Page 21 of Shut Up and Score
He grins without looking at me. “Yeah. Thought so. You get that look. Like you’re… trapped or something.”
I laugh under my breath because it’s either that or spill everything. He’s not wrong. My whole life feels scripted for someone else—perfect grades, perfect team captain, perfect son. My parents don’t even have to say it out loud: Don’t screw this up. Don’t be different.
I want to tell him. God, I really want to tell him. That I like guys. That I like him. That I come out here every night because it’s the only place I can breathe.
My throat locks. My hands dig into the turf. If I say it and he pulls away, I lose the only real thing I have.
Instead, I nod at the sky and mutter, “Yeah. Trapped sounds about right.”
He looks at me then, eyes catching the practice lights, and bumps my shoulder with his. Warm. Close. A jolt straight to my chest.
“Guess we’ll just have to break out someday,” he says.
I force a laugh and lie back beside him, pretending I can wait that long.
Shaking myself out of the memory, I turn toward the showers, jaw tight, trying to erase the morning out of my head.
But the second I round the corner, I freeze.
Micah’s already there.
Steam curls around him like smoke, rising from the slick tiles and clinging to his skin. Is it possible to be jealous of water? Because I think I am. He’s facing the wall, water pouring over him in steady sheets, his arms braced high, hands splayed against the tile like he’s holding himself up with sheer force of will.
And he looks?—
Fuck. He looks incredible.
His back is a map of tension and muscle, broad and defined, every line carved as though it was sculpted, not built in a gym. The water runs in rivulets down the ridges of his spine, disappearing into the deep cut of his lower back before sliding over the swell of his ass—round, perfect,bitable. His lats flex with every breath, every twitch of his fingers. Even his ribs look like they’re made to be touched, marked, held down.
Shit.
His curls are longer than they were. Wet and heavy, curling against the nape of his neck, one thick lock trailing lower, brushing the slope of his shoulder blade,almostto his back. I want to touch it.Bury my hands in it. Fist it while he gasps my name.
He shifts, hips rolling slightly as he adjusts under the spray, and the movement damn nearlyundoesme. There’s something desperate in the way he stands there—as if he’s trying to scrub something off that won’t come clean. I know that feeling.
I should turn around. Should give it five minutes. Shouldnotbe staring at him like I want to pin him to the wall and finish what we started two years ago.
But I don’t move. Idevourhim with my eyes, jaw clenched tight to hold in a groan, and my towels suddenly too fucking tight around my waist.
My body reacts before my brain catches up—justseeinghim wrecks me. My dick hardens, painfully fast, straining against the knot of terry cloth at my hips. Heat slams into me, taking me by surprise. I curse under my breath, trying to shift, hide,anything.
And that’s when he turns.
Slow. Unbothered. Like heheardme. Like heknew.
His eyes land on me, drag down my body, to the hard line under my towel, then crawl back up to my face. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t blush. Doesn’t stammer or pretend he didn’t see.
He just smirks.
Slow. Lethal. Knowing.
As if he’s been waiting for me to look, and he planned this. That smirk slices through me, clean and cruel.
Still want me, huh?
The look in his eyesdaresme to deny it.
I swallow hard and force myself to move—step toward a different shower-head, back turned, heart hammering as if I just sprinted drills. Hanging up my towel and acting casual. Like I’m not seconds from losing it.
