Page 60 of While You Were Trending

“Breathing,” he gasps out.

“Why are you breathing in the dark?”

“Pretty—stars,” he grunts.

I finally succeed in removing my body from his, but I hover nearby, confused panic making me lightheaded enough that instead of standing, I sink back on my ass. “Did I break you?”

“No,” he moans. “I’m—I’m okay.”

I pull my knees to my chest while I listen to his labored breathing and watch in the darkness for any signs of movement.

“Serves you right for sitting in the dark,” I mutter.

“Really does,” he agrees, his voice still pained.

If this had happened five years ago, I would’ve been running to get him ice and apologizing incessantly and calling the team’s training and medical staff to ask how to treat a knee to the balls.

And honestly, if I’d done it to Heath, I’d probably have the same reaction, though he’s a former EMT, so he wouldn’t need a team’s staff to know what to do.

And he’d know what to do for Declan right now too if I wanted to text him.

But helping and apologizing to Declan?

The man brings out the worst in me now.

And I don’t hate it.

He huffs and hisses and catches his breath, and I sit there not exactly enjoying it, but not feeling as bad as I would’ve before.

He ruined my happy place.

His breathing evens out, and after three long, loud breaths, I get the creeping sensation up the back of my neck that tells me he’s looking at me in the dark.

“Areyouokay?” he asks.

The way that question irritates me…

But not because it doesn’t sound sincere.

More because itdoes.

“I’m fine.”

“You sure?” he says quietly.

“No, actually, I’m not okay. But I was before you decided to do your human speed bump impersonation.”

I start to rise, but he reaches out an arm in the darkness and stops me. “Stay. Look at the stars.”

“Iwaslooking at the stars.” And now, even if I go to another field, I’ll know that he’s out here too, doing the same thing.

“Did you eat today?”

“What?”

“Did you eat? You used to skip eating when you were stressed.”

This man exasperates me in ways I haven’t been exasperated since before I turned eighteen and got the hell out of my mother’s travel trailer. “What is this? What’s all of thisnice Declanstuff? You have your contract. You can film here. You got to see Mabel’s secret lair and we keep giving you gifts of unexpected chaos. You don’t have to keep kissing up to me.”