Page 67 of The Triple Play

“So what do you suggest we do, then?” Xavi paused mid-step to look at me, his nostrils flaring. “Because I don’t want to go back to the room feeling like this.”

“Neither do I. But reliving it and kicking ourselves for our fuck-ups isn’t going to help right now,” I grunted, flicking off the shower and grabbing for a towel.

“Well it’s not like we can blow off steam the way we normally would,” Cole said, his voice steady as he crossed his arms over his chest. “We need an alternative to getting roaringly drunk at an after-party.”

Xavi’s jaw steeled, working as he turned to Cole. “You know they’re going to notice at some point, right?”

“Notice what?” I asked.

“That we’re not going out anymore. That we’re just going back to our room after each game.” Xavi looked between the two of us as if it was obvious. “She’s going to get spotted at some point. It’s a miracle no one’s questioned anything with this yet.”

Cole’s throat worked on a swallow. “I heard Seb say that he thought he saw one of the Smokey’s girls in the lobby in LA,” he said quietly.

“Fuck,” I hissed.

Cole sucked his teeth for a second, his eyes trained on the floor. “I don’t usually go to the after-parties?—”

“No.” The single word cut through the air from Xavi’s mouth like lightning.

“I’m just saying, if you two went, it would save face a little?—”

“Fuck that. No. Nope. Not a chance in hell, Cole, you know why?” Xavi snapped, turning on his heel to stare him down. “Because I’vebarelygotten a moment alone with her in the last five days. I haven’t gotten a night with her alone, she hasn’t left the suites with me, she hasn’t had more than five minutes with me without you two around. And you want me to go off to aparty? You want me to give up more time and let you take it?”

I blinked at them, wondering if I needed to step in. He wasn’t necessarily wrong. She’d either slept in bed with me or Cole or a combination of two or more of us the last few days, and we hadn’t really had much spare time to give to her with two days of practice and then three games in a row. And the moments we’d had… yeah, I’d stolen them or Cole had.

Shit.

“Xav,” I said hesitantly.

He spun on a dime, stalking toward me in the showers, his flip-flops kicking up water. “Don’t.Don’t. You’ve been half the problem here.”

“I know,” I swallowed, raising my hands in surrender. “I know. Calm down.”

“Calm down? Fuck off, Colton, you’d feel exactly the same in my position,” he hissed, crowding me, his slightly shorter frame meaning absolutely nothing when he was like this. Xavi could pack a punch, I’d felt it a handful of times, and I really didn’t want to be on the receiving end tonight.

“Xav, come on,” I said, backing myself up to the wall, trying to keep my voice level. “You’re acting like we’re trying to pull her away from you forever. She’s not some trophy, man, it’s just been a couple of days.”

I shot a quick glance over my shoulder at Cole, watching as he took a few steps toward us, his eye twitching. He really didn’t want to have to break this up, I could tell, but he was always the one who needed to if it got too much.

“I get it,” I said to Xavi, my voice a little softer. “I’d be upset, too, you’re right. Cole and I can go out for a drink or something and let you have some time with her tonight. Just don’t punch me in the face, Xav, I’m really not in the mood to nurse a black eye.”

Xavi’s eyes flashed, the muscle in his jaw tightening. “Don’t act like you understand. You don’t know what it’s like to actuallygive a shitabout someone and have to sit there and watch them slip through your fingers?—”

Cole moved at the same time as me.

Everything was a blur. My mask slipped, my body surged forward, my towel dropped to the floor. “Fuckyou,” I snarled, my hands shoving hard against his shoulders. My pulse thundered in my ears as he stumbled back into Cole, Xavi’s eyes wide, and Cole quickly spun and put himself between us as he tried to stabilize Xavi.

“Colton.” Cole put a hand flat against my chest. “He wasn’t thinking.”

“I don’t give a shit if he wasn’t thinking. He can’t just say things like that and expect me to not fight back every time.” My nostrils flared as I looked at Xavi over Colton’s shoulder. “You know damn well that I knowexactlywhat it’s like to care about someone and lose them. How fuckingdareyou insinuate that that’s anywhere close to what’s happening here.”

Xavi breathed heavily as his eyes went wide, realization clearly setting in. “Shit. Melody.”

At the mention of her name, images of that night flashed rapidly in my mind for the first time in months. The screech of the tires, the shattering of the windshield, the acrid smell of leaking gas, the splatter of blood across my shirt and shorts. Her scream, a sound that still occasionally haunted my dreams, mingling with the sickening crunch of metal and bones in the twisted wreckage that had been our parent’s car. The warm Florida rain in the dead of night, the sound of croaking frogs and twitching crickets, as I’d pulled myself from the wreckage and herarmhad come out with me.

My breathing was too quick, too uncontrolled. I hardly ever let this bubble to the surface, suffocating it down with jokes and confidence, but it was out, now. Xavi had cracked it open.

“Deep breaths,” Cole murmured. “Breathe, Colton. You know he didn’t mean it like that.”

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