Page 3 of Power Play
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve beenprioritising mental peace.”
He nods slowly. “Right. Peace that involves sniffing my hoodie when I’m not around?”
My jaw drops. “You absolute…”
He shrugs. “Dylan told me you kept it.”
“Iaccidentallykept it.”
“You accidentally wore it duringBake Off, according to Mia.” Betrayal. Pure and total betrayal.
I cross my arms. “Fine. Maybe I missed you. Doesn’t mean I want to do it again.”
“What? Miss me?”
“No.Kiss you.”
Murphy’s eyes don’t leave mine. “Why not?”
“Because… because it’s a bad idea.” I huff in an overly exaggerated manor.
He leans in, expression serious now, and his voice quieter. “It didn’t feel like a bad idea.”
And that’s the problem.
CHAPTER TWO
MURPHY
Idon’t get nervous. I’m not that guy. I chirp, I banter, I skate like hell and bounce off glass as though I’m made of rubber. I’m the easy-going one, the one people come to when shit gets heavy. But tonight? Tonight, I’m fucking terrified.
Because Sophie’s coming over, and somehow that’s turned me into a man who cleaned under his sofa cushions.
My place reeks of lemon polish and existential crisis.
I’ve got the match on in the background; playoffs, second leg, tight score, and the takeaway is already ordered. I even lit a candle. Who the hell am I?
When the door buzzes, I do this weird full-body twitch and nearly launch the remote across the room. I run a hand through my hair, like that’s gonna magically fix the mess on my head, and swing the door open.
She stands there in a denim jacket, with her hair piled up on the top of her head in a mass of curls, somehow it makes her cheekbones look sharper. She’s holding a six-pack in one hand and a smug grin in the other.
“Didn’t realise I had to climb three flights of stairs just to lose at FIFA,” she says, breezing past me as if she owns the place. “Where’s the console, Murphy? I came to humiliate you.”
I blink. “No hello? No ‘wow you look devastatingly handsome tonight’?”
“I thought we were being honest.”
Touché.
She tosses her jacket onto the back of the couch and makes a beeline for the TV. I watch her move like I’m not completely entranced, even though I am. Even though I’ve been thinking abouther since that team pub night weeks ago, when she rolled her eyes at one of Ollie’s god-awful jokes and gave me this look. That look that said she saw straight through my nonsense, and maybe liked me anyway.
We start playing and she’s better than I expected. Aggressive and ruthless. The kind of player who slide tackles in the penalty box and doesn’t even flinch when she gets a yellow. “Jesus, Soph. You playing to win or to wound?”
“Same thing,” she says, her eyes fixed on the screen. “You gonna cry if I beat you?”
I grin, but there’s a twist in my chest. Because I actually don’t want to win this one, not the way I usually do. I want to draw this out. Stay in this moment where it’s just us, controllers in hand, knees bumping on the couch and that tension hovering like smoke.
