Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Chase
We lost by two points, but it doesn’t feel like it, not to me at least. Mason is bummed out, but after I talked to Coach earlier this week, I shared that the scouts would be coming to watch me play next month.
Both my best friends are hyped up, the excitement over how I played tonight outweighing the L we took.
Mostly everyone on the bus is knocked out, with headphones covering their ears, but we three and a few of our other housemates are wired, counting the miles until we get home.
“Love an afternoon game that gets us home before bed, my boys.” Brady tears off a piece of jerky stick with his teeth, speaking around it. “Get to watch my girl work herself up on the dance floor, then take her home.” He wiggles his brows. “Fifteen more minutes, boys.”
“They make it home yet?”
He pulls out his phone, looking at Cam’s location and frowns. “Looks like they’re at your place.” He nods at Mase.
“Payton ordered a bunch of wings and shit,” he tells us. “Figure we’ll eat there and head out together.”
“Hold up, big daddy is coming out tonight?” I tease, and Brady chuckles.
Mase smirks. “Only because my son is already asleep, and Ari said she was too tired to go out, so my woman can come too.”
“Score.”
Brady nods.
We watch the game highlights that have already been shared on TV for the third time, and before we know it, we’re climbing off the bus and into Mason’s Tahoe.
The girls are all done eating by the time we arrive, so we shovel some food in our mouths and dress, having already showered before we loaded onto the bus.
Cam and Paige are still in the outfits they wore to the game and when Paige makes a comment that she should change, I quickly grab ahold of her, tugging her back into my front, caging her tiny body with my own.
She laughs, pressing her cheek to my chest and looking up at me. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“Or you could leave this on and we could go now?”
She watches me closely. “You actually want me to, don’t you?”
“Yeah.” My eyes move to the little swipes of glitter beside her eyes. “I really do.”
She stares a moment and then nods. “Yeah, okay, Trouble.”
Triumph heats my blood, and I meet her mouth with my own, but the kiss is short, everyone already walking out the door. Taking her hand, I lead her outside, and together, the six of us head to the football house for the party.
The second we step inside, Cameron and Payton steal her away, heading for the keg on the back porch, while us guys get stopped every couple steps we try to take in their direction.
By the time I have a cold drink in my hands, the girls are nowhere to be seen.
“Dance floor. Guaranteed.” Brady grins, leading us back into the house, but he’s like a bulldozer this time. He just keeps going, dragging Mason by the hem of his shirt, who grips me by mine, pulling me along with him.
Some of our teammates laugh as they see us sliding through like a group of girls, but what do we care?
We’ve got somewhere to be, and we find it not thirty seconds later in a bubble of blonds, each a different shade than the last. Payton and Cam slide right up to the guys, but I wait for Paige to spin and see me first, trying to gauge her reaction.
This is new to me, so I want to be sure I’m not coming on too strong, that she’s comfortable.
Thank fuck, she grabs my hand and yanks me in to her, dancing all the while.
Her smile is bright, cheeks red from the heat. Her hands are free, so I down my drink and toss it to the side somewhere, taking her hips with a firm grip.
She’s so fucking short, it makes moving while facing each other almost impossible, so I spin her around, tugging her ass into me.
“I wasn’t sure you danced,” she teases, wrapping her arm up and around my neck and smiling back at me from where she’s tucked to my chest. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you.”
“I bet you haven’t.” I kiss her wrist, my palm sliding from her hip to her stomach.
“There hasn’t been anyone I’ve wanted to dance with in a long time.
” I grip her chin, tipping her head back even more, sliding my nose along hers, then over to her ear.
“And even when there was, it was never more than a moment.”
This position has her mouth near my own ear, so I hear her gasp over the madness around us, but more than that, I feel the way her ass presses back into me. If she leans in more, she will feel something else against her lower back.
She’ll feel what having her in my arms does to me.
If she only knew what I wanted to do to her.
She turns her head suddenly, the arm she had stretched over my neck curving until her fingernails are sliding into my hair. Scraping.
She pulls and my chest rumbles, our mouths crashing together. The kiss is heated, needy, and the sounds she’s making have my dick pulsing in my jeans.
I want to take her somewhere, away from all these eyes.
