Old Fashioned - Becker Brothers

“Oh,” I said quickly, and my next breath came easier. “Yeah, she’s been great. I made a bit of an ass of myself when she first joined, basically saying in not so many words that I was worried she’d be a distraction on the team.”

“Jordan…”

“I know,” I said before he could continue. “Not my proudest moment. But, I was stressed coming into the new season, and to be honest, I was worried that the guys would be distracted by her. And, to be clear, they are — but that’s not her fault. She’s doing her job, and doing a damn fine job of it, too. At first, the guys were all gaga for her, but they respect her now. She feels like part of the team already.”

“That’s awesome,” Mikey said, but there was a hesitance in his voice. “Now… are you going to tell me why you reacted like a kid getting caught with his hand in the cookie jar when I asked you about her?”

I opened my mouth to argue, but he cut me off before I could speak.

“And don’t pretend like it’s nothing, because I know you better than that, and to save us both time we should just skip the part where I have to beat it out of you.”

I wanted to be annoyed that my brother knew me so well, but I couldn’t help but smile, because I was this way with all of them, too.

We could see through the bullshit when it came to each other, and that was part of what made our bond so strong.

I sighed. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“How about you start with whatever is on your mind right now.”

I worked the inside of my cheek. “I kissed her on Saturday night. She freaked out and basically kicked me out of her home. Then on Monday, she stormed into my office and said it was a drunken mistake and we should forget it ever happened.”

“Ouch.”

“And I agreed,” I continued. “Even though I don’t actually agree.”

“I see.”

“And I hate it,” I added, chest aching with the realization that I really, really did hate it. “Because we had a friendship, you know? I felt like… like I could talk to her, and like she was opening up to me. And we would joke with each other, and we worked well together, too… and now?” I sighed again. “We’re just dancing around each other, pretending like I didn’t cross the line and that everything is back to normal, when we don’t even have a normal, anymore.”

Mikey was quiet for a long time, then he asked one simple question.

“Do you still want to kiss her?”

I frowned. “It doesn’t matter if I do or not.”

“I guess what I mean is — when she said it was a mistake and you guys should forget about it, did you take that opportunity to tell her that you didn’t feel like it was a mistake, and that you’d like to try being more than friends?”

“Mikey, she told me we should forget about it.”

“I realize that,” he said. “But what I’m asking is does she know you feel this way?”

“It doesn’t matt—”

“It does!” Mikey’s voice was loud and firm, and I shut my mouth in response. “She told you it was a mistake, that you both were drunk, and you agreed and said yeah, let’s forget about it. What if there was a little bit of hope in her that it wasn’t a mistake? What if she was waiting to see what you said?”

I frowned.

“Look, I know you, Big Bro, and one thing I know is that you don’t misread signs when it comes to women. You are not an asshole, and you wouldn’t so much as think about making a move on a woman unless there was a real connection and consent. You’ve always been the gentleman, and you’ve always taken things slow with the women you’ve dated — and what’s more, there haven’t been many. So, if you crossed the line and kissed Sydney, I know for a fact that it was because you felt something, and you wouldn’t have felt something if she hadn’t felt it, too.”

A little balloon of hope filled in my chest, but I popped it quickly. “It’s not that simple.”

“It could be.”

“I can’t just…” I threw my hand out, as if to show him all the reasons why. “Confess that I wanted to kiss her and that I still want to kiss her and that I think about her every damn minute of every day. This isn’t high school. We work together, Mikey. She technically works under my supervision, which makes me her boss, in a way. She’s already working against the odds as the only female on an all-male staff in a male-dominated sport, and she’s back to work for the first time in years. And,” I continued, running out of breath. “She has a daughter, and an ex-husband, and there are just a lot of complications at work here, okay?”