Ryan Hunter

tiger. Not even playing video games with Justin in the afternoon could take my thoughts off Liza and Tony. My possessiveness grew and left me in a state where I might have broken all his fingers if he dared to even touch her.
    By the evening, I couldn’t bear being with myself any longer and decided to give Mitchell a call.
    “What’s cracking?” he answered the phone.
    “Nothing much. Bored as hell. Wanna come play some Call of Duty ?”
    “Sorry, can’t. I’m meeting Cloey in twenty.”
    Pacing my room, I growled but with my palm placed over the phone so he wouldn’t hear me. Then I said, “How did things go with Matthews? You cool now?”
    There was a little pause and a weird Tony-sigh. “I guess, but I can’t tell for sure.”
    Now that made me curious. I slumped into my desk chair, stacking my feet on the corner of my bed. “What did you do?”
    “Nothing, really. I went over, we watched her favorite movies, and then suddenly she threw me out.”
    “She did what?” Oh my god, could it get any better?
    “She seemed totally distracted all day, which is totally untypical for her when she can watch Hugh Jackman in action.”
    I took a look at myself in the mirror on the door. A smile slipped to my lips as I had a pretty good imagination of what might have been distracting her.
    Tony continued, “Sometime in the afternoon she found a lame-ass excuse to make me leave without hurting my feelings.”
    “But you are hurt.” No chance to miss that even over the phone.
    “Damn, of course, I am. I mean, she never did that before. Something’s totally off with her recently.”
    Dipping my head back, I studied the light spots on ceiling. “I told you she’d find out what’s going on. Maybe that’s it. If you don’t come clean with her soon, you might only make it worse.” And as soon as he did, Liza would be mine. Dammit, I didn’t want to wait any longer.
    “Yeah, I know that. I’ll tell her tomorrow after training. Also because I don’t want to sleep with Cloey before I’ve got things straight with Liz.” He gave a bitter laugh. “And Cloey seems to have reached her patience limit where that is concerned.”
    And here I was talking to my friend again, but I swore to myself it would be the very last time. “You still sure about that?” I sighed. “I can just picture how you’re going to be single after that one night.”
    “Totally sure. Cloey is the right one for me.” There was a short silence, then he went on, “I know you only mean it in the best possible way, but believe me, she won’t dump me.”
    “All right. You’re on your own then, dude. I hope it’s worth it for you. See you at training, tomorrow.”
    I rang off and went to do some needless nonsense just to kill time until it was late enough to go to bed. With the news of Liza being a bit rattled today hanging in the air, I couldn’t wait to see her tomorrow.

    Three p.m. on Tuesday was a long time coming. While I usually came to training just in time to start, today I found myself on the ground early, scanning for Liza. She stood at the middle of the field, waiting for Tony, who’d just jogged over to her. I walked up behind her, but he beat me there and said, “Hi, Liz. Are those shades new?”
    Ah, so she’d brought my sunglasses. “Nope, they’re mine,” I said as I stepped around Liza and pulled them off her nose. She didn’t protest but gifted me with the sweetest smile that made my day. I didn’t get around noticing that not even Tony had gotten such a nice greeting today. And it clearly confused him.
    Liza noticed his puzzled look, too, and quickly explained, “He gave them to me after the party. Hangover and sunlight—not a good combination.”
    I remembered the moment when she’d knocked into my chest because of the blinding light and laughed. With the warm sun on our backs, we walked over to the other players, and I couldn’t be happier to have Liza at the soccer training today. Two of the best things in my life combined—what more could I wish for?
    Out of this cheerful mood, I asked Mitchell, “Up to play captain of the other team today?”
    “Sure. Want to pick players in turn?” he replied and his gaze skated over to Liza. When he winked at her, I knew he was going to pick her first.
    But I couldn’t let this happen, so I laid a possessive arm around her shoulders and told Mitchell, “Yep, you can pick first. But not her.”
    Liza stopped abruptly, and since I didn’t let go of her, I