Page 53 of Break Point

I hold her chin in my palm, and she wraps her hands around my wrist, smirking at me from the palm of my hand.

“You’re beautiful like this too. Playful. It’s almost as beautiful as the face you make when you come.”

She pushes me away teasingly, no longer strangled by her shyness. She marches to her closet and slips on an extra-large, gray Cordon shirt, then pulls a blue one from a hanger and tosses it to me. It’s one of the freebies the athletics department gives us. I have a couple of my own.

“Thanks,” I say, slipping it over my head before pointing a thumb over my shoulder. “I’ll just let Taryn know you’ll be right out.”

Jaden’s shoulders drop with a hard exhale, but she nods as her eyes meet mine.

“Yeah. Let’s do this,” she says.

I leave her to rummage through a drawer for pants after slipping my khakis on. I pause at the end of the hallway for a beat when I recognize the man cracking an egg on the edge of the skillet.

“What’s up, man?” Corbin James is our tight end, and he’s the one person who might have a bigger social media following than my sister and the Score app.

“Hey, you know Taryn?” My brow furrows as I make my way into the tight kitchen space, sliding behind the guy I threw four passes to yesterday.

“Yeah, we go way back. Her brother’s Kai. We all grew up together.” He shrugs and turns his attention back to the now crackling egg whites.

“Huh. Small world.” Kai is one of our safeties, and I knew that he and Corbin were tight, I just never put Taryn and Kai together. Of course, now that I know they’re siblings, I realize they do look an awful lot alike.

My sister tried to talk Corbin into being one of the faces of her app too. He said he was already in a complicated relationship, though. Which makes me wonder if that relationship includes . . .

I glance at Taryn, who is sitting at the kitchen table gnawing on a piece of bacon as she hugs her knees to her chest and scrolls on her phone. I try to work through this new relationship puzzle as I snag a mug from the cupboard and begin flipping open cabinets in search of coffee. There’s a machine on the counter, so they must have it here somewhere.

“Hey, T,” Jaden says, her voice raspy from the little sleep she got last night. She’s wearing her gray sweatpants, the ones that she pushes up her calves, along with the blue-and-gray-striped socks she wore when we went to the arcade.

“Morning, Jaden,” Corbin says, smiling over his shoulder as she passes behind him and guides me to the right cabinet for coffee.

“You know Corbin?” I whisper.

She glances over her shoulder, toward Taryn, then brings her gaze back to mine.

“It’s complicated,” she says, a common word it seems when it comes to my teammate.

“Got it.” I don’t really, but I have plenty of my own bullshit. I don’t need to inherit others’.

Corbin slides two fried eggs onto a plate and hands it to me. I pass the plate to Jaden, and she looks at me with the sweetest tight grin, as if the gesture of letting her eat first is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for her.

I hang in the kitchen as the coffee percolates behind me, and Jaden carries her plate to the table, folding her legs up just like her roommate before poking her fork into an orange ball of yolk.

“What’s with girls sitting in chairs like that? Can you imagine bending that way and not falling on your ass?” I nudge Corbin’s shoulder, and he glances toward the two girls, then shakes with a silent laugh.

“I’d need the fire department to cut me out if I tried that shit.” We both laugh, but there’s truth to his statement. We’re both big dudes, but Corbin is a good six inches taller than I am, and he’s mostly legs.

Once Corbin finishes cooking for us, the four of us scarf down our breakfasts around the quiet table. I can’t help but notice the eyes Taryn keeps making at Jaden, and when they’ve shrugged and waggled their eyebrows at least five times apiece, I groan and lean back in my chair.

“I’m in the room, for Pete’s sake. Even though you two aren’t talking, I can tell you’re talking about me. Go on. Have at it out loud, why don’t you,” I say through a chuckle. I get up from the table and carry everyone’s empty plates to the sink.

“I’m just curious how dinner went last night,” Taryn says, adding one more brow wiggle to the mix.

“Dinner was awful. In fact, I don’t think we even ate,” I realize. I flip the faucet off and lean on the counter as I look to Jaden for confirmation. She glances up, as if she’s trying to recall, then shakes her head.

“Nope. Not a meal I can remember. These eggs were good, though. Delish.” She rubs her tummy and smiles at Corbin. He pulls his brow in and laughs before leaving the table and moving to the sofa, where my jersey is slung over the armrest.

“Okay, so you didn’t eat. But after dinner . . .” Taryn leads.

I rear back a hair and say, “Oh!” Like I’m just realizing what she’s truly getting at. “Well, why didn’t you say so? After dinner was great. We came back here. And then there was a little moment over there, by the door.” I point toward the front door, and within seconds Jaden rushes me, pressing her palm over my mouth, muffling the details I pretend to share next.