Hitting the Crossbar

1: Get a Box or Two

"Well, do you want to come and stay over tomorrow night? I'll let you sleep all you want."

That sounded really good. "Is Peter going to be there?"

Sam shrugged. "He said that he might go see his girlfriend in Toronto."

Peter wasn't directly Sam's cousin, but everyone referred to him as such. While Peter wasn't a Cahill, he acted like one. He reminded me a bit of Sam's cousin Ivan. He had that mischievous sparkle in his eyes and a head full of bad ideas.

Come to think of it, he was basically sworn in as a Cahill.

"You have practice tomorrow?" Sam asked.

"In the afternoon," I said, glancing over to where my cleats were hanging out of my duffel bag on the floor. Soccer. I got to play the sport at a university pro soccer players had attended, where they had been scouted and signed, and now they were professionals. "You know, I still can't believe I made the team."

Sam's hands went up against my back, leaving tingles in their wake until he reached my ponytail. He took the hair tie out, letting my brown hair escape its confines. "Why? You deserved it."

I leaned back, my eyes roaming his expression. His green eyes showed so much sincerity that without thinking I moved forward, kissing him. He responded with equal intensity, his hands tightening around me, one moving up to my face and the other to my hip. The feeling that surged through me from this, the simplicity of this moment, always surprised me. The way I had to bite back a smile every time we kissed always shocked me. Especially when he pressed us closer to each other and I could feel his body heat even through the leather jacket he was wearing. Especially when his teeth tugged on my bottom lip as a tease. The sound he made when I combed my fingers through his hair jolted down my body.

I could have kissed him forever if that had been possible. The two of us in a little bubble. Unfortunately, bubbles were meant to be popped.

"Whoa, guys!"

I pushed myself off Sam quickly, stumbling to my feet. We met my roommate's wide eyes before she looked apologetic.

"Maddy," Sam huffed with irritation that I knew would be forgotten in a second.

Sam liked Maddy. When he'd first met her a few weeks ago, he'd said, She's not annoying. And unlike most of the girls who had spotted Sam whenever he was here, she didn't think of him as anything more than a friend. That was a relief—I never had to worry about coming back to the dorm and having my roommate fawn all over my boyfriend.

"Sorry," Maddy said, walking over to her desk. "I forgot my book. You two lovebirds can go back to whatever you were doing."

Maddy—Madeline, really, but she preferred the nickname—was a Filipino girl from a small town in British Columbia, with golden-brown skin and long dark hair, around five-foot-one to my six feet. Our long-distance friendship didn't matter since we'd realized we were going to get along the second we'd met.

The first time I met her wasn't even in our room. Like me, Maddy attended our university for a sport, but she played volleyball. I had been passing by one of the many gyms on campus as I was exploring and accidentally got in the way of a volleyball game where she almost hit me in the face with the ball.

Ever since then, we'd been good friends.

When she left the room and closed the door behind her, I straightened myself, turning back to Sam. "I'm going to take a shower. Wait for me?"

"Always," he murmured.

I pushed him on the shoulder, unable to keep the smile off my face. "It's too early for you to be this corny."