Page 102 of Forever Offsides

He laughs and pulls me in closer. “Come on. I’m starving.”

Same. So same.

He walks behind me, holding my hips as we go upstairs. “I love your place,” he says, and I can tell he’s looking around. “What’s that room?”

He’s referring to the bedroom beside mine. The door is open, and though the lights are out, it’s clearly a little boy’s room. “That’s Nolan’s room when he stays with me.”

I get a kiss on the neck, but he doesn’t ask more questions because now we’re in my room, and then my bathroom. I turn on the water in my shower, and while it comes up to temperature, I go to the mirror to check my neck.

No bruising. Thank freaking god. That I was a little worried about. There are a couple of red marks, but they’re already fading.

We don’t linger in the shower. We wash up quickly, though Rhett shampoos my hair. He doesn’t ask, he simply does it, and like with everything else tonight, I don’t argue. We clean up the shattered vase, which made a hell of a mess. We’re lucky we didn’t get hit with any of the glass.

Rhett got us stir-fry bowls, and it makes me smile because he ordered it for me based on one of our this-or-thats. Chicken over steak.

“Let’s watch something,” I offer, and we end up sitting on my sofa, which we moved back to its proper place with our bowls and chopsticks, watching There’s Something About Mary of all things because it happens to be on.

“Is this meant to be a dig at me?” he asks before he scoops some steak, rice, and avocado into his mouth.

I quirk a brow at him.

“Stalking.”

“Oh.” I snort. “No, these guys are actual stalkers and scary for it.”

“Nice to know I haven’t hit that level.” He’s quiet for a minute, not eating or drinking or even watching.

I nudge his flank with my elbow. “What’s up?”

His lips dip down, and discomfort creases his forehead. “I was thinking about something earlier, but I’m not sure if it makes me shitty or not to ask.”

“What?”

He sets his bowl down on the coffee table and twists to me. “I don’t know what to do about telling anyone.”

I think about that for a minute. All that it entails.

I get it.

Telling my dad, my brothers, and Russel will create tension. Arguments. Drama and distractions that can negatively impact everyone and the team. I don’t want that, and not just for Rhett but for my brothers and my father.

It’s my father’s first season as general manager, and he’s the one who brought Rhett in. This is also Crew’s first season with the team. My father brought him over from LA at the end of last season so he too has something to prove here.

And I know Mason wants to win another championship. He wants to solidify his legacy as one of the greats.

“What if we don’t tell anyone until the season ends?” I suggest, even if lying to Crew and Mason and even my dad really doesn’t sit well with me.

I think in the long run, it’ll be better for them. If they don’t make the playoffs, we can tell them in December or early January. If they do, well, I suppose it depends on how deep they go, but I’d want them to focus on that and not on me. Crew punched Russel the moment he saw him. He’s all emotion and extremely protective of me. I can’t let him risk anything, especially with his coach.

And I don’t want Rhett to lose his job or my father’s confidence.

I also don’t want him to lose Russel.

Truthfully, it seems I need more time to figure out that mess with him since he’s still texting me as if I didn’t tell him it’s never going to happen.

“Let’s do that,” I continue when he doesn’t say anything. “It’ll give us time to see if this works between us. Isn’t that what you said? That we need time? This hasn’t exactly been the most traditional beginning to anything, so time is probably a good thing.”

“You mean like to see if we’re still crazy about each other once we hit the we can finally keep our hands to ourselves for longer than ten minutes stage?”