Between the Pipes (Offsides #3)

by J.J. Mulder

I guess we’ll just have to date each other, he said earlier. Yes, please, I think, and surprise myself.

He blushes. Actually blushes: a sudden bloom of color over his cheeks. Jesus Christ that’s fucking adorable.

The scars are there—one long one bisecting an eyebrow and traveling across the corner of my eye, with a few smaller ones on my forehead. Somehow, he’s made the scars the least interesting part of my face. It’s how I wish I actually looked. “That is how you look,” Anthony says, and I jolt. I hadn’t realized I’d said that last out loud.

The touch is so delicate, compared to what we just did, it feels almost loving. And so begins the wishful thinking portion of tonight’s events.

Stay, stay, stay, loops around my brain like an unhelpful record.

It burns me how much I like him. I like him so fucking much I hate him.

Getting to know someone is exhausting, and after having done it so many times I’m pretty well sick of it. I want someone to stick, and I want that someone to be Nico. God help me.

Please, please, rely on me. Rely on me so much that you never ask me to leave.

Morgan maintains my eye contact, and I notice hurt in those blue eyes, hidden poorly with anger. Morgan—my tattooed, insolent, and snarky goalie—looks, for the first time since I’ve met him, exactly like an eighteen-year-old kid.

On my way out the door, I stop dead as I notice something hanging on the wall. Above his dresser, in a spot he’d see it every day, is the quick sketch I’d done and given him. It’s framed, and is the only piece of artwork he has hung up in the entire house. My eyes burn as I stare at it. He wouldn’t have kept it if I—we—didn’t mean anything to him.

I’d like, for once in my life, to get out of my own way and try to be happy. And if it all goes to hell, well, at least I can say that I tried.

My hoodie is in the closet, and my toothbrush is in the bathroom.” I scowl at him, fighting back an answering smile to his own. “That’s my hoodie that I appropriated from you. It doesn’t count.”