I text Jesse that I can’t train for the next two weeks, and never get a response.

Whatever. I did my job.

Forty minutes later, I trudge up the entrance stairs, take the elevator ’cause my leg’s killing me and unlock my front door. I get inside, toss my training bag on the floor, and toe off my sneakers, leaving sock-sweat footprints on the floor after locking the door and making my way towards the kitchen, because yes, I am hungry. Again.

I look into the fridge, staring down at all the veggies I chopped up and the hummus that’s hanging around in a neat little container waiting to be eaten as a healthy kind of snack, but nothing in my fridge looks appetizing to eat, and then I down some painkillers so I can get some sleep.

My training bag makes a weird noise, and then I remember my phone’s in there, so I go to fish it out, only to find that Jesse’s tried to call me. Twice.

Seriously? In this day and age? Who is calling people still? You have fingers to text, don’t you?

This guy, I swear.

I text him and ask him what he wants. He answers by calling me again, and I seriously have a debate with myself whether I should pick it up or not, but now he definitely knows I have the phone in my hand, and I’m close to it, and not answering it is plain rude.

Ugh.

“Hello?”

“Why can’t you come to training tonight?”

“How about a ‘how are you, Maddie’? What’s going on? And then maybe you should ask the training question, huh?” I feel shitty enough already, about everything, about not being able to train with Jesse, to see him and surprise him with my awesome progress—not. I sigh into the phone without realizing it. Great, now he knows I’m upset. Like he cares.

“What’s wrong?”

Well, shit. I wasn’t expecting that. So, I deflect. “I don’t have anything good in my fridge and I’m starving.”

“So go get something, order in.” He says it like I should know this; I do know this.

“No, no, no. I want the food to magically appear in front of me without me having to do anything.” I wave a hand in front of my fridge, but my silent abracadabra doesn’t work.

“All right, so tell me what you want to eat and I’ll bring it to you.”

I frown down at my phone, making sure that this is indeed Jesse’s phone number and I’m talking to Mr. Windy himself. “Hello?” I press the phone harder to my ear. “Am I talking to last year’s MVP of the league? Did you just offer to not only buy me food but also bring it to me?”

“Yeah, I did. Is there a problem?” he asks, all cut and dry.

I gulp but take my shot. “No, no problem. I want pizza. With everything on it, topped with green olives. A huge one, too. You get yourself whatever you want.” It’s not like I’m training for the next two weeks anyway. And honestly, one pizza isn’t going to kill me.

“There’s no way you can eat a large pizza by yourself.”

“Wanna bet?”

And now we’re here, with Jesse in my apartment and we’re sprawled on my couch in front of Netflix, sharing two large pizzas with everything on them and slurping diet soda like it’s the elixir of life.

“Oh God, I can’t believe you brought the food to me, but that sort of makes you the best. Forget about your football prowess, you may be kind of decent if you keep this up.” I tell him, eating my third slice, screwing my diet with this giant cheat meal and enjoying every second of it. God, why does pizza cheese taste better than regular cheese? How is that allowed?

“Madelyn Chase thinks I’m the best. I’ll have it put on a plaque and hang it up in my trophy room.”

I look at him, ignoring my precious pizza for a few seconds. “You have a trophy room?” Because I have MVP awards from my high school teams and the U-21 team for Team Canada, but I don’t have a trophy room.

His look is the facial equivalent of obviously, don’t you?

I shake my head. “Nope. But I guess when I start raking in all those awards, I’ll need a room for them, too.” I’m thinking about it, and then I ask, “But do you have every trophy you’ve ever won, ever? Or is it the highlights?”

“I’ll show it to you someday.” Jesse keeps his eyes on the TV, as if I’m not here.

“What?! Like, you’d invite me over?” I snort, then turn back to my pizza and mutter apologies to it for neglecting it even for a short amount of time. “That’ll be the day. I can see the headlines now, Jesse Windmeier invites female footballer—because those assholes won’t get my name in the paper compared to the likes of you—over to his house. We could give Becks and Posh a run for their money, huh?” I snort again and eat my crust, trying to savour it but end up stuffing it in my mouth like it’s the last morsel I will ever eat.

I feel myself getting full, but I don’t want to stop eating.

“I would invite you over, Maddie, all you have to do is ask.” Again, with the not making eye contact, being all infuriating.

“What’s the matter with you?” I ask, massaging my right leg that’s going wonderfully numb as the painkillers start to kick in and the ice patch is doing its job. “Why are you being nice? First the food and then you bring it to me, and now you want to invite me over to your place? What’s up with that?”

I am aware now that Jesse is in my home, my simple apartment that has everything I need but probably doesn’t compare all that much to his giant, expensive-as-hell condo in North London (maybe, probably). It’s gotta be spectacular, ostentatious, and all those other words.

