SNAPPED (The Slate Brothers 1)

“Hey— it’s no big deal. You’re fine. Go change,” he says. He turns me gently, and urges me toward the bathroom. I try to sniff some sort of gratitude, but instead I collapse through the door. I shut it behind me, locking the door to both Sebastian’s room and the bedroom adjacent. I strip off my clothes and leave them in a greasy pile on the floor, then turn on the sink to try to rinse the sauce out of my hair.

“So, Papa Pig’s, huh? You must be a freshman,” Sebastian says through the door. I think he might be leaning on it, because he sounds so close I jumped at first, thinking perhaps he’d somehow gotten in behind me.

“How’d you know?” I ask back, threading my fingers through my hair.

“Only freshman work for that place on account of the pig nose,” he says.

“Did you?”

“No one on the team has time for a job,” Sebastian answers.

“Lucky you,” I say with a sigh. The grease isn’t coming out of my hair. I see a container of all-in-one face/body/hair wash (the dudebro-ist product of all time) in the shower, and grab it, quickly lathering it into my hair. It smells like Sebastian’s room— well, it smells like Sebastian, I suppose. Spicy and sweet and masculine. It’s a nice smell.

“Being on the team is a job in and of itself. There’s no free time,” Sebastian says with a touch of defense in his voice. “Training and appearances and games and meetings…”

“No pig noses, though,” I point out. I flip my hair back. It’s drenched, but it’s clean, and that’s something. I’m grateful I cut my back-length hair to a long bob before college— I’d figure going so short would mean more time between cuts, which meant more money saved. I hadn’t anticipated “easier to wash in a guy’s sink” as another perk to the cut.

“True. But the pig nose looked cute on you,” he says.

I freeze, unsure if he’s teasing me or not.

Of course he’s teasing you, I nag myself, stooping to bundle my own clothes up. The jersey is big enough to look like a dress on me— in fact, looking at the way it hangs off my body, it’s hard for me to imagine a person filing it out. Sebastian does, though, I suppose.

He’s number 11. I wonder what his last name is— the faux jersey doesn’t have his name on it. I run my fingers across the vinyl “11” for a moment, then stoop to pull my panties back on. I can go sans bra, but I’m definitely not walking through this house sans bra and panties.

Although, suddenly, the thought of being without panties in front of Sebastian crosses my mind and I feel my nipples stiffen.

I bite my lower lip and feel my cheeks flush.

“You okay in there?” Sebastian asks.

“Yeah, just— yeah,” I say, wringing my hair out and finger combing it as best I can. I take a look at myself in the mirror, adjusting where I can, wiping the remains of my mascara from under my eyes. I bundle my clothes under my arm, then swing the door open. Sebastian is standing right in front of it— in fact, he’d been leaning on it, because I nearly smack him in the face with the door.

“Easy killer. You’ve done enough house damage tonight.” He swings an arm around my shoulders as I exit the bathroom. It’s so familiar that it startles me— and it startles me even more how much I like it. Everything about Sebastian is confident and strong and big, and it’s hard not to want to lean into him. I’ve never been into football players, but then, I’ve never been up close to one.

I’m shocked at how good it feels to be snuggled up to him momentarily. I inhale deeply through my nostrils, smelling him.

Wondering if this is what it’s like to be a ball player’s girl.

“I’ll walk you out the back,” he says. “They’ll freak if they see you in my jersey.”

“Who’s they?” I ask as we start toward the door, walking rather slowly. Am I crazy for thinking he might like having his arm around me? Of course I am. I look like a drowned pizza rat. But he’s watching me in a certain way that makes my heart race, and I don’t flinch when he reaches up with his free hand and moved a soggy piece of my hair off my forehead.

“I don’t want them to think you and I were up here doing something else that might mean you wearing my jersey.”

Oh. I flush, hard, because of course he wouldn’t want anyone to think he’d slept with the Papa Pig’s girl. Clearly, I’m misinterpreting the way he’s looking at me. It’s not that he’s charmed be me— it’s that he pities me.