35. EIGHTEEN #2
The discordant voice makes me jump. I turn toward it, recoiling when I find the matriarch of Purview sitting beside me.
“Oh.” I smile curtly, hiding my sweaty palms under my thighs. “I’m just here to support Alex.”
Jacqueline hums, the sharp slope of her nose a razor’s edge as she looks down at me. “He appears distracted.”
When we met at the party, I had the unnerving sense that she could read every lie on my face. And unfortunately for me, it doesn’t seem to have been a one-time thing. There is an icy omniscience to her stare that makes me want to run for the Olympic Mountains.
“Does he?” I force a swallow. “I think he’s been working hard.”
Not that I have any real reference point, since I’ve never been to any kind of sports practice before—I have a theater kid, for crying out loud—but up until the hair-pulling kerfuffle, he’d seemed pretty focused, with the exception of a few glances he’d been sending my way.
Her lips purse into thin lines. “While it’s good to see improvement with Alex’s media image, it would be a shame to see a downturn in his performance as a result of your…relationship.” She says the last word like it burns her mouth.
I’m sweating so profusely she can probably smell it.
“What are you implying?” I ask, watching Alex line up a ball before striking it toward the goal. It sails right over Arun’s head, hitting the back of the net.
It doesn’t seem she needs to be concerned with Alex’s performance at all. She’d know that, too, if she focused her arctic focus on him instead of me.
“Distraction can be costly,” she notes, her posture perfect and her chin tipped high. “My company has invested a lot of money in the team, and if they underperform, we would have to consider the financial viability of maintaining our association with them. You understand, I’m sure.”
No.
I don’t think I do.
They had a problem with his media exploits, so he found a solution. He reformed his image, albeit not authentically, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, he did what they wanted, but that’s an issue now too?
Make it make sense.
Of course, Alex chooses this moment to disregard practice altogether and comes charging over to me. He rests his hands on the barrier with a shit-eating grin on his face and declares, “Arun owes me fifty bucks.”
God fucking damnit, Alex. Read the room.
He frowns when I don’t respond.
Subtly as I can, I nudge my head in Jacqueline’s direction. How he hasn’t noticed her yet, I don’t know. She has the aura of a great white shark.
“Jacqueline.” He gifts her one of his most enigmatic smiles. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there.”
He’s a fantastic actor, feigning that he was so caught up in me that he missed her completely. It’s really something to witness.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow my girlfriend. She needs to help me celebrate.”
“Ah, yes. The fifty-dollar bet.” Jacqueline fires me a pointed look, dusts off her pristine white pants, and stands. “It must be a relief to know that you don’t have to cut your hair, considering how much you enjoy having it…pulled.”
Oh, Jesus.
My cheeks flame to the point of pain, and my stomach roils with embarrassment. Regardless of the fact that I’ve never had the good fortune of pulling his hair myself, Jacqueline, and the rest of the goddamn team, are under the impression that I do it regularly. And that makes me want to die.
Alex, however, doesn’t seem to be experiencing the inner turmoil that I am. In fact, he appears more proud than ashamed. “So you agree that this is a moment worthy of celebration.”
Who’s responsible for the audacity in this man?
Jacqueline tuts, turning her back on us. And without a word of goodbye, she glides away, the clicking of her six-inch Louboutin heels echoing around us like a warning.
“Well?” Alex grins.
“Well?”
“Get down here and celebrate with me.”
I shake my head. How he isn’t as rattled as I am is lost on me. Jacqueline has stained the winter air with an edge of foreboding that chills me to my bones. “Are you not worried at all about what just happened?”
“With Jacqueline?” He laughs. “She hates everyone. I wouldn’t take it personally.”
I want to ask him if he thinks she’s onto us, talk to him about the suspicious way she looks at me, as if she already knows the truth.
But I can’t. Not here, with Coach Carter watching us with moon eyes from farther down the pitch.
“Come on, Eden.” His voice takes on a whine that I wish I found irritating. “Stop making me wait, and get your ass down here so I can celebrate my win properly.”
“And how exactly are you wanting to celebrate?”
“With a kiss.” He gives me a wide, boyish grin. “Obviously.”
Before I know it, he’s reaching for me and hauling me over the barrier. My legs wrap around his waist on instinct, his strong hands gripping my thighs.
And then his lips are on mine.
They’re as devastating in their softness as they have been on the two other occasions I’ve felt them. Maybe I should be used to it by now, but I still gasp from the sweetness of his tongue as it slips into my mouth, still twist my fingers into his hair from the shock of heat between my legs.
He’s a good kisser, I tell myself. Any woman would react the same.
Finally, he sets me back on my feet to the chorus of his teammates’ hollering.
“Wait for me in the stands while I grab my stuff. I won’t be long.”
Then he slaps my ass.
He. Slaps. My. Ass.
“Dude, what the fuck?”
“What?” He flashes me his dimples. “You said I could grab your ass if the situation called for it.”
“The situation didn’t call for it.”
“Meh.” He shrugs. “The rules were ambiguous.”