Page 27

Grant

Brooke’s avoiding me; she bailed on us going to the thrift store after our night together, and my texts have gone unanswered for three days.

I'm walking out of the yoga studio where Brookes goes, having just attended a class, half hoping she would be there so I could corner her, and half because she says it's good for her mental health, and I wanted to give it a try. Can confirm it works, and I feel calmer.

My phone rings in my pocket, and I pull it out to see my mom's name on the screen.

“Hey, Mom”, I answer, grabbing my keys out of my gym bag as I approach the jeep.

“Hey sweetie”, her warm voice fills my ear, and I smile. I'm a mama's boy. Sure, I did the sports thing with my dad, but it was my mom I always ran to when I'm having trouble “Just wanted to check on you? Your texts were short this week”

Nothing gets past this woman. I had been in my head a lot this week. My night with Brooke had been amazing, but then she won't talk to me, and now I don't know what I've done wrong and how to fix it.

“Nah, I'm good, I just did a yoga class because I was feeling off” Chucking my bag in the back and hopping in, ready to get home.

“Oh, that sounds fun. Did you go with your new friend Brooke?” She's digging, and I smile to myself.

“No, I didn't, but our group's going out tonight for drinks, so I’ll see her then” I smile because even though we aren't talking, I can't wait to see her.

“Well, I won't keep you then, I just wanted to check you're ok, honey”

“I promise I'm a good mom, but thank you.” She always worries that I put too much pressure on myself, especially since I've already signed my NHL contract.

“ok, I love you”

“Love you too, Mom, speak soon” I hang up and put the jeep in drive to get home and change. We are going to the bar tonight, and I'm running behind.

I get back to our apartment and realise it has gone from a small group of us to the entire hockey team, figure skaters, and I spot the girls Brooke was with at the pool party split between our apartment and the girls.

I duck into our apartment, chuck my bag on my bed and change quickly, walking out and bumping straight into grinning Adam, shoving a beer into my hand.

“Any reason you stayed late to work out after the team left when you already put in the hours at the gym this morning?” he asks, raising his eyebrows up and down at me.

I stayed late to distract myself from the fact that Brooke lives next door to me, but won’t talk to me, but I’m not going to tell him that. “Just needed some extra time with weights.” I shrug, chugging the beer in one go.

“Huh? I thought you said you were going to do a run earlier.” He smirks at me, catching me in my lie, and I inwardly groan because I had said that. I didn't want the guys to know I went to the yoga class because they would have put two and two together and got Brooke.

“You’re supposed to be the unobservant one.” I narrow my eyes at Adam and shove past him, hearing him bark out a laugh as I head toward the girl’s apartment to look for Gunnar.

The girl’s apartment always has a different vibe from ours on party nights, with more music and games, whereas ours is Mario Kart and poker. I find Gunnar talking to some rookies on the balcony.

He nods to me as I scan the inside of the apartment and see Brooke sitting on the floor in front of the coffee table with some other girls playing a card game, and as if she can sense me looking at her.

She looks up, and our gazes lock before she quickly looks down, blushing, before she stands up and heads down the hallway toward her room.

“What time are we heading out?” I ask Gunnar, not looking at him, but keeping my eyes trained on Cami, who’s playing flip cup on the island.

“Uh, I think in about twenty,” he says, checking his phone and trying to keep in the conversation with the rookies he is standing with, so I take the advantage of everyone being distracted and slip down the hallway with no one noticing.

She’s either in the bathroom or her room, and I gamble on her room. I gently ease the door open and slip inside; she’s facing her mirror across from the door, and her eyes widen when she spots me.

“Hi,” she whispers, not turning around and still looking in the mirror, grabbing the end of her ponytail and twirling it.

“Oh, so you will talk to me.” I raise my eyebrows, leaning against the door and crossing my arms. More so, to stop myself from touching her and giving her space.

“Would you believe I dropped my phone down the toilet?” She finally turns around and gives me a sheepish look, biting her lip nervously.

“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 she immediately 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 I can’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.