THIAGO
A small smile couldn’t help but stay on my lips as I drove, keeping my eyes on the road. Unlike every other previous interaction with Anastasia, there was no arguing or grumpiness between us and the usual cold tension was completely gone.
"I really appreciate you staying behind, Thiago," She said, immediately interrupting my thoughts.
I glanced briefly at her and immediately she noticed me looking, she looked out the side window. "I know you had other important things to do, so thank you for waiting," She said.
’I would do...’ I waved off the thought immediately realizing what I was thinking about.
"It’s fine," I told her as I loosened my grip on the steering wheel.
I didn’t like that she thought she owed me massive ’thank you’s,’ but I stayed quiet and continued driving.
"Now you don’t seem to behave like the cold captain," She said with a smile while I smirked faintly. "Let’s talk about you, Thiago Cruz."
I wanted to badly fix my eyes on her but I focused on the road.
I didn’t usually talk about my life outside my hockey career but something about the quietness and being this close to her made me drop my guard completely as I started finally opening up about things I’d really never spoken to anyone about.
"So, outside hockey. I rule the business world under my father’s company," I told her and she looked a little quite surprised.
"So you’re not only a captain but a CEO?" She asked and I nodded with a smile.
No one really knew me to be the heir to the Cruz Enterprises and that was only because I really didn’t show myself quite a lot to the business world. Everyone only knew me to be the legendary captain of the Titans hockey team.
I really didn’t know what other thing to say because I really wasn’t the type to have a long personal relationship with someone.
"I’m sure your parents must be really proud," She said and I couldn’t help but shrug and after seeming to understand what the shrug meant, she sighed.
"That sounds completely exhausting," She said quietly, pulling her jacket a little tighter around her shoulders. "It must be hard to enjoy what you love to do while carrying a huge responsibility," She said.
"And who told you, Anastasia Bian, that I love what I do?" I asked, finally parking the car at the building’s parking lot.
I walked out immediately, walking over to open the door for her.
"Don’t fool me Thiago Cruz, but I see it in your eyes," She chuckled slightly and my heart skipped a little.
My mind could only immediately interpret it as ’She’s always looking at you.’
She was still seated on the car seat, while her legs stayed out and I leaned on the car.
"I did not think we could survive a ten-minute drive without an argument," She joked, and let out a small laugh.
I looked at her, feeling my muscles relax.
"We truly did," That was the only words I could force out of my lips as I was still lost staring at her.
I noticed a loose strand of hair falling right across her cheek and without even thinking for a second, I unconsciously reached my hand toward her face to tuck the hair away behind her ear, my fingernails brushing her warm skin.
Anastasia froze the instant she felt my fingers on her face as her breath caught and I immediately almost apologized after seeing the smile on her face gone, replaced now with an unreadable expression on her face and I stopped myself from apologizing.
She didn’t move away as my heart beat crazily.
I was about to unconsciously say something when a pair of bright headlights suddenly flashed right to us. I immediately withdrew my hand, realizing it was Kier’s car.
He pulled right beside where I had packed and stepped down from his car, while carrying a grocery bag.
Anastasia stood up quickly and I moved backwards, giving us distance immediately.
Kier noticed us and walked over to us immediately.
"Did you find your phone?" He asked and Anastasia only nodded, forcing out a smile.
"Thank you for looking after her, Thiago," Keir said to me and I only nodded, tucking my hands into my pocket.
"I’ll leave you two," Anastasia said as she took the grocery bag from Keir before turning to my direction but she was looking anywhere else but at me and I couldn’t help but curse silently, realizing maybe I had gone too far with her and she didn’t appreciate that.
"Thank you once again, Thiago," She said, before turning to leave for Kier’s apartment.
Kier tapped my shoulder before walking off too, leaving me to wonder for about five minutes what I was thinking, touching her closely like that.
I sighed in frustration because I couldn’t understand myself anymore as I walked over to my apartment too.
Later that night, I laid awake in my bed, and I couldn’t bring myself to sleep.
The bedroom was completely dark, but I kept replaying out entire conversation over and over in my head.
For the first time since I had met Anastasia sneaking to take pictures, ever since I had felt slightly annoyed when I saw her with Cassian on her first day working with the Titans hockey team, I was beginning to question one thing—my growing attachment to my best friend’s sister.
Being the captain of the Titans team, there was one principle I held by—no sort of distraction or whatsoever but my thoughts were completely consumed by her.
I finally forced myself to sleep when the clock struck 3:34 the next day.
~
The official behind the scenes flight video had been finally uploaded but rather than getting satisfied by the success of it, everything had turned out bad almost immediately.
The fans completely ignored any hockey talk, and the comment section was flooded with speculations about Cassian constantly flirting with Anastasia throughout the video footage.
Thousands of fantasy edits and social media posts began pairing them together. It created a brand new wave of online attention as the fans started to tag them as the team’s new favorite couple.