Page 2 of Playing for Keeps

We’d had a great time. Dunking each other in the lake, playing golf together, spending long summer nights out on the porch spinning our usual shit. The whole weekend, things had seemed charged between us.

We were both provisionally signed to the Marauders training squad, so yeah, anything that happened between Ethan and me would have to be on the down low.

But I didn’t care about that.

I was about to be a professional rugby player. I had the rugby world at my feet. All I needed now was Ethan by my side.

On the last morning in Wanaka, we’d gotten up at five o’clock to hike up Mount Iron. At the top we’d sat shoulder to shoulder and watched the sunrise.

“Shit, it’s beautiful,” Ethan said, staring out over the lake and mountains. “Makes you glad to be alive.”

Being around Ethan made me glad to be alive. But I didn’t want to say that.

“Yeah.”

Ethan turned to look at me, and I didn’t know if I’d been quick enough to hide the hunger on my face.

He bit his lip, and the action drew my attention to his full, pouty mouth. When I lifted my gaze back to his, his eyes seemed to burn with heat.

My heart pounded in my ears. What would he do if I leaned in and kissed him? For all our messing around, we’d never come close to kissing. Kissing was different, kissing was deliberate, kissing would actually mean something.

But I hesitated, and then the sounds of more people arriving at the summit shattered the moment.

I’d replayed those few seconds almost constantly since, cursing myself for hesitating. Because on our descent, Ethan had got a call. His mum’s MS had flared up and she’d been rushed to hospital, so we’d headed back to Christchurch early. Then, on the day his mother got out of hospital, my dad sprung a surprise graduation present on me—a trip to Australia. By the time I got home, Ethan had already started his seven-day-a-week back-breaking holiday job. I’d hardly seen him, let alone had time to work out whether the heat I’d glimpsed in his eyes that morning had been real or a figment of my hopeful imagination.

Maybe Ethan had decided to be braver than me now, to actually address this thing simmering between us.

“How was your day?” he asked.

I wrenched my thoughts away from Wanaka and answered honestly. “It was shit, actually. A bit of family drama.”

A “bit” was the understatement of the century. Perhaps the millennia.

Ethan’s eyebrows shot up. “I thought I owned the family drama card in this friendship.”

“I’ve stolen it from you and it’s mine now.”

“You want to talk about it?”

I hesitated. An hour ago my twin sister, Char, had announced she was pregnant, and my parents were currently going apeshit. We weren’t the type of family in which daughters got knocked up at eighteen.

Char had been uncharacteristically stubborn, insisting she was keeping the baby. She’d also refused to say who the father was.

I’d had to leave partway through the argument, so discussing it now felt premature when nothing had been decided. Besides, I was desperate to know what Ethan wanted to talk about. “Nah, it’s okay. Anyway, what’s up with you?”

Ethan hesitated. His eyebrows drew together, turning his face uncharacteristically serious. “We’ve been friends for what…twelve years now?”

“Fuck, your maths is good. Ms. Bowman would be so proud,” I teased, naming our Year Nine maths teacher, who hadn’t been Ethan’s favorite person. They’d had differing opinions about whether Ethan’s sense of humor helped or hindered the rest of the class learning maths. I still laughed when I remembered Ethan asking Ms. Bowman if we could debate maths, trying to lure her into saying “maths debate”. It was the kind of thing that amused us at thirteen.

Ethan smiled. “Yeah, I’m sure I’m her favorite ex-student.”

“The emphasis being on ex,” I joked.

His smile faded. “The point is, I don’t want anything to change that. Our friendship, I mean.”

“Nothing’s going to change it,” I promised.

Was that what he was worried about? That if we tried for more and failed, we wouldn’t be friends anymore?