping me in a fine layer of sweat that’s going to show through my shirt in a matter of seconds.

I rush to stand up, hitting my cranium on the protruding edge of the television stand before dropping back down again like an anchor.

“Shit,” I growl, rubbing the tender spot on my head.

The truth is, having sex with Lake wasn’t on my mind until Foster so valiantly gave up his side of the room so we could be together.

Lake teleports to my side in the blink of a strained eye, assessing the damage and cooing over me like this tiny little bump will morph into a concussion. For someone who sat on a bus for three hours, she still smells like she rolled through a field of fresh strawberries. Her hands are all up in my hair—non-sexually, I might add—and I genuinely fear that I’ll start thumping my foot against the ground like a dog if she scratches in the right spot.

“I don’t see any bleeding,” she relays, though her medical examination is the last thing I’m focused on.

God, she’s so close to me right now. We’re barely even an inch apart.

My self-restraint stretches tauter than a rubber band on the verge of snapping, and the rational part of my brain returns to leash the atavistic hunger that’s about to consume me completely.