“What is he doing here?” I hissed under my breath.
“I don’t think he’s ever been to a match,” Sutton said.
“No, he hasn’t.”
So, what the hell was he doing here now? Sure, we’d kind of reconciled last night, but then I hadn’t heard a peep from him today. It didn’t seem like him to make a scene here. I didn’t see another reason why he’d show. If he was here for Julian or Hollin, then he would have come to games sooner.
Cézanne cackled. “Oh, this is going to be good.”
Jennifer and Sutton looked at each other and then to me.
“Oh boy,” Jennifer muttered.
“What did you do?” Sutton asked.
“Nothing,” I ground out.
Then I pushed past my friends, straight for Jordan Wright. Julian and Hollin saw me coming and beelined for the field to warm up. Which likely meant they knew. Was Jordan going around and telling everyone about his latest conquest?
“What are you doing here?” I asked before he could say anything else.
“Hello, Annie. Good to see you,” he said. His face was carefully blank. He’d been preparing for this moment. The inevitable fight.
“You don’t come to the soccer games.”
“My brother and cousin play on the team.”
“So?”
“I don’t see why you’re mad about me being here. You’re the one who ran out this morning.”
My eyes widened. “I didn’t run out. I had to deal with the flood in my house. I left you a note. You’re the one who didn’t text me.”
His mask faltered. “You didn’t leave me a note.”
“Uh, yes, I did. I left it on the fridge.”
“What? No, you didn’t.”
I looked to the ceiling and prayed for strength. “Fine. Believe whatever you want about me.”
I turned to go, but with whip-sharp reflexes, he snagged my elbow and pulled me back to him.
“Hey, I didn’t know. I thought you’d just ghosted the next morning.” His voice was soft, sincere.
I wanted to believe him, but it was hard to think that he didn’t have ulterior motives.
“Well, I didn’t.”
“Okay,” he said quickly. “I believe you.”
“Thank God,” I said with an eye roll, pulling out of his grip. “Just…I don’t have time for this.”
Jordan opened his mouth, but I pushed away from him and headed out onto the field. I was thrown by his presence. I’d thought he wasn’t interested, and he’d thought I’d ghosted him. We were both wrong, and still…I hadn’t lied. I really, really didn’t have time for whatever this meant.
I needed to focus on this game and not Jordan Wright anyway. I wasn’t the best soccer player by any stretch of the imagination. I mostly did it because Isaac needed extra girls to play on the coed team and stayed because I liked the team.
Blaire did most of the work. She was already running through drills, her typical baseball cap down low over her eyes, her dark hair swinging nearly to the middle of her back in a pony. She was short, quick, and fierce, running circles around everyone.
Isaac and Julian were midfielders. Both having played soccer in college, they dominated the run game. While Cézanne, Hollin, and I played defense. Which usually meant Hollin was a ball hog and Cézanne had to politely tell him to stop being a fuckface. It was entertaining as all hell when Cézanne let loose. Gerome was our mostly silent goalie, six and a half feet tall with long locs and a serious disposition. We didn’t win every match, but the commentary made it worth it either way.
“Hey, Annie,” Blaire said, jogging over.
We slapped hands back and forth and then a fist bump. A handshake we’d had for the last couple seasons. Blaire was one of those disarmingly beautiful people with full black hair and close-cropped bangs. Her eyes so bright blue and rimmed with black that they seemed almost too large for her face and a short, hourglass figure. She hid behind hats and baggy clothes ninety percent of the time while running the most successful Instagram account I’d ever known. I even followed her. Though I didn’t have much time for social media, I loved that she focused on body positivity and mental and physical health, not just cultural stereotypes about those things.
“Hey. How’s it going?”
“Good. Good. Piper and I are going for pizza after, if you’re interested.”
Piper Medina was Blaire’s roommate, and coincidentally, Isaac’s fiancée Peyton’s younger sister. She was a spit fire and ran a successful vineyard in town with her father.
“Yeah, for sure, I agreed. “I might have to catch a ride with you. I came with Sutton and Jennifer.”
