Page 37 of Scoring Lessons

“You’re staring,” he said, eyes still closed.

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

“Not you.”

One eye opened and looked at me, then he closed it again. “Sure.” He chuckled.

“I’m serious.”

“I know. That’s what makes it funny.”

I grabbed my water bottle and took a long sip. “You are⁠—”

“Handsome? Charming? Unforgettable?”

“Annoying. Egocentric. A pain in the ass,” I retorted.

“You weren’t thinking that.”

“I really was.”

He turned his head toward me without lifting it off the wall, one eye cracking open again. “Be honest. On a scale of one to ten, how handsome do you think I am?” he asked through a knowing grin.

“Negative four,” I said too quickly.

His laugh was quiet, a little rough around the edges. It did something stupid to my chest. “The world isn’t going to end because you find me cute.”

“Cute?” I huffed a laugh. “I don’t know what’s worse. You, fishing for compliments in the middle of the night in a hotel gym, or me, still sitting here entertaining it.”

“I’d say we’re pretty even.”

“Of course, you would think that,” I replied sarcastically.

His chuckle turned into full-belly laughter. I couldn’t help but join him in the ridiculousness of it all.

When our laughter died, he held my stare for a beat longer than comfortable, and I wished then I could hear what he was thinking. To decipher the way he thought.

What he really thought of me.

He looked back at the ceiling. “Can I ask you something?”

“Depends on the question.”

The silence stretched too thin for my comfort. There was enough tension in the air to know that whatever he was about to ask, I was going to avoid answering.

“What happened in New York?”

I kept my eyes on the floor as the beats of my heart turned faster. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean, Olivia.”

My heart dropped to my stomach. I looked at the ceiling, wondering how much I wanted to say. How much I wanted to give away.

“It wasn’t the right place for me anymore,” I said. The thing about honesty was that it could be loose. Half the truth was still truth enough to hide behind.

He was quiet long enough that I thought he was going to let it go. “That’s not an answer.”