Page 14 of Nailing Heat

She giggles. “I can window shop. Jase is secure enough in our relationship to handle me staring at Dexter for a bit.”

“He likes to be called Dex,” I remind them. I’m not sure why, but I do.

Cassie nods and winks at me, “Is that what he instructed you to do?” Her voice drops to a low octave.

“He did not instruct me to do that, just asked.” I say, shaking my head.

“Girls! Let’s get warm. Come on, form that passing triangle,” Coach Watts yells over to us.

“Yes, Coach,” we all call over to him. Coach Watts came to us from Portland. He used to coach the Portland Thorns, but somehow the Cromwells were able to steal him away. He’s tall and with his wide shoulders, he can be intimidating. But he has kind blue eyes and is always ready to talk to a player who needs it. I’m told being a father has softened him; he has twin girls that are the apple of his eye. I love it when they come to the field. They can’t come on game days though. Those are for focusing, not for playtime.

We form a triangle and begin passing back and forth, like he asked, every so often changing the direction to make sure that we’re keeping each other on our toes. I can feel someone’s eyes on me, and I look over to see Dex watching me. As I’m looking at him and end up missing the ball.

“Hey, come on focus, Amelia,” Cassie says to me.

“You good, girl?” Mac asks.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry about that.” I run and fetch the ball. Bringing it back to our triangle, I restart the drill.

We keep on passing and working through it when out of nowhere, Cassie says, “Why does he keep on watching you?”

“Huh?”

“Dex. He is watching you. He is literally staring right at you,” she exclaims.

I look over and sure enough, he is. “He’s probably just watching the field, and it only looks like he’s watching me. Come on, keep on moving.”

We’re back to passing when Mac giggles, “No, he’s not watching the field, girl; he is looking right at you.”

I look over and see he’s staring in what looks like my direction. “Well, isn’t that creepy.”

“Maybe he must really like the view,” Cassie says, passing me the ball.

I send it back over to her. “Thankfully, we’re about to change drills, so he won’t have as good of a view.” I motion to where Watts is clapping his hands, signaling that it’s time for us all to bring it in.

I jog over and work on some keep-away drills with the girls that Watts assigned to my team. Of course, even though it was random, I still manage to have Cassie on my team.

“That was not a coincidence. He is still watching you.” Cassie points in the direction of Dex.

I turn in his direction and see he is still staring at me. I roll my eyes and wave at him. He nods his head slightly.

“Ohh, maybe someone has a crush on you,” she teases.

“Oh, fuck off, he’s known me for a hot minute,” I remind her.

“Maybe it’s love at first sight,” she grins.

“That only exists in the books I read. Not in real life.” I stare at her for a moment and then add, “Or maybe for you and Jase.”

She winks at me, and we go into our drill when it’s our turn.

When warm-ups finally finish, I walk over to grab my water bottle from the bench. It’s near where Dex is standing, so I continue over to him.

“If you take a picture, it will last longer.”

He looks over at me and removes his sunglasses, giving me the full effect of those green eyes. “What do you mean?”

“You were staring at me during warm-ups.”