Somewhere where I can tease her. Please her.
To see if her whole body blushes or if it’s just from the neck up.
Paige spins in my arms, pressing her front to me, her fingers digging into my bicep as her tongue dances along mine.
I pull back, panting. “You’re killing me, Angel.” I kiss her temple, releasing her as she shuffles a bit.
She grins, satisfied with whatever she sees and starts dancing to the song that is playing, smiling and laughing and spinning into Cameron when her hands fall on my girl’s hips.
Payton pries herself from Mason a second later, and then we’re just standing there, creating a wall around our worlds.
And we just watch, unable to look away.
Or at least, I know I can’t. Don’t want to either.
In fact, I think I could stare at this girl for hours and never tire of it, of her.
Does she feel the same way?
If not yet, could she?
Somewhere deep down, I find the courage to hope the answer is yes, because something tells me, if it’s a no, it will be the hit I can’t get up from.
“I can’t eat another bite, or I’ll explode.” Payton drops back on the picnic table, sighing into the night.
“Boo, you only ate half!” Cameron drunkenly hiccups, asking for the rest of Payton’s ice cream, having already finished her own. “Come on, Big Guy. Time to put me to sleep.”
Brady hops up so fast, the rest of us chuckle. He sweeps her legs from under her and jogs toward her dorm building, with her bridal style in his arms.
I raise a brow at Mason. “I take it your sister’s staying the night at your house?”
“Yep.” He laughs, climbing to his feet as well and tugging Payton to hers. “Come on, baby. Our little man will be up early. Let’s not skip out on any sleep we can get.”
“You just want to sneak into your Tahoe before we go inside,” she teases, but there is no protest in her voice.
He laughs loudly, wraps her up, and winks our way. “Night.”
Paige waves them away, and I nod my chin, turning back to her.
She smiles and hops down, picking up the others’ ice cream cups, so I grab the last few and follow her to the trash bin. We fall in line together, heading toward her dorm building.
“You know,” she says as we get closer. “I think the last party I went to with you—well, not with you but that you were actually at—might have been last year at Halloween. That was almost a year ago now.” She peeks over at me. “You remember that?”
“Oh, trust me.” I chuckle. “I remember. You all dressed as the Powerpuff Girls and us guys about had a heart attack.”
She smiles. “I don’t know. Brady seemed pleased to see Cam in that.”
“Yeah, ’cause he was still pretending they were just friends and not already falling in love with each other.”
She smiles at the grass, and I reach for her hand, threading our fingers together. “I slept in your dorm that night.”
“You did. And you know what I did?”
“Snuck out before I woke up and sent Cam in to get me and make sure I made it out and home safe?”
“Guilty.” I chuckle. “But before that I counted to a thousand, forward and backward, trying to calm down and keep myself from climbing out of bed and picking you up because I couldn’t stand the thought of you under Brady’s covers.” I look ahead, at the path. “I just wanted to put you down in mine.”
“What?!” she laughs, tugging on my hand a little. “Are you serious?”
“Yep.” I chuckle, spinning and picking her up, her little legs coming around me, arms wrapping around my neck. “You drove me crazy, Angel. Even when you didn’t know it.”
“I wanted to drive you crazy, but I didn’t think it was working,” she admits, sliding her lips over mine. “I’m not good at the whole flirty stuff, but I wanted you to see me. You just never gave me any indication that you did.”
Regret rolls through me, and I run my knuckle along her cheek. “I know. That was me trying to figure my own shit out. I wouldn’t have been able to be any good to you at the time.”
Her forehead falls to mine. “And now?”
I take a deep breath, smiling softly, maybe a little sorrowfully. I don’t reiterate what I already shared, that I’m still not sure I’m worth the hassle. That I might be nothing but a disappointment in the end, but I hope. “Now I just hope I can be because I feel good, Paige. About us. This.”
“Me too,” she whispers.
Some of the weight lifts off my shoulders at her confession and I hold her a little tighter.
As we reach her dorm door, she slides down, tapping her key card and pushing it open. I walk her to her dorm room, no one even batting an eye—one, because it’s college, and two, this building is coed.
I tug her to me, kissing her good night, but she pulls back, biting on her lip anxiously.