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She does, and my whole body tightens. “I’m not wearing a condom,” I say.

She hums. “That’s why it feels so good.”

“I’m going to come inside you. Are you okay with that? Because I can’t take it back.”

She works her tongue around my thumb, and then she says, “Come inside me.”

Our eyes stay locked while I use my wet thumb on her clit. Her back comes off the bed as I rub faster circles, and the sweetest sound comes out of her. “Just like that, Kylie. Come with me.”

Her body jerks, and every muscle in her goes tight, even her grip on me, and then she lets go, whimpering, and I come with her. I kiss her through all of it until she goes limp. I clean her up with the towel off my chair, and she arches her back and says, “Can we go back to sleep?”

“Yeah.”

I button my jeans and get back in beside her. She rolls onto her stomach almost immediately with one arm shoved under the pillow and her face turned toward me. Her hair is spread across my side of the bed, so I run my fingers through the ends of it. She makes a quiet sound in her throat. I stop. Her eyes don’t open. I do it again, and she makes the same sound, and I keep doing it until her breathing changes.

I should sleep. I barely got enough last night. Instead, I lie there with a piece of her hair wound around two fingers and watch her while the room gets lighter. She still has most of last night’s makeup on. Her lashes are stuck together in little black points. The shiny stuff on her lips is completely gone, which is probably my fault. Her top lip is fuller than the bottom one. Her eyebrows are darker than her hair, and the left one sits a little higher when she’s about to argue with me. There’s a freckle near the end of her nose, and then another, and another, so light I don’t think I’ve ever noticed them, running across the bridge of her nose and disappearing into her cheeks. I touch one with the tip of my finger, and she scrunches her nose in her sleep and turns farther into the pillow, and I smile before I can stop myself.

I’ve had girls sleep here. I’ve had them stay late enough that we got breakfast because we were both hungry. I’ve never watched one sleep until the sun came up. That’s new. I should get up; I’ve got shit to do today. I don’t move.

Eventually, she pushes up on one elbow, and when her eyes find mine, she closes them again.

“Okay,” she mutters, and hauls herself out of bed.

“Where are you going?”

She turns around with her eyes shut. “I have to shower, Nash.”

“Shower here.”

“I don’t have any clothes.”

“Wear mine.”

She opens her eyes, and then she smiles, and I don’t know what’s happening. She starts laughing. “I live three doors away, Nash.”

“So?”

She comes back and looks at me a second longer than she needs to, then leans down and kisses me. She finds her thong at the end of the bed and puts it on.

“I’ll see you later,” she says, and leaves.

Five minutes later, I’m still looking at the door when it opens and Rafe comes in, sees me in the same clothes as last night, and shakes his head. “Finally. I slept at Koda’s. His futon smells like a fucking lake.” He throws his phone on his bed. “You deadbolted me out.”

I laugh. “Didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Shut up. Did you hit?”

“Fuck you.”

“I can fucking smell it. Open the goddamn window.”

Practice that afternoon is a good one. The line is clicking, and it doesn’t even feel like work. Koda cheats his first three steps without being told, Rafe moves the puck a half second earlier than he used to, and the three of us move like one thing. I win nine of eleven draws and don’t miss a pass in ninety minutes. In the small-area game, I come out of a corner with two guys on me and put it through both of them to Koda without looking. Koda scores, and Berwyn stops the drill and makes everybody watch it again.

Rafe skates over during the reset. “Pussy must be good.”

I grab him and put him into the boards. “Talk about her again. I fucking dare you.”

He smiles in my face. I let him go, and Koda glides over and slaps his stick between Rafe’s legs. “You’re next.”