Page 29 of Tempting the Teammate
I was a reminder of the new reputation that followed him everywhere. And while he could take it all in good spirit as a joke and nothing more, when the bill was settled and the day was over, he had to sit with me and have that hang over his head.
As if I wanted everyone to daydream about me having a crush on Griffin. As if I wanted people to write stories about the thing I could never, ever have. As if it didn’t hurt like hell that some fictional versions of us sat in this very booth and held hands secretly under the table, or went to the movies just so we could be in the dark other than the dark confines of our little room.
Damn this school and its marketing department. Damn this series.
Our burgers arrived, and Griffin thanked the cute waitress like she’d just given him the first sip of water after crossing the Sahara on foot. He winked at her after she had shared a particularly sweet smile with him and called him by his name.
I reached for my plate and took a bite. It got stuck in my throat immediately, choking me until tears welled in my eyes. It was a ridiculous, stupid, childish way to behave.
I set my burger down.
“Something wrong?” Griffin asked.
I shook my head. “I’m not that hungry, actually.”
“I’m starving.”
He ate, finishing his half of the fries and digging into mine after shooting me a pleading look. I nodded. Throughout it all, I managed a couple more bites, and I agreed to have half of the accidental onion ring that had appeared in our fries. “It’s bad luck not to split it,” Griffin said.
When he finished his food and wiped his lips with a napkin, he lifted his gaze to meet mine for the briefest of moments. Deep shame filled his hazel eyes as he averted his gaze.
Right.
That was the feeling I provoked in him.
I’d never wanted to be in this stupid thing. I’d had a million reasons not to do it.
And only one reason to go through with it.
The one that had always been the reason for all the things I’d ever done. Griffin Shaw.
“Griff,” I said, looking at him while he seemed interested in a sticky spill of juice on the floor. He peeled his gaze off the stain and looked at me, still guilty and ashamed. “Is there anything we need to talk about?”
His eyebrows twisted into a confused frown, the fakest he’d ever pulled off. “No?” He shrugged, looking up as if a higherpower would grant him the wisdom to understand what I was talking about.
I nodded. “Cool.”
Silence lingered between us until he loosened his tense shoulders a little. “It’s stressful, Andrei. Let’s just relax and be chill.”
“Be chill. Got it.” I inhaled, held my breath, then exhaled. “I can do that.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded.
“We’d better go back to finish this episode,” he said, checking the time on the wristwatch I’d bought him for his eighteenth birthday. I’d been saving money for six months to be able to afford it because we’d passed the corner shop where they sold watches together, and he’d stopped to point it out.
Even now, I remembered the feeling of knowing that he would never want me even remotely as much as he’d wanted that watch.
We went back to Jen and her team, who’d just finished their lunch break and were testing the equipment for an outdoor shoot. The idea was to have us walk off campus, wander through the city, and talk about our childhood together.
I summoned the memories and the courage and did just that.
The day went on and on and on as we went to the pier to toss pebbles into the lake, stopped for drinks at a basement bar, and made fake plans for the evening together. As if we weren’t going to go our separate ways as soon as the cameras stopped rolling.
We would have done all these things, once upon a time. Before our friendship had been put before the eyes of the world, we would have simply enjoyed each other’s company. But now, we had to fake it, waiting eagerly for the day to be over so we didn’t have to be near each other.
So I counted off the minutes until Jen said they’d gotten everything they needed for the episode.
