He stared at me, eyes full of uncertainty.
“No shit?” Arts said. “Oh, if you guys are at the same place… I’m on the other side of town, so…”
Devon glanced back and forth between us. Then he shrugged. “Yeah, sure. Why not?” I wondered if anyone else noticed how forced his smile was. “Thanks, Coach.”
“Don’t mention it.”
We all trooped out to the parking lot, and no one gave us a second look as we climbed into my SUV. Everyone headed off in different directions, and I casually pulled out of the parking lot toward our hotel, which wasn’t far.
Silence hung between us for the first minute or so. When Devon finally spoke, his tone was flat: “Did you know?”
I glanced at him. “Know what?”
Devon huffed with annoyance. “Think about it.”
I did and—oh. Right. That
Clearing my throat, I fidgeted in the driver seat and shook my head. “No. I didn’t.” Again, I glanced at him. “Did you?”
“No!” He tsked sharply. “I wouldn’t have hooked up with my fucking coach if Iknew!” He fidgeted just like I had, pressing his elbow beneath the window and gnawing his thumbnail as he stared out the windshield. “I… Christ, I would never do something that stupid.”
“Neither would I.”
More silence. The hotel was already coming into view, its glowing sign sending panic through me because how much more privacy were we going to get?
I needed to put it out there—it happened once and it couldn’t happen again. Period.
But my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. And Devon didn’t say anything. And… fuck me, we were here.
I pulled into a parking space and killed the engine. We both took off our seat belts, but neither of us got out of the SUV. We still didn’t speak. My God, when had I become such a tongue-tied dumbass? I’d faced down media scrums since I was seventeen, smoothly answering questions on the fly while lenses and microphones encroached on my space.
Tonight, all I needed to do was tell this man—this player on the team I was employed to coach—that we couldn’t sleep together again. No thinking necessary. No second-guessing. The answer was as cut-and-dried as they came.
But could I get my stupid mouth to work? No, I could not.
As I looked around the parking lot, I felt extra conspicuous. There was no one out here that I could see, but we were in fullview of half the hotel’s rooms, a lot of which had their lights on. Several people associated with the team were staying here, and they could be peering down at us from behind any of those sheer curtains.
“Let’s take this inside.” I opened my door. “Less chance of someone seeing us.”
Devon didn’t argue. I thought he cursed, but otherwise, he just got out of the car and followed me inside.
To anyone who didn’t know, we were just a player and coach arriving at the same time and getting into the same elevator. Happened every day, especially if we were both coming from the same practice, game, or team meeting. I doubted anyone noticed us at all, but that didn’t stop me from being certain everyone was watching us andwondering.
The elevator had just closed when Devon said, “Let’s go to your room.”
I jumped, both from the broken silence and the subtly commanding tone. “Oh. Uh. Why my room?”
His expression betrayed nothing. “It’s closer to the elevator.”
“Oh. Right.” Not that I would’ve known—I hadn’t been to his room. He’d only been to mine.
Last night.
When we’d?—
The doors opened, and Devon stepped out first. What could I do but follow?
My room was three down from the elevator. We stopped there, and we both glanced around as I touched my keycard to the reader. Then we stepped inside.