Page 15 of Line Change

“Pope is straight.” I keep my hand out.

Tessa picks up her pen again. “Still not a no.”

The host calls the next category, saving me from having to answer. Not that there’s anything to answer. I have no intention of kissing Ben Pope.

Any more than I’ve already thought about it.

Which isn’t much. It happened behind the potted trees when he stared at my fingers on his tie and made that sound low in his throat. Maybe again after the game, when he caught me against him and his mouth was close to my ear. And on the plane, when he sat under that jacket acting like I had personally ruined sleep for him.

I don’t think about soft, romantic shit. I think about crowding him against a wall and catching his tie in my fist again. Putting my mouth on his just to find out how long he would stay frozen. Whether that growl would end up in my mouth. Whether he would shove me away or grab my hips and pull me in harder.

Mostly the last one.

No. Fuck that.

Pope walks around with his mouth set like smiling would cost him money. Anybody might wonder what it would take to wreck that control. I happen to wonder often enough that it has become a problem.

The dude is under my skin. That’s the problem. He has been there since he walked onto our practice ice in a Seattle jersey and told me a cheap hit looked clean. Then he defended me at poker. Then we spent one game moving like we’d played together for years while he also found a way to piss me off every time we sat down.

I need to get over him before I make this weird.

That should be easy. I’ve spent my whole adult life around hockey players. Dressing rooms are full of extremely fit men taking their clothes off with no sense of privacy. I’ve thought some of them were hot. I have eyes. Once or twice, I’ve considered what somebody might be like in bed, then forgotten about it by the time I finished tying my shoes.

I’ve never been attracted to one seriously. Never a teammate. Never anybody I had to see at practice, sit beside on a plane, and trust with the puck while wondering what his hands would feel like on me.

“Earth to Nolan.” Tessa snaps her fingers in front of my face. “We need an answer.”

I look toward the screen. The question is already gone. “What was it?”

Micah makes a delighted noise. “Holy shit. You really are thinking about kissing him.”

“I was thinking about hockey.”

“Of course you were.”

Tessa taps the answer sheet. “Which planet has the shortest day?”

“Jupiter.”

She closes her eyes.

Micah looks down at the answer she already wrote. “Mercury is close to the sun. You can see why we got there.”

“No, I can’t.”

The cowbell rings before Tessa can change the answer. Pens down means pens down, so she glares at me while Micah takes the sheet to the scoring table.

When all the sheets are in, the host starts reading the answers. “Jupiter,” he says, and half the room cheers.

Tessa stares at the scoring table. “I hate both of you.”

“Why me?” Micah asks. “I’m the one who stayed mentally present.”

“You agreed with Mercury.”

“It has a short year. That feels relevant.”

I laugh despite myself. Tessa throws the pen at me, and I catch it before it hits my beer.