Page 70 of The Longest Shot
“Another round!” Rachel shouts, already heading to the bar with determination, and watch out anyone who stands in her way.
I should stop her. Should enforce limits and maintain authority. But Mills has her arm around my shoulders, Sarah’s telling some story about her high school team that has Jen crying with laughter, and I realize I don’t want to be their captain right now.
I just want to be Morgan, twenty-one years old, making questionable choices.
“You good?” Mills asks, closer now, breath all cheap beer and possibility.
I look at her, this girl who followed me to build something from scratch and never once questioned why her captain was so cold. Who kept showing up, kept believing, and kept pushing me to be human even as we ran out of tape and had to take the ice at six in the morning.
“Yeah,” I say, smiling for once. “I’m good.”
Mills whistles low. “Who are you, and what did you do with our captain?”
“Morgan?”
I spin, recognizing the voice—Leo Cooper, looking about as comfortable as I do, which is to say he looks like he’d rather be literally anywhere else. That list might include an actual torture chamber, though at least there he’d know what to expect.
“Cooper.” I nod, trying for casual while my heart attempts to escape through my throat. If Cooper’s here?—
“He’s in the bathroom.” Cooper’s mouth twitches in what might be amusement. “Figured I’d save you the surveillance work.”
Heat floods my face, grateful for dim lighting. “I wasn’t?—”
“Sure.” He leans against the wall beside me, close enough to be heard but maintaining an appropriate distance. “Your team looks happy.”
I follow his gaze to where my girls have returned to the dance floor, then smile at him. “They played well tonight," I say.
“That’s not what I mean.”
I turn to look at him fully. "What?"
“They look happy because you’re here with them,” he says. “Being yourself instead of whoever you think you need to be.”
The words slide through my defenses, perfectly placed.
“Rook’s good at that, making people remember who they are underneath all their armor,” Cooper adds. “You bring the steel and the discipline…"
Something in Cooper’s steady gaze makes me think he sees everything. James suddenly working to be more serious, and me trying to open up at least a little.
“He’s trying,” I say. “To be better.”
Cooper nods. “He is. So are you. Together, you'd make a hell of a team.”
The weight of that statement sits between us, but before I can formulate a response that doesn’t admit James has already gotten further past my defenses than anyone in years,heemerges through the crowd and makes a beeline towards us.
His eyes find mine immediately, and the smile spreading across his face is bright enough to power the bar. I feel a weird combination of nausea and euphoria, like being at the top of a roller coaster knowing you’re about to drop but wanting it anyway.
Is this what normal people feel?
“Morgue," James says, as Cooper makes himself scarce. The nickname sounds different now. Less mocking, more endearing. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Team bonding,” I say, proud of how steady my voice sounds when my body feels electrified.
“You looked…” he starts, then stops, running a hand through his hair, which is his tell for trying not to say something stupid. “Happy, out there, dancing.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
“Too late.”
