I reach out and press the back of my hand to his forehead.
He jerks back violently as if I’ve electrocuted him.
“I think you have a fever.”
Pulling a Bluetooth earbud—that I hadn’t noticed—from his ear, he curls the side of his lip at me. “Why are you touching me?”
“You have a fever,” I repeat.
“I’m fine,” he snaps, but the words are nasally, as if his sinuses are stuffed with cotton.
“Oh, so you can hear me.” I cross my arms and smirk in triumph.
“Go away.”
“Not until you tell me why you have been pretending I don’t exist. It’s quite awkward. And annoying.”
Avery lets out a grumbly “hmph” under his breath.
I turn to face him as well as I can in the small airplane seat. The arm between us bites into my side, so I raise it out of the way. Without the barrier, my knee, which is settled on the seat to even out the half twist of my body, brushes the side of his thigh, right near a quarter-sized hole in his sweats. Black boxers peek from the gap, and I can’t help but think the color choice perfectly matches his personality. “Don’t do that.” At the twitch of his eyebrow—which I take to mean “do what?”—I continue. “Don’t ‘hmph’ like you have something to say but are too scared to say it. Talk. Yell. Do something. Don’t hold it in for . . . whatever reason. So you don’t hurt my feelings?” I guess.
He snorts as if I’m being absurd, but I count it as a win since he hasn’t replaced his earbud. And, better yet, he speaks. “Oh, I don’t mind offending your delicate sensibilities one bit. I just don’t particularly care to expend the energy to do so.”
Now we’re getting somewhere.
“Big bad football player like yourself doesn’t have the energy? What are you, twenty-one? Twenty-two? I feel sorry for your girlfriend. Or future wife. Or husband,” I quickly tack on because we are all inclusive here. If playing football has taught me anything, it is how to goad an alpha male into giving a reaction.
Insulting a man’s sex drive almost always does the trick. And Avery falls hard for my bait.
“I was going to say that you are annoying,” he growls, though his stuffy nose takes away from the attempted menacing tone.
I roll my eyes at the childish comeback before adding my own. “Yeah, well, your mom’s annoying.”
Instead of continuing to joke like every other normal person, Avery snaps his jaw closed and clenches it tight, nostrils flaring and emotion—the most I have ever seen from him—flooding his ocean eyes. He looks away and, in a carefully controlled voice, grits out, “Leave me alone.”
His unexpected reaction has a knot forming in my belly. I’ve fucked up somehow. Something about his mom, maybe? My hand unconsciously finds his arm and gently clasps it. “Hey, wait. I didn’t mean—”
“I already said don’t touch me,” Avery hisses, jerking away from my hold.
My hands ball into fists on my lap, and I let out a huff of frustration. “No, you asked why I touched you. You didn’t say anything about not doing it. I’m sorry if my comment offended you. I didn’t mean it seriously, and I didn’t mean to bring up any bad memories or anything like that. Your mother—”
This time, he cuts me off by getting in my face. “Don’t talk about her, Ellingsworth,” he whispers harshly enough to send spittle flying onto my chin. “You know nothing.”
“I know.” Moving closer, I whisper, too, but my tone is apologetic, an extended olive branch if he will just fucking accept it. “I know that you and I are total strangers. I know we never talk despite the amount of time we are forced to spend together. I know you hate me, but I don’t know why. Because you won’t talk. You won’t say anything for us to get to know one another. Maybe we have stuff in common, Avery. Maybe I won’t accidentally upset you if I know just a tiny fraction more about you than I do now.”
“Poor, pitiful Ellingsworth,” he mocks, sitting back some so we can see each other without our vision blurring. “So used to being America’s favorite that you can’t stand one person not liking you. Is that it?”
Around us, a hush has fallen in the plane cabin. Fifty of our teammates listen to our argument, waiting on bated breaths to hear what insults we spit next. Tension hovers in the already thin air, but no one dares to break it. They all just wait—some openly gawking and others pretending to be busy doing something else.
I take a deep breath, trying to remain calm, and slowly ease my fists open. My voice is even, nearly monotone, when I reply. “Are you so cynical that you can’t believe for one second that someone might actually want to get to know you as a friend or at least an acquaintance?”
“Don’t you have enough fans—I mean, friends?”
“Aren’t you tired of being an asshole all the time?”
“Aren’t you tired of always pretending to be nice? No one in the world is genuinely as happy as you act like you are.”
“I—”
“What?” He cuts me off, then doesn’t even let me respond. “You are always happy? I would be, too, if I was as perfect as you.”
My eyebrows shoot to my hairline. Where did that come from? “Perfect?” I parrot in disbelief.
His hand flies up, nearly smacking me in the face as he gestures to . . . all of me. “Perfect hair. Perfect eyes. Perfect teeth and smile. Perfect childhood, perfect family. Everything in your life has been handed to you on a gold platter, so excuse-the-fuck-me if I have a little bit of resentment. Not everyone has had such a perfect run of it, okay?”
Sometime during his rant, my mouth fell open, so I have to pick it up off the floor before attempting to sputter a response. The words don’t come, though. Awkward friction fills the space between us as he stares at me, eyes blazing with the proof of his hatred toward me. I should be angry at his harsh words, but the truth of them covers any heat in my blood. He’s right, probably more so than he even knows.
In the absence of further argument, Avery gathers his few carry-on belongings and stands. He scans the seats full of now-whispering teammates before choosing a deserted spot in the back of the plane. Stalking to it, he sits, settles his things in the seat beside him, and replaces the single earbud he took out at the beginning of our encounter.
I remain where I am, stunned speechless. A few guys not so subtly eye me as if to gauge my reaction, but the joke is on them because I . . . don’t have one. Somehow, Avery knows the truth about me—the cold, hard truth I have been trying to run from for years. I have done everything in my power to portray myself as this happy-go-lucky guy, and it has made me forget how to be me. How to be genuinely upset about something. Old me would reach for a b—
No. I can’t think of it. I won’t think of it.
Instead, I plaster on my rehearsed aloof smile and distract myself on my phone. When someone lowers themself on the seat beside me, I have a brief moment of panic that Avery has returned to berate and expose me again, but when I peek from beneath my lashes, I see it’s only Aleks. I don’t mean to release the sigh of relief that escapes my chest at the realization.
“Hey,” my friend murmurs softly enough that none of our other teammates can listen in. “Are you okay?”
My smile goes crooked and wry. “Didn’t you hear? I’m perfect.”
