Page 26 of Offside Angle

The question I absolutely do not intend to answer.

I turn toward the window instead, because apparently clouds are suddenly fascinating. My jaw is tight, my leg starts bouncing under the seat, and I have to force it still before he notices that too. The music is leaking faintly from the headphones around my neck, but I couldn’t tell you what song is playing if my life depended on it.

Because the annoying part is that he’s right.

Nothing happened.

That’s the whole problem.

Nothing happened, and somehow I spent years pretending that one night meant less than it did. Now he’s sitting beside me, completely at ease despite all the time between us, while I’m over here convinced he showed up carrying a match and set fire to something I’d spent years ignoring.

Santi doesn’t say anything else. For once, he seems perfectly content to leave the silence alone, which is almost worse than the teasing because now there’s nothing stopping me from hearing my own thoughts.

I keep staring out at the clouds and pretend that counts as winning. It doesn’t.

Later that evening, we’re checked into the hotel. Damian paired me with Jace for the room, which I don’t mind. The kid’s quiet and respectful, and right now I could use the low-pressure company.

Dinner is loud and full of energy. The whole team is crammed into a long table at the back of the restaurant, along with Zara and Santi. Plates are being passed around, drinks are flowing, and the conversation is a constant mix of trash talk, game analysis, and pure nonsense. Everyone seems to be shaking off the loss from Game 2 in their own way.

I’m sitting between Jace and Shane, doing my best to stay focused on them. I’ve got my phone in my hand, texting Lena between bites, and trying to keep up with whatever ridiculous story Jace is telling. Every so often I feel eyes on me. I don’t have to look to know it’s Santi. He’s sitting a few seats down, talking to Zara, but every now and then he glances in my direction. I ignore it. I keep my head down and stay in my conversation.

It works until Shane opens his mouth.

He leans in from my other side and squints at me for a few seconds, which immediately puts me on edge. I know that look. I’ve known Shane long enough to know exactly what happens when he goes quiet and starts studying somebody like that, and unfortunately he’s known me just as long.

“Dude,” he says eventually, loud enough to cut through the noise around us. “Do I need to do a ritual on you? You have weird vibes.”

Water goes straight down the wrong pipe.

I cough into my fist while Jace immediately starts smacking me between the shoulder blades like I’m actively dying. A few heads turn farther down the table, including Santi’s, because apparently public humiliation wasn’t already going well enough tonight.

Shane, meanwhile, looks delighted with himself.

I finally get my lungs under control and glare at him. “What the fuck, Shane?”

He shrugs. “You’ve been off since this morning. Thought maybe you got cursed or something.” Then, because he’s Shane, he adds completely seriously, “I know a guy.”

I groan and drop my forehead into my hand while Jace chokes back a laugh beside me.

The irritating part isn’t even that Shane noticed.

Of course he noticed.

We’ve spent years in locker rooms together, on buses, in hotels, through winning streaks, losing streaks, injuries, playoffs, and enough terrible team dinners that he knows exactly what I look like when I’m pissed, exhausted, distracted, lying, or pretending none of the above applies. The problem is that he recognizes every version of me almost immediately, and I’ve never figured out how to stop him.

Across the table, Santi is still watching, which makes Shane’s sudden interest in my emotional well-being about ten times more inconvenient.

“I’m just tired,” I say, forcing out a laugh and waving him off. “Long day. Long flight. You know how it is.”

Shane’s stare doesn’t change.

Wonderful.

I try to move us along before he starts listing symptoms. “Anyway, did you see that save Roman made in the third? That was fucking insane.”

That earns me a look.

The bastard knows exactly what I’m doing.