“Invite them to come with,” Blaire insisted.
“Nah, Sut will have to get back to the kiddos,” I told her as we stepped together through a quick warm-up.
“Yeah, makes sense. Well, maybe next time,” she said with a blindingly white smile.
“All right, Tacos,” Isaac called.
We all jogged over to him, forming a loose circle as he ran through his weekly pep talk. He was good at it, too. I almost felt motivated even though I was easily the worst person on the team. Oh well. I had fun, and that was all that mattered.
Julian and Hollin fell into step with me as we broke from the circle. I sighed. This was going to be good.
“So…are you into Jordan?” Hollin asked with his shit-eating grin.
“Subtle,” Julian grumbled.
“I think you should both mind your own fucking business.”
“I’m just asking because—” Hollin said.
“Don’t care,” I interrupted. “Jordan obviously already told you.”
“Well, we guessed,” Julian said. He glared at Hollin. “He insisted that we don’t bother you.”
“Then, you failed,” I told him with a shrug and a smile. “It wasn’t much of anything. Just…let it go.”
Hollin opened up his big mouth, but Julian hit him in the solar plexus, and he doubled over to catch his breath. I laughed and winked at Julian before taking my place in the back of the pitch.
I glanced up at the stands just once before we started and found Jordan staring right at me. He was seated next to Julian’s girlfriend, Ashleigh, but he seemed to be ignoring the constant drivel she was spewing. I tilted my head in question, and he just smirked. As if he’d caught me looking at him and not the other way around.
The whistle blew, and I cursed. I needed to get Jordan Wright out of my head and get my head in the game.
I ran straight to Blaire, throwing my arms around her after she scored the winning goal and the ref blew the final whistle. The entire team congratulated her. I beamed with excitement. It had been a tough match. Our opponent was almost our equal. I’d blown a few plays, and I was glad that we had Blaire to clinch the win.
“Pizza,” she insisted. “Everyone needs pizza after that.”
Isaac shook his head, as always. “I need to get home to Aly, but the rest of you should go have a good time.”
“We’re in,” Hollin said, pointing to himself and Julian.
“Gerome?” Julian asked.
Gerome shook his head and smiled. He was so quiet that I’d only heard him speak when we were playing. It was strange, considering that everyone else was such a loudmouth.
“Cézanne?” I asked.
“Nah, I need to study.”
I groaned. “We’re not even in rotations again until Monday, and I know that you’re already prepared for clinical exams.”
“What can I say? I like to succeed.” She hip-checked me on her way back to the bleachers. “You have fun.”
“You coming with me?” Blaire asked as she hoisted her soccer backpack onto her shoulders. One of her Instagram sponsors had provided it from a specialty company in LA. She’d taken a few pictures with it, and now, it was as beaten up as the rest of our gear.
“Yeah, just…give me a minute.”
My eyes flicked up to Jordan, who looked like he would do anything to extract himself from Ashleigh Sinclair. Julian bounded up there, and they kissed in front of everyone. My heart panged as I saw Jennifer carefully look away. She still couldn’t feign disinterest when it came to Julian.
“No problem,” Blaire said. “Maybe Jennifer can take a few pics for me! I’ll text Pipes and tell her to get us a table.”
“Sounds good.”
I shouldered my own bag, a recycled Lululemon shop bag that I’d gotten when I got a sports bra on sale. Then with a deep breath, I headed over to where Jordan stood with Julian, Ashleigh, and Hollin.
Ashleigh beamed when she saw me. “Hey, Annie!”
“Ashleigh,” I said, trying to make my face seem excited to see her.
I personally thought Julian was getting scammed, but I couldn’t say that. Ashleigh Sinclair didn’t have a sincere bone in her body. I’d known her my entire life. Her brother, Chase, and I had grown up together. He’d been my high school heartthrob until the day that he left for Yale.
“Are you going to pizza, too?”
“Yeah, I’ll meet y’all there,” I said as a dismissal. Then I turned to Jordan. “Can we talk?”
He arched an eyebrow and hit Hollin before he could say anything. “Sure.”
