down,” I muse. “Sounds like you’ve got it figured out.”
“We’ll see,” he says, raising his beer to his lips. He looks past the kitchen to the living room where Alejo is in a conversation with Kroos. “So, I’ve noticed you guys have been avoiding each other all night. Everything okay?”
I give him a steady look. “Everything is fine.”
“You won’t even talk to the birthday boy.”
“Maybe because if I do, people like you will think there’s something going on.”
“Is there still something going on?”
“Luciano, I’m one of your therapists. I’m not going to tell you anything. That’s something you can bug Alejo about.”
“I have. He won’t tell me shit.”
I smile to myself. Good boy.
“Maybe because there’s nothing to tell.”
He narrows his eyes at me in mock suspicion. “I don’t like it.”
“How about you concentrate on running that animal down?”
He grumbles something and heads off into the living room.
The movement catches Alejo’s attention, and his eyes go past Luciano, right to me, holding me in place. He gives me a small smile, pats Kroos on the arm, and then starts walking over to me.
Luciano was right; I have been avoiding Alejo just because I don’t want to inadvertently give him heart eyes or something. But perhaps it is a bit of strange behavior between us since we’re usually in close proximity to each other.
“Hola,” he says to me, stopping a few feet away and letting his eyes rake over my body before settling back on my face. “You look very beautiful tonight.”
It’s an innocent comment, but I still freeze up a little in case anyone heard that.
“Your hair is down.” He gestures to it with his beer. “And your dress is lovely. Maybe too lovely. Not sure I want my teammates admiring you the way they are.”
I roll my eyes at his possessiveness and lean back against the kitchen counter. “Okay, alpha male.”
“It’s just true,” he says. “And you’ve been avoiding me too.”
“You know why,” I say quietly.
“Afraid we’ll give something away?”
I glance around his frame at the other partygoers, but no one is paying us any attention in here. Still… “Maybe.”
“I’ve missed you,” he says, his voice so low and impassioned I have to do a double take. “Stay the night with me.”
“Won’t that be suspicious?”
“No one will know. Just stay. The last person to leave will be too drunk to notice you’re still here.”
“And your mom?”
“She has her own private suite, private entrance, and she’s asleep. She’ll be fast asleep all night. She doesn’t normally drink, but she had some wine and she’s going to be snoring.”
“I never thought I’d date a guy who still lived with his mother,” I muse teasingly.
“She lives with me,” he says. “Because that’s what a good son does.” Then he folds his arms across his chest and cocks a brow, chin raised. “And what is this about dating?”
I blush. Stupid of me to say that. I try to play it off. “Dating is a more polite term for fucking.”
A dark heat comes over his gaze. “You know you don’t have to be polite with me. I like it when you use that word. Fuck.”
We stare at each other for a few heavy moments and I have no doubt he’s feeling the same way that I am, the oh so intense desire to get completely naked and lose ourselves to some of that fucking.
Then out of the corner of my eye, I see someone moving toward us with an empty bottle, perhaps getting another drink.
I quickly turn around and fill my glass up with water again.
When I look back, Alejo is gone.
And the night goes on.
Eventually Mateo starts yelling at everyone to go home or he’s going to make them all suffer tomorrow. Something tells me that they’re already going to be suffering.
“Let’s go,” Vera says to me, grabbing her purse that’s stuffed beside me on the armchair.
“I’ll catch an Uber later,” I tell her.
“Suit yourself,” she says, and to my relief she doesn’t seem to give it much thought. Vera goes to join Mateo who looks at me expectantly, and I know she’s telling him I’m staying. He gives me a dismissive wave, as if to say it’s your hang over, and then they’re gone.
With that, the great migration begins as the players start leaving and calling it a night.
For us though, I think the night is just beginning.
I wait, sipping on a glass of red wine, waiting until the last people, Rene and the goalie, stumble outside drunk, Rene calling a cab on