Page 38 of Play For Me

“You had me,” he presses. “You totally beat me for that ball. And then you stopped.”

“I didn’t stop.”

I totally stopped. He clearly isn’t buying it, anyhow. “My angle was off, okay? I messed up.”

There’s something knowing in his eyes and I don’t like it one bit. But he keeps his mouth shut. He also moves away from the net. “I think we can be done,” he says, picking up the ball. “Hungry?”

I gape at him. “You want to be done?”

“We’ve been at it for almost forty-five minutes.”

Oh. I had no idea it had already been that long. “Come on,” he encourages. “Let’s eat. We have those noodles, remember?”

All it takes is the mention of the noodles from my favorite restaurant for me to realize that I’m starving. I follow Solomon over to where we left our bags and we both sit on the grass.

“You really didn’t have to buy dinner,” I say as he hands me a white cardboard container. I’m about to offer to pay for my share when he hands me a familiar can of melon soda. My eyebrows go up. “How did you know this is my favorite?” I ask. My suspicion grows when he won’t meet my eyes. My favorite noodle place is one thing, but my favorite obscure Japanese soda? That’s way too much of a coincidence.

He sees the expression on my face and rolls his eyes as he hands over a set of chopsticks. “It was a lucky guess. Eat your noodles.”

I want to argue with him—I’m pretty sure someone must have told him what I would want to eat—but my stomach wins out and I dig into the food.

“Fuck,” I mutter into my noodles. “So good.”

When I look up, I see he’s staring at me, but he looks away immediately. Is he blushing?

It’s quiet for a few minutes while we both shovel food into our mouths. I’m struck by the feeling I had earlier—Solomon Barnes is a good person to sit in comfortable silence with.

“Did you play any other sports besides soccer?” he eventually asks. I make a face and he snorts. “I guess that answers that question.”

“Why would I ever want to play anything else?”

“Soccer isn’t the only good sport, you know.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What else did you play?”

“Baseball. When I was a kid I did swimming, but it interfered with soccer at the high school level.”

“You made the right choice.”

He rolls his eyes. “Glad I have your approval.”

The little back and forth makes something warm glow in my chest, and I take an extra-long sip of soda while I try to ignore it.

“I was better at soccer,” he continues. “But I preferred baseball.”

I make a face, of course, and he just shakes his head at me. “Baseball is great.”

“Seems pretty boring to me. You just stand there and wait for the ball to come at you? No thanks.”

“Yeah, you’re way too aggressive for anything but soccer. Actually, have you considered hockey?”

I tilt my head thoughtfully. “That’s not a terrible idea. Can’t you fight in hockey?”

“Jesus, you’d be a menace on the ice.”

I realize that we’re grinning at each other over our noodles and quickly duck my head, my cheeks feeling suspiciously warm.

“So, what’s so great about baseball?”