Page 73 of Sporty Girls Don't Fall For Loners

But just as I approach him, the buses arrive and VP Rivera announces that we should start boarding them. My group should board buses one and two while the second group is supposed to board buses three and four.

Kade turns around and I smack right into his chest, the force so strong that I topple backward. But strong arms wrap around my waist, preventing me from plummeting to the hard ground.

“Zoey.” Kade stares into my eyes. “Sorry. I didn’t see you there. I could have hurt you.”

“It’s…it’s okay,” I whisper, my eyes getting lost in his blue ones. I never noticed before how pretty they are. And the way his arms are wrapped around me, holding me so gently and protectively…I’ve never felt so safe before. “You’re so strong. And I thought I had some serious muscles. And your abs are so...”

My eyes get so wide I swear they’ll roll off my face. What is coming out of my mouth?

Kade just continues gazing into my eyes. His arms are still wrapped around me and I’m only inches away from his body.

“I just wanted to, um, ask you something,” I say.

“Ask me something?”

“Yeah…” Even though I don’t want to, I step out of his arms because people are staring at us. “What bus are you getting on?”

“Uh…I don’t really care. One?”

“Cool. Me, too. I guess I’ll see you there.”

I walk away from him, scolding myself for being such a weirdo. I don’t know what it is, but lately, I’m so awkward around him. I’ve never been this way around a guy before. What is it about him?

“I guess this is where we part for the day,” Mia says with a frown as we head to our buses. “Have fun with Kade, Zoey.”

“See you,” Rylee waves. Mia and Mason wave to me, too, before loading onto bus three.

I get on my bus and find an empty seat in the middle. Some of my teammates are on this bus, too, but they’re sitting in the back. I scoot over to the window. Many kids pass my seat, all of them ignoring me, which isn’t surprising. Then Kade gets on the bus.

He walks through the aisles, scanning the kids in the seats. Most of them are full, and the ones that have room show no interest in accommodating him. I know it seems silly, but if he passed by my seat…would that bother me?

Yes. Yes, it would.

But he doesn’t pass my seat. He stops and looks at me, eyes questioning. My mouth opens to say something, but my lips are dry.

“Is…uh, is this seat taken?” he asks.

“Yeah, by Kade Sanders.”

That causes his lips to lift. “The best seat in the entire bus.” He slides in next to me, accidentally knocking his leg into mine and sending a spark through me. “Sorry.”

“That’s okay.”

We both sit in silence.

I feel him watching me and turn my head. He quickly looks away. I do, too. But a few seconds later, I sense his eyes on me again. When I turn my head, he quickly looks away again.

“I caught you twice,” I say.

He seems to freeze for a second, but then he laughs. “I’m bad at that, aren’t I?”

“You want to ask me something?”

“No…I just…”

“What?”

“I just like being near you, that’s all.”

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