Chapter 153
OLIVIA-
45 vouche
I watched him with my hands in my lap, my heart still racing from the locker room.
Roman played like a different man. Better than last time. Better than the games I had only seen on television, the ones where I paused on his face and then hated myself for it. He was amazing out there I’d/ never seen another basketball player move like this before.
I wasn’t the only one who noticed. The crowd did as well.
Points stacked so fast the crowd started making that low, disbelieving sound people make when they realize they are watching something they will talk about tomorrow. This game was sure to make a lot of headlines.
I blushed.
I had given him good luck. According to him. He was proving to me that this was all because of me and what we’d done in the locker room.
Twenty thousand strangers were roaring for the same man who had his mouth between my legs twenty minutes ago. I found that hard to wrap my head around.
For years, I’ve wanted Roman. Especially after that night he saved me. This is the first time I’ve finally been given a part of him, and it felt amazing. I never want to lose this feeling.
He looked over at me after the first three. After a pull-up at the elbow that barely left his hand before the net snapped.
Each time after a score his eyes would find the seats, then me, and I could not believe he was risking it with Ethan right there.
Knowing my brother, he probably thought Roman was celebrating with him.
“That’s my guy,” Ethan shouted, on his feet, beer forgotten, voice already going higher. “That’s what I’m talking about. Show them who’s the boss!”
That’s his guy? I tried not to roll my eyes.
Blair squeezed my knee, smug in the way only a sister who knew too much could be smug.
I kept my face pointed at the floor and hoped the flush looked like excitement. It was excitement. Along with many other things.
First quarter he was already in double digits.
Tyrell pointed at him when he scored again. Mateo just nodded, while one of the other players mouthed holy shit.
The other team started switching everything and it did not matter. Roman rose over the switch and dropped another midrange, then another, the kind of shot that made announcers invent poetry and made me press my thighs together in a seat I was supposed to occupy like a normal spectator.
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The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
The crowd got louder every time.
glanced at me with a smirk. A secret only both of us knew. His good luck.
I bit the inside of my check so I would not smile like an idiot. So I would not put a hand to my mouth. So I would not look at Ethan and give the whole secret away with a face I could not control.
Halftime the board looked crazy. He had more than I had ever seen him put up this early.
People around us were arguing numbers, pulling up stat lines.
A man behind us said he had never watched Vale cook like this. I sat there in the skirt he had called tod short and felt the heat.
Third quarter he did not cool off.
Then a three that made the building lose its mind, the kind of shot that lived on phones before the net finished moving.
Jalen screamed in his face. Tyrell slapped the floor. Even Mateo cracked a grin. Roman pointed at our section for half a second. Ethan pointed back, delighted, taking credit for a look that had not been for him.
I screamed anyway.
I screamed because if I did not use my voice I was going to use my face, and my face would have told the entire crowd that I was in love with the man putting the city on his back with this game tonight.
Blair laughed beside me, a little wild, a little proud. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell everyone.
Okay Olivia, time to calm down. Everyone doesn’t need to know.
I said nothing. I watched him run back on defense and still find me, still cut his eyes to the seats like the game was happening in two places at once.
Half of the building got nervous for the other team, that low restless sound that meant people had money on this and they could feel it slipping.
Roman ended it quickly. Two free throws.
The horn hit. Port City Titans won by a margin.
The crowd went wild.
I tried to scream louder than everyone. Blair laughed. Ethan was hoarse.
People stood. Hands hit. The jumbotron found Roman in the middle of his team, sweating, and still, somehow, his eyes cut to me one more time. Like he didn’t want me to forget that this was all for me. His performance. How good he played. The fact that he told me he was going to win after what we did in the locker room.
I needed to breathe. I felt flushed. I needed air. I needed him.
That was when I saw them.
TO:24 Sat, Sep 19.
The Mockey Captam’s Unwanted Wife
Eden walked onto the court.
oman’s mother and father were with her.
Cameras turned like they had been waiting for this part, like the basketball had only been the opening act.
Eden reached Roman first, with a bright smile, like the win belonged to her, like the night had been scheduled around her arrival.
His parents followed, proud in the way that was about branding as much as basketball, the same faces that had sent her to our beach house and called my family’s weekend an inconvenience.
My heart squeezed painfully.
The locker room vanished. The text vanished.
She put her hand on his arm the way she had on the sand while playing volleyball. The cameras loved it The building loved it. Well the girls hated it. I could see the jealousy in their eyes and pretty sure I looked
even worse.
Ethan was still cheering, still calling him his guy, still blind in the kindest, worst way.
He had played the game of his life.
And the first people allowed onto the floor were the woman who had told me he would propose, and the parents who had put a contract on his smile.
I stopped screaming.
Ethan was still cheering.
I sat down before my face could give me away, hands in my lap again, my heart squeezing painfully as I watched the version of his life that could be photographed. Unlike the part that involved me. I was a secret. No one knew about me. About us. But everyone knew about him and Eden.
That hurt. A lot.
10:24 Sat, Sep 19
The Hockey Captain’s Unwanted Wife
Dex Morgan
Dex works to elevate each story with clean writing, emotional balance, and thoughtful flow for readers.