“What was your defensive team?”
There it went. I slipped my hands under the counter and averted my eyes to the man at the stove, cursing him silently. “So you see…”
The noise Zac tried to muffle was the most obvious snicker in the world. Asshole.
“Was I not on your team?”
I gulped. “So you see—”
“Dallas wasn’t your team?” he accused me, sounding… well, I didn’t know if it was hurt or outraged, but it was definitely something.
“Ahh…” I slid a look at the traitor who was by that point trying to muffle his laugh. “Zac helped me with it.”
It was the thump that said Zac’s knees hit the floor.
“Look, it isn’t that I didn’t choose you specifically. I would choose you if I could, but Zac said Minnesota—”
“Minne-sota.”
Jesus, he’d broken the state in two.
The big guy, honest to God, shook his head. His eyes went from me to Zac in… yep, that was outrage. Aiden held out his hand, wiggling those incredibly long fingers. “Let me see it.”
“See what?”
“Your roster from last year.”
I sighed and pulled my phone out of the fanny pack I still had around my waist, unlocking the screen and opening the app. Handing it over, I watched his face as he looked through my roster and felt guilty as hell. I’d been planning on choosing Dallas just because Aiden was on the team, but I really had let Zac steer me elsewhere. Apparently, just because you had the best defensive end in the country on your team, didn’t mean everyone else held up their end of the bargain. Plus, he’d missed almost the entire season. He didn’t have to take it so personally.
It only took a second for him to see who I had on there and he flicked his dark irises back up at me. “Zac helped you?”
“Yes,” I muttered, feeling so, so bad.
“Why didn’t you put Christian Delgado on your team?”
Just the sound of his name made my upper lip begin to snarl.
But before I could say anything, Zac chipped in, “I know I told you to add Christian.”
He had. I just hadn’t because he was a scumbag. Getting up, I went back to the fridge, refilled my glass, and muttered, “I didn’t want to.”
The master of “Why?” didn’t let me down.
The fact was, I was a terrible liar, and I wouldn’t be surprised if both Aiden and Zac realized I was making things up if I did. “I don’t like him,” I answered bluntly, hoping but knowing that wasn’t going to be a good enough answer for either one of their nosey asses.
“Why?”
“I just don’t. He’s a slimeball.”
“I don’t like him much either, darlin’,” Zac claimed.
Keeping my gaze on my glass for longer than necessary, I gradually lifted my head and immediately noticed Aiden’s dark irises on me. He was thinking, and I was pretty sure disbelieving at the same time, that intelligent face making me antsy. Did he know I was hedging around the answer?
If he did, he let it go for the time being when he dropped his attention back to my phone. That little line between his brows left me on guard. The line deepened as he asked, Zac, “Why did you tell her to choose Michaels?”
Zac responded something that left Aiden shaking his big head. “Don’t listen to him. I’d help you if you asked.”
We were having another moment like the one earlier when he’d asked about my work. I thought about not bringing it up, then decided against it. “I did once. Two years ago. I asked you a question about wide receivers and you told me to look it up on the Internet.”
He winced. Aiden literally winced. And I felt just the teensiest bit guilty for reminding him of something that hadn’t been important enough for him to remember.
In the spirit of being nice since he’d gone for a run with me, I reached across the counter and patted his hand. “Hey, we have the next five years for you to help me out.”
Chapter Twelve
It was amazing how easily you could settle into a major change in your life.
Or maybe it just amazed me how easily it was for me to live with Aiden and Zac, and keep living my life in the same way I’d been doing in that month after I quit. Really, it wasn’t that life itself had changed much; I was just in a new environment, but still doing the same thing I’d done back at my apartment.
A few weeks passed in the blink of an eye, and before I knew it, I’d been at my new house for a month. I’d signed paperwork two weeks ago. The season had started for the guys last week. Basically, life was going and heading in its same old trajectory.
Except the house didn’t completely feel like my own. It reminded me of back when I was a kid, sleeping over at Diana’s, when I couldn’t walk around in my underwear or go braless because it wasn’t my house. Then again, I spent the majority of my time in my room working and no one was ever home, so I could pull off whatever outfit—or lack of an outfit and underwear—I felt like wearing, only running up the stairs like a crazy person when the garage door opened. Then there was the small issue of having to turn down the volume on my computer’s speakers when one of the guy’s was home and I was working.
I still hadn’t talked myself into spending time in the living room watching television even when the guys weren’t around. Fortunately, claustrophobia hadn’t gotten to me yet considering most of my time was spent in the same place, and that was because I made sure to go to the gym a couple times a week, to see Diana once a week or every other week, and took my time going to the grocery store. I watched Netflix on my TV when I was bored. I drew in my sketchpad when I felt like it. Sometimes I hung out with Zac, but that didn’t happen often because he’d been spending a lot of time away from the house after practices and meetings, seeing his girl of the season.
By the time I woke up each morning, both guys were already gone. They were basically the best roommates ever. Best of all, Aiden was the type of roommate who you didn’t have to pay rent to.
I’d brought it up, of course. That day that I’d moved in, I’d asked him what bills I could help him pay, and all he’d done was give me that bored face that my temper hadn’t become immune to. Then I’d asked again, and he’d just ignored me.
He’d said he would work on being my friend, but I couldn’t expect a miracle overnight, could I?
If it was strange for either one of them having me in this house, they didn’t say anything about it or make me feel like an intruder, mostly because they both had enough on their plates. Zac had passingly mentioned to me how stressed he was about another quarterback the team had picked up, and Aiden lived and breathed for his sport, never allowing himself to slack off. Not that that was anything new. He nodded at me every time we happened to be in the same room together and offered me his leftovers if there were any, which there usually wasn’t because the poor guy seemed to be surviving off smoothies, fresh fruit, sweet potatoes, canned beans, nuts, brown rice, and at least one frozen meal daily.
That wasn’t my business though, was it?
But every day, I would find the recyclable bin filled with more cardboard containers than the day before. It made me feel bad, guilty.
It also made me wonder again why Trevor hadn’t hired him someone who did all the same duties I’d been responsible for. I knew he’d hired Aiden someone to answer his e-mails because I’d logged on to his account just to see what the damage was and found that every few days there were replies, but no one ever appeared at the house, and sometimes I’d find mail from his PO Box sitting in the kitchen after he got home. Where was his Vanessa 2.0?
The problem with being friends with someone is that unless you want to be a shitty friend—or at least a fake friend because real ones shouldn’t be shitty—you couldn’t pretend you don’t notice if something is wrong with your buddy.