Page 27 of Halftime

“Sure,” he told Cooper. Question asked and answered between us with a look. That’s what two years of dating did.

Cooper turned to go back down the stairs. I started to slide off the bed, grabbing the embarrassing paper to put in my backpack. Seb stood up and headed for the door.

“I’ll grab Cooper before they order to make sure one pizza doesn’t have mushrooms. He loves them and puts them on every pizza if someone doesn’t stop him.”

I smiled up at him from my position squatting on the floor. That knowledge, about how much I hated fungi, also came from being as close as we had.

“Thanks.”

* * *

Sebastien

I gave Cooper a shove when I got to the kitchen. “At least one of those pizzas better not have mushrooms on it. Faith hates mushrooms.”

Cooper turned with a big grin. “I bet you didn’t even have to ask her what she wanted.”

“No, because we’ve had a lot of pizza together. We dated for almost two years, idiot.”

“You two looked pretty cozy up there.”

I held my hands up in a T.

“Timeout, Coop. I need you to be serious.”

Cooper could be a brat, but he knew when to turn it off. “What is it, Hunter?”

“Faith and I are just friends. Don’t mess that up for me.”

He watched me for a minute, expression serious. “Okay. Welcome to Team Single. Ready to have fun?”

“Right now, I’m ready for pizza. Just leave the rest.”

He shrugged and called the pizza place.

Faith fit in like she’d been here with us before. We ate pizza, played some video games, and talked hockey. Faith called Cooper Blondie, to the amusement of the rest of the guys in the house. It was nine o’clock when she checked the time and said she had to go.

“Turning into a pumpkin, Dev?” Cooper asked.

“No, Blondie, just gotta do some reading and get up early for class.”

Cooper shook his head. “Freshman mistake. Don’t take those early classes.”

Faith threw a pillow at him. “Nice for you guys. You have afternoon practice. Ours has to be over before you start, so our schedules get fucked up.”

Cooper looked surprised. Yeah, that hadn’t occurred to me either until Faith had talked about the conflicts between the teams. But she was shoving on her shoes at the door, so I followed her.

“I’ll walk you.”

She nudged me with her shoulder. “I’m good.”

“I’ll walk you.”

Moo U was pretty safe, but no place was a hundred percent safe, especially for women. Plus, I was enjoying hanging out with her. If we hadn’t been friends first, I don’t think we’d have dated so long. The air was cool, and the stars were bright. We walked in relative quiet. There were only a few students out at this time of night. I didn’t know where Faith was staying, but now I would.

I was glad I’d seen her under that tree. I wanted to do the friends thing. We got to her res. One of the WE ones. I bet her dad was behind that.

“Thanks for the walk, Seb.” She turned to open the door of her building.

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