I look around my apartment. It’s not shabby or anything like that, but it’s pretty minimalist and I haven’t had time nor the inclination, really, to make it homier, and I’ve been here for six months now. Oops.

Jesse just keeps on eating his pizza like I didn’t even say anything. Fine, I can play that game, too.

No, I can’t, who am I kidding?

“You didn’t answer any of my texts the other day.”

My shoulders hike up to my ears, and I look everywhere but at him. “Yeah, so? I texted you I got home okay, that was the end of that obligation. And how come you sent me so many texts? Didn’t you figure I was sleeping?”

Jesse shrugs. “No, since you opened every single one of them but refused to answer.”

“Look, I’m grateful for the pizza and all, but don’t make me throw you out.”

He raises an eyebrow, all Mr. Cool and Awesome Footballer MVP. What an asshole. “Tell me why you were upset yesterday.”

I roll my eyes hard enough to catch a glimpse of heaven above, and yup, there’s a football field. “I don’t have to tell you that.”

Jesse nods, wiping his mouth with a napkin, all proper as you please while we eat off the plates in our laps. Here I am, sharing a meal with Jesse Windmeier, again. Who the hell am I?

“No, you don’t, but it’s affecting your training. I heard your coach benched you for the next two weeks.”

“Yeah, I was the one who told you that.”

Jesse shakes his head, his hair flopping over his eyes. I have an intense urge to push it back, off his forehead. The urge is so strong that my muscles lock and I can almost feel myself leaning in closer to him, going to do just that.

Bad body, bad body! I didn’t give you permission to do that! Stop it!

“No, you didn’t. You told me training is suspended for two weeks. And you gave me no explanation.”

“Do I really owe you an explanation?” I’m being confrontational, I know, but just because the guy bought me pizza doesn’t entitle him to know anything about me.

“You do if you want me to keep training you.” Jesse says it with the same tone as I get what I want. I nearly lose my appetite—nearly.

“Yeah, well, that hasn’t been going great for me so far, has it? You’ve withheld vital information, and I think you’re getting more out of this deal than I am.”

That eyebrow pops high on his forehead again, and there’s something wrong with his mouth. He could be trying to stifle a smile if what I’m seeing is right. “And what am I getting out of it?”

“Obviously, it’s the pleasure of my company,” I snort, like the answer is the most obvious thing in the world, like the sky is blue.

Jesse laughs, covering his mouth with a hand like he’s surprised the sound came out of him at all. It’s that special laugh that sort of takes over his whole body as he lets himself go and throws back his head and laughs and laughs. His throat bobs, his chest expands with every breath and I find myself temporarily dumbstruck by the look of him laughing at something I said. Cracking jokes is my superpower, but I wasn’t even trying to kid this time.

“God, what am I going to do with you?” he asks, that smile still on his face, his eyes crinkling when he can look at me again.

I’ve seen Jesse in photo spreads in the greatest sports magazines in the world, in photo shoots for endorsements for sports gear and menswear alike, and this, this, is the best I’ve ever seen him look.

And he’s looking at me.

What the actual hell is going on?

The piece of pizza I was chewing doesn’t taste so good anymore, so I gulp it down to spare my taste buds, and it sits like lead in my stomach. I shake my head, ignoring the way he’s looking at me, the way he keeps looking at me, and my cheeks start heating up. Christ, I’m generating enough heat to be a furnace.

Emergency cooldown, all hands on deck. Where’s the cryo chamber when you need one?

I start stacking the plates, getting too close to Jesse’s lap for comfort. I manage to grab the plate balanced on his knee without making any sort of skin-to-skin contact and start closing up the pizza boxes on my coffee table and head towards the kitchen with everything stacked just so. I can feel him following me, the sound of another person in my place as foreign to me as ever.

The skin between my shoulder blades starts to itch, and I speed up, limping towards my kitchen and putting everything away: plates in the kitchen sink, pizza in plastic baggies and then shoving it in the fridge, throwing out the wadded napkins we used, covered in pizza grease.

When there’s nothing left to do, I sort of deflate, my shoulders drooping, my body going limp as I lean back against the kitchen counter, cross my arms over my chest and look at him.

How the hell do I get him to leave?

Jesse mimics me, crossing his arms and leaning back against the opposite counter, next to my fridge, and then we get into that weird staring contest again, but I’m too tired for it, so I let him win. Now that it’s all over, he’ll leave, right? Right?

He smirks at me instead and kicks the ground with a sock-clad foot. They’re a brand that he did an endorsement for.

Jesse Windmeier makes a stupid amount of money per year, and he’s standing in my kitchen, having staring contests with me.

What sort of universe do I live in?