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“Considering you are holding it, Brooke, no.” I can’t help but laugh. “I’ll give you one more try, though.” I uncrossed my arms and held up one finger to her, stepping towards her like a lion stalking its prey.

“Aliens hacked my phone?” Her eyes widen as I approach her, and she poses it as a question, and we both look at each other for a beat before laughing.

“I’m sorry,” she groans, covering her eyes. I move forward the final bit of distance between us, finally hugging her, and sheimmediately wraps her arms around me, putting my mind at ease.

“What happened, Brooke?” I ask her quietly, resting my chin on top of her head, still holding her, just giving her the time to tell me when she’s ready.

“I don’t know,” she whispers into my chest. “I used my alien excuse, so I feel like I need to be honest.”

I sigh and lean back, looking down at her, using both hands to brush some loose hair back out of her face and smoothing my thumb over her cheek softly.

“I wasn’t ready for us to just go back to normal.” She sighs, stepping away from me and my touch to sit on her bed, making me frown at the distance she’s putting between us, but I sit down next to her. “I guess I’m just not good with the whole casual thing, and I thought I might make it awkward between us, so I avoided you, but then I’ve made it awkward, anyway.”

Scrunching my face up in confusion because when did I say this was casual? I mean, I hadn’t said a lot about what this was because Cami interrupted us the morning after, but I had wanted to talk about us continuing whatever this is.

I have fun with Brooke; I don’t want it to be a one-time thing.

“Broo—” I try to explain what I want, but she interrupts me, putting a hand on my thigh to stop me.

“No, you don’t need to say anything. I’m good, Grant, I just needed some time, and now we can move on and pretend it didn’t happen.”

She’s just saying this to reassure me she wants nothing else to happen between us, thinking that’s what I want, and Ican’t think of anything worse. “I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen,” I blurt out, turning my head to look at her, and she’s staring back at me with her mouth open, looking shocked. “I know casual seems to be the only thing you hear about me and girls.” Sighing, running my hands through my hair, frustrated. “But it’s not like that with you.”

“I don’t understand,” she says so quietly it’s a whisper, playing with her fingers in her lap.

“I think what we have is great, and I want to keep doing it.” I pull the band-aid off and fully sit up, turning towards her, and wait for her to stop staring at me like I’ve got three heads.

“Grant,” she says, sucking in a breath and shaking her head once she seems to have regained her ability to speak to me. “I’ve just got out of a long-term relationship. I’m not looking to start anything new.”

“Neither am I,” I rush to say, because the reality is that my whole life is hockey. I don’t have time for a girlfriend or a relationship that takes time away from my commitments. But this could be the perfect way for us to still have fun together, without any romantic commitment.

“So, what are you saying?” She frowns, shuffling back a little, bringing one leg up onto the bed to look at me better. “You don’t want to forget it, but you don’t want a relationship.”

“Maybe we could just keep having ‘fun,’” I offer, air-quoting the word fun and taking her hand in mine. “No set rules or guidelines; just whenever we want to?”

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” She sighs while looking at our intertwined hands. “What about our friends? And hockey? The Drop? Won’t this get in the way?”

“That’s a lot of questions I don’t have answers to right now, but why don’t you think about it?” I don’t want to come off like I’m begging, but I can’t have only had one time with Brooke. I know that there have to be more of us. “Let’s go out tonight and think about it.”

She nods hesitantly, pulling her lips between her teeth, already overthinking. I stand up and pull her up next to me, opening my arms for a hug that she melts into. “Don’t go three days without speaking to me again, though,” I mumble into her hair, taking a deep inhale of her raspberry shampoo; I missed being near her.

“So clingy,” she mumbles, and I laugh, feeling her shake with laughter as I pull back and we stare at each other, and I feel that pull again.

I can tell by the way she’s looking at me, she can feel it too, and I lean down, right before our lips touch, I hear footsteps coming up the hall outside her door and jump back as Cami opens the door. “B, we are getting ready to—” she bursts in and stops talking when she spots us. “What’s going on?”

Brooke and I look at each other, guilty. I can’t come up with a good enough reason to be in here that won’t make Cami explode. “Um, I was—” I say, planning to blurt out the first thing that comes to my mind.

“I was showing Grant the mattress,” Brooke cuts me off, walking over to the mattress that’s still leaning against the wall since Gunnar and I placed it there when she moved in and patting it. “He might want to buy it.”

I widen my eyes, fully turning to her and the mattress, and she’s blushing while nodding her head at me with wide eyes, encouraging me to continue.

“Uh, yeah.” I run a hand through my hair, nervously turning back to Cami and shrugging. “I’m in the market for a new mattress.”

“What is it with you boys and used mattresses?” Cami throws her hands up with a disgusted look on her face. She then points a finger at me accusingly. “I know you can afford a new mattress, Grant Anders. Don’t be stingy.”

“I’m not stingy,” I defend myself before turning to Brooke; she already thinks enough bad stuff about me. I don’t need her adding cheap to the list. “I’m not! I’m not.”

She’s biting her lip, holding back laughter, and I can’t help but smile even though she’s thrown me under the bus again. Footsteps pound down the hall as Adam appears behind Cami; he’s more than a foot taller than her, so that he can see into Brooke’s room easily.