Page 36 of Scoring Lessons

The room was suddenly small and stuffy, and my cheeks heated. I turned back to the machine, trying not to show him the way his words affected me.

I added another plate to the stack to have something to do with my hands and not show him how antsy I was.

The problem with Wesley was that he was easy to manage when he was being annoying. Annoying Wesley, I knew. Annoying Wesley, I had years of practice with. It was this version—the one who said things in a way that made me believe he meant them—that I had no blueprint for.

I ran through my leg set faster than I should have. My thighs burned, my chest was heaving. But no matter how hard I kept going, the nervous energy wouldn’t let me go.

“You’re going to hurt yourself doing it that fast,” he said from somewhere behind me.

“I’m the athletic trainer here. I think I can manage.”

“I’m simply pointing something out.”

“Don’t,” I bit out.

He made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh. I could hear the smile in it anyway, which was somehow more irritating than if he’d laughed outright.

“You know,” he said, after a moment, “for someone who’s not making it weird, you sure are being really weird right now.”

I closed my eyes briefly and sighed. “Wesley.”

“Yeah?”

“For once, I’d like for you to stop loving the sound of your own voice and shut up.”

“There she is.” His tone was warm and knowing, like the last few minutes had rattled him exactly zero percent. “Thought I lost you there for a second, Livvie girl.”

I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. But I felt the corner of my mouth twitch, and I was very glad I was facing the other direction.

“Since we’re being honest and all today,” I finally said after we went through a few reps. “I think you’re incredible at your job, too.”

Offering my own version of honesty had been harder than I thought. I didn’t do nice with Wesley. It wasn’t who we were. But if he had offered an olive branch, it was only fair that I’d done the same, considering the favor he’d been doing for me.

He cocked a brow. “Incredible, huh?”

“Don’t push it.”

The silence that followed was different from the one before it. Lighter, somehow. I surprisingly didn’t mind it.

When we finished our workouts, we sat next to each other on the floor, our backs pressed against the dark-gray wall.

He took a sip of water, his gaze steady on me. “Why are you down here at midnight?”

“Why are you?”

“I asked you first.”

I didn’t say a word, only met his challenging stare. He held it longer than I expected. I wasn’t going to break first because that meant opening up, which meant him probing with questions I didn’t want him to ask.

“Couldn’t sleep,” he said after I refused to answer.

I didn’t push. Couldn’t sleep covered a lot of ground, and I wasn’t about to hand him the shovel to dig into mine.

“Same,” I replied.

He hummed and leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes.

My eyes took him in without my permission. He’d put his shirt back on—some old, worn crop top that sat high enough to expose the deep cut of his lower abdomen, which was not doing me any favors. His arms were loose at his sides, chest still rising and falling from the workout. His jaw was relaxed. The sharp lines of his face were softer, and I think this was my favorite look of his. Somewhat real, I supposed. Not whatever persona he put on for the sake of everyone else.