Page 72 of Broken As Puck

Threads of anxiety knitted together in my gut. Jesse’s clothes were dumped at the foot of the bed, giving me more reason to believe he’d gone straight to sleep, but he could be surprisingly observant at times. What if he’d noticed Chelsey in my bed before he’d fallen asleep?

He wouldn’t say anything, would he? Not with her job on the line—not to mention the team’s future. Our relationship might not be explicitly against the rules, but it wasn’t the best look either.

Another possibility occurred to me and my chest squeezed. What if Chelsey hadn’t knocked on my door at all and the whole thing had been an incredibly vivid dream?

I dropped my head back onto the pillow and buried my face in it.

Ah, there it was. A faint, sweet, fruity scent. Like her hair. She’d lain here beside me, all right; she’d just left at some point during the night.

I breathed in the scent and then turned my pillow over. If Jesse hadn’t seen her, then I didn’t want to give him any reason to start asking questions. I got up and padded to the bathroom, where I shut and locked the door behind myself. There wasn’t anywhere easy for me to dispose of the condom outside of our room, so I wrapped it in toilet paper so at least he wouldn’t be able to see it and sprayed my deodorant to cover any post-sex musk.

That done, I turned on the shower and waited for the water to warm up. There were strange things going on in my chest. It felt too tight and a little light at the same time. It hurt that Chelsey had snuck out of the room without waking me, but I also understood it. She needed to protect her professional reputation. I just hoped that was the only reason she’d been sneaky, and that she hadn’t woken with regrets.

If she’d changed her mind, it would devastate me.

I showered, dried, and by the time I emerged into the bedroom with a towel wrapped around my hips, Jesse was sitting upright in bed, blinking blearily.

“Why are you awake?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. His golden-blond hair stood up at funny angles and he was clearly tired, but he didn’t seem hungover, which was a pleasant surprise.

“It’s not that early.” I checked the time on my phone. “We’re actually due to leave in ninety minutes.”

“Ugh.” He swung his legs off the side of the bed, stood in one fluid motion, and stretched. “I need coffee.”

“You and me both.”

While I got dressed, he gathered a pile of things and disappeared into the bathroom. He was out by the time I was ready. His eyes were as bright as ever and I wanted to cuff him over the back of the head. No matter how big of a night he’d had, it never seemed to bother him the next morning. If only I had his metabolism.

Together, we took the stairs down to the hotel restaurant and helped ourselves to food from the buffet. I stacked my plate high and carted it over to a table along with a glass of water, then returned and used the coffee machine to fix myself a much-needed caffeine boost.

I took a sip and savored the rich, bitter taste. So good. I swallowed another couple of mouthfuls until I was beginning to feel more human and then set it down and got to work on my mountain of omelet.

As I ate, I looked around, curious whether Chelsey had made it downstairs yet. She wasn’t sitting with Kim and Patrick from the documentary crew, nor was she anywhere else that I could see.

“Who are you looking for?” Jesse asked around a mouthful of food.

Busted.

“No one,” I said, not convincingly at all.

He smiled sympathetically. “Still no luck with a certain blonde?”

“Drop it.” I knew he was teasing, but it was dangerous to make comments like that. The wrong person might overhear him.

He arched an eyebrow. “You wouldn’t be this cranky if you’d come out with us last night. We met the nicest group of women. It might have been just what you needed to take the edge off your mood.”

I didn’t ask questions. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they’d gotten up to. There was every chance we’d see a photo of his naked ass plastered across social media one of these days. Discretion wasn’t something he was capable of.

We finished breakfast without Chelsey showing her face, and I couldn’t sit beside her on the bus either. I got there before her, and unfortunately, Nick claimed the spot beside me. Without any reason to tell him to get lost—at least not one I could share—I had to bite my tongue and settle for staring down the aisle at the back of her head.

On the plane, she sat with the documentary crew, and it was only when we landed and were driven back to the stadium, where our cars were, that I was finally able to get anywhere near her.

I caught up to her as she was crossing the parking lot toward her SUV. It was cold outside and she wore a jacket. I wished I’d thought to put one on too, but I’d been preoccupied with catching her.

“Can we talk?” I asked.

She glanced around, no doubt noting that not everyone from the team had left yet. “Only if you’re willing to say it right here. If I invite you into my car with me, people will notice.”

“That’s fine.” No matter what I wanted, I was not going to push her into anything she wasn’t ready for. I lowered my bag to the ground, not sure how long we would be standing there for.