Page 63 of Chasing The Goal
“You said as friends.”
“Friends can buy lunch.”
She gave me a look. “You’re impossible.”
“And you’re stuck with me,” I said, standing to slide out of the booth.
She followed, wrapping her scarf around her neck as we headed for the door.
Outside, the air was cooler than it had been when we left our building, but the wind had died down. We fell into step without thinking about it, walking back toward the apartment like we’d done it a hundred times.
“Thanks for lunch,” she said quietly.
“Anytime.”
She looked over, eyes squinting slightly in the afternoon sun. “You know this feels like a date, right?”
I shrugged, smiling. “Only if you wanted it to.”
She laughed, but there was color in her cheeks now. “Good thing you said just friends. Otherwise I’d be very confused.”
“Me? Confusing? Never.”
She bumped my arm with her elbow. “Liar.”
And maybe I was. Because this? Whatever it was between us?
Jaymie
I didn’t mean tobring it up. Honestly.
I walked into the apartment still tasting the rosemary fries from lunch with Mallory, her laugh echoing somewhere behind my ribs like it lived there now, and I should’ve just gone straight to my room. Taken a shower. Worked out. Distracted myself like a grown adult.
But Logan was on the couch with his feet up, scrolling his phone and eating straight out of a container of chicken and rice like he was in a dorm room, not a pro hockey player with a million-dollar contract.
“Didn't we have plans to hang?” he asked without looking up.
“Sorry, Lunch went longer than expected,” I said, too casually.
“With?”
He looked up.
I didn’t answer. Just grabbed a Gatorade from the fridge and leaned against the counter like it didn’t matter.
“You’re bad at pretending things don’t matter,” Logan said.
I cracked the bottle open. “It was just lunch.”
“With Mallory,” he added.
I didn’t reply. Didn’t have to.
Logan smirked. “And?”
“And nothing.”
He laughed. “Dude, you’re vibrating.”
