I’d tried texting her as Gray Wolfe but not as Oliver. Maybe I’d have to resort to that soon if I didn’t hear from her. Or maybe I’d ask Lettie if she’d spoken to her. I’d have to have a good reason, though, because Scarlett was nosey. Fuck, but I’d gotten myself into the biggest clusterfuck ever.
After a shower I drove home in my own car, which had just needed a new battery. No surprise there since it was an old piece of shit I’d had since high school. But I was waiting until I was out of college with a real job in sports medicine to get a new one.
When I pulled up at the apartment, I realized it was my fucking lucky day. It may have been dark, but that didn’t stop me from seeing a sight for sore eyes. I was grinning like a damn crazy person as I parked next to Hazel’s old Cadillac. My shit practice and all the dropped passes flew right out of my mind when I saw that car.
I raced up the steps to our apartment on the second floor and let myself in, not expecting for them to be right there in the living room. But there they sat, cuddled up on the couch under a blanket in the dark watching an old horror movie. Hazel loved old shit. Old cars, old video games, random old board games she’d find at the thrift store, so the fact they were watching an old Alfred Hitchcock movie was no surprise.
It wasn’t uncommon for Hazel to be here when I got home, so I tried to play it cool even though I wanted to ask her why the hell she wasn’t talking to Gray.
I set my keys down and took my tennis shoes off at the door, and Scarlett looked over at me while Hazel kept her eyes trained on the TV.
“I left a plate of lasagna and bread in the oven for you, Olls. Salad in the fridge.”
Mmmm. That’s what I smelled. My mouth watered as I walked to the kitchen got my plate out of the oven and some salad from the fridge to add to the side.
I grabbed a glass of water and my plate and went to sit down with my girls. I was being cool. This was something I would do any night. I mean, Hazel wasn’t ghosting Winnie. She was ghosting Gray.
Sitting down next to Hazel, I mumbled, “Hey, brat.”
Rolling her eyes, she gave me a half smile. “How was practice?”
I shrugged, shoveling big bites of delicious lasagna that my sister made into my mouth. I knew that was half the reason Hazel came over during the week. Scarlett could cook. “It was okay.”
I didn’t want to talk about my dropped balls or shitty practice. Especially since she was the reason.
“How was work today? Everything good at Level Up?”
“Same shit, new day,” she answered, eyes on the TV.
There was a bunch of birds attacking people on the screen and I couldn’t believe these two were watching this shit still. From the five minutes I’d seen of it, I could already tell it was bad. So bad.
A buzzing sound startled me until Hazel started moving around and reaching under the blanket and into her hoodie. She pulled out her phone, looked at it for a second, and then started typing.
“Who is that?” Scarlett asked, only half paying attention.
But I was damn sure paying attention. Because clearly she had her phone and apparently she was answering texts, so why wasn’t she responding to fucking Gray?
“No one,” Hazel answered non-committedly and that caught Scarlett’s interest.
“No one? Huh?” Scarlett asked, turning toward Hazel on the couch now and raising her eyebrows. “Is it the sexy guy who got your number the other day at work?”
What the fuck? Mid swallow that delicious lasagna all of a sudden felt like a rock going down my throat. I started to choke, which triggered a series of events I couldn’t have foreseen.
It started with me trying to cough up a lasagna noodle and my body lurching just enough that it sent the last couple of bites of my lasagna right onto the front of Hazel’s sweatshirt.
Scarlett jumped behind Hazel and pounded on my back while I tried to reach for the glass of water only to grab it and get it about halfway to my mouth before Scarlett hit my back again and it went flying right out of my hand and onto Hazel’s lap.
I stared at her lap and the mess on her shirt while Scarlett gave me one last smack to the back that finally sent my food down. The whole thing would have embarrassed the fuck out of me if I wasn’t too busy obsessing about what guy went into her store and asked for her number. Was she talking to him? Was she seeing him? Was this new guy in and Gray and I were out?
“Holy shit,” Hazel said, looking around like she couldn’t believe what the hell had just happened. I could hardly believe it myself. Did Hazel have a boyfriend? She didn’t do boyfriends. She did random hookups. What if I’d missed my chance by being a fucking wuss and trying to trick her instead of just telling her how I felt?
Hazel looked down at her filthy shirt and wet pants. “Are you okay, Winnie?”
I blinked a few times, trying to regain a little composure. “Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry.” I looked around for a towel or something, realizing it was too big of a mess for that. “Come on, I’ll get you one of my sweatshirts and some shorts.” It wasn’t the first time Hazel had borrowed clothes from me and it wouldn’t be the last.
“Don’t think I’m done interrogating you about hot dude, Hazel. You’re not getting off that easy.” Scarlett had a thoughtful look, and then an evil one before giving us a sinister laugh. “Or are you?”
Hazel just rolled her eyes and followed me into my room where I rooted through my drawers and found her a hoody and athletic shorts. It reminded me of a night years ago that I remembered like it was yesterday. A night burned into the back of my mind for forever probably.
I handed the clothes over to her, but when she tried to grab the bundle, I held them tight in my hand until she looked up at me, confused. “We’re good, right?” I shouldn’t have asked that. She didn’t know Gray and I were one and the same, but I couldn’t help it. I needed the reassurance. I couldn’t lose her. Ever.
Her face softened and she smiled up at me. “It’s okay, Winnie. Of course we’re okay. It’s just a little marinara sauce and some water.” She stepped past me and into the bathroom to change clothes and I went back into the living room to clean up the mess I made.
Once I was done, I stood in the kitchen and fired off another text to Hazel, hoping she would answer this time.
Me: Did I do something wrong?
I turned my phone to silent and went and sat in my spot on the couch, attempting to watch the crazy ass movie.
When Hazel returned, she sat back down between Scarlett and me and I moved over closer to her until we were thigh to thigh. It didn’t take me but two seconds to notice how good she looked in my clothes. “Share your covers,” I demanded.
She gave me a closed-lip smile and pulled the covers over on my lap, too.
I tried to keep my eyes on the movie, I really did, but Hazel’s beauty had always drawn me like a moth to a flame. I was stupid for her. The woman never even tried. She didn’t have to. No makeup, no jewelry, no fanfare. She was just her and it was more than enough.
Twenty minutes later, I watched as Hazel pulled out her phone again, reading for a second before typing a reply. As she was placing it in her pocket, I felt the buzz of my own phone that was sitting on the couch next to me. I couldn’t look at it, which killed me because I knew she’d finally responded.