Page 23 of Power Play
I hate that I want to see where it leads.
The rest of the day drags like a Monday in January. I answeremails. I eat half a wrap, and I avoid looking at my phone until I can’t resist.
MURPHY: Pub again tonight? Low key. No posing. Promise.
I stare at it. Then type back.
SOPHIE: Define “low key.”
MURPHY: You don’t have to wear heels.
SOPHIE: I’m still not buying the first round.
MURPHY: We both know you will.
I don’t answer that one. But an hour later I’m in front of my wardrobe, muttering at a pile of tops as though they personally betrayed me.
We meet outside the pub and thankfully it’s quieter than last night. No shouting teammates, no photo ops. Just us.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hey.”
We walk in together. There’s no touching, no leaning. Just silence that crackles.
He buys the first round and I raise an eyebrow. “Told you I could be classy,” he says.
I snort. “Still waiting on the evidence.”
We sit in a booth. Two drinks in, the tension starts to fade. Three drinks in, we’re back in the rhythm of jokes and teasing, Murphy trying to get a rise out of me and me pretending not to let him.
Four drinks in and I forget we’re not real.
He reaches across the table, brushing a strand of hair from my face, and my breath catches. It’s stupid, but my heart flips. He sees it. Of course he does.
“I meant what I said last night,” he says, voice low.
“Murphy…”
“We don’t have to do anything,” he says quickly. “Just… I needed you to know I wasn’t acting.”
I stare at him, and for once, I have no witty comeback. Just this growing, impossible thing inside me I can’t name.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MURPHY
There’s a certain power in walking into an arena and knowing exactly who’s here to see you.
I’m not talking about the crowd or the sponsors. Not even the couple of girls by the boards who waved and flashed homemade signs with my name in glitter last week, although, shout out to the real ones.
No. Tonight, it’s Sophie.
And she’s sitting front row, centre ice, right next to the bench. Wearing this fitted black coat like she’s about to steal someone’s boyfriend and give a TED Talk about it. She’s not smiling. Well, not exactly, but her lips curve at the corner when she sees me looking, and that’s worse. That’s deliberate. That’s dangerous.
“Oi.” Ollie smacks me on the shin with his stick. “You planning on playing tonight or just eye-shagging your missus for sixty minutes?”
I jab his shoulder with my elbow. “She’s not my… shut up.”