We walked away from the rest of the team and out into the dark night beyond. Bright constellations beamed down at us. It was one of my favorite parts about the indoor soccer complex. It was far enough out of town that the stars were visible.
“Sorry about Julian and Hollin. I told them not to talk to you,” Jordan said abruptly when we stopped in front of his Tesla. This felt more like him than that truck ever would.
“Julian said that. It’s Hollin. You know his big mouth.”
“That I do.”
“I don’t care that they know,” I said, finding that it was truer than I’d thought.
“Yes, you do.”
“Look, it doesn’t matter.” I dropped my soccer bag and leaned against his car. “We can’t do this.”
“Okay,” he said, short and curt.
“I’m serious.”
“Okay,” he repeated.
I pushed off the car and crossed my arms. “I’m in medical school, and I’m too busy. I decided not to date while I was training to become a doctor. I’m in rotations all day, and when I’m not in person with patients, I’m studying for board exams and clinicals. Not to mention, we’re coming up on all of my final residency interviews, and I still have to finish my research for my spring conference…” I trailed off. “It’s a lot, okay?”
“I get it. I’m an executive at Wright, and I just decided to buy a vineyard. I’m not exactly full of empty time.”
I paused. “You bought the vineyard?”
“We put in an offer at least, yeah. We went to look at it this morning and agreed that we were all in. I know it’ll take time for the wine business to take off, but we want to use the available space for events. You know, Hollin’s sister, Nora, interns with an event planner. She graduates this semester, and we were thinking of bringing her on full-time.”
“Wow! That’s amazing,” I gushed. “I’m excited for y’all.”
“Thanks,” he said as if he’d been expecting another response from me. “But as you can tell, I’m also busy.”
I watched the way the shadows played along his features and imagined us trying this out. The way we’d fall head over heels and, within months, completely disintegrate, hurting each other beyond repair and ruining this sort of truce we were living in where we could now occupy the same space. I didn’t want that.
“I’m leaving,” I blurted.
His eyebrows shot up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that I’m leaving. I’m getting out of Lubbock. I’ve been interviewing for residencies all over the country the last few months. I have one in Dallas in a few weeks and my last one in Seattle in February. Then I have to rank choice my top residency programs, and Texas Tech is at the bottom of my list.”
“Oh,” he said softly.
“Residency is three years,” I pushed on, showing him all the dire consequences of being interested in someone who wanted to become a doctor. If he was actually interested. “I want to live somewhere else. Experience somewhere else. Relationships don’t survive medical school. It would never survive a three-year residency out of state. And honestly, I just don’t know…”
He set his hand on my shoulder, and I trailed off.
“It’s fine, Annie. I’m not expecting anything from you.”
“Good,” I said quickly. “Because it’s not happening anyway.”
“Okay, but we can be friends.”
I eyed him skeptically. “Can we?”
“We were friends last night.”
I laughed derisively. “Friends who fuck?”
He paused before saying, “Friends…with benefits?”
My first thought was to disagree with him. There was no way we could be that. But…what was stopping that from happening? He understood that neither of us was in a position to date right now. Would it be the worst thing to have someone like Jordan Wright around when I needed some relief, too?
No, no, it would not. It would be fucking amazing. Because the sex was beyond amazing. And I wanted more sex with him…even when I couldn’t ask for more.
“Does that actually work?” I asked.
“We could make it work.”
I chewed on my lip and twirled the claddagh ring on my finger that my parents had given me for my high school graduation. I never took it off even though it was a beat-up, old thing, so worn through that the band was almost cracked. But I loved it, and it was a constant source of comfort.
“Well, do friends like to eat pizza?”
“Is that a euphemism?” he asked with that indelible smirk.
“Maybe it is.”
“Then I would love to eat pizza.” He stepped close enough that I could smell his aftershave and had to stop myself from breathing him in. “If you’d like me to go with you to eat pizza.”
We were actually doing this.
I nodded. “Yes,” I breathed, sealing our fate in the winter breeze.
Jordan Wright was my friend…with benefits.