Page 35 of Wicked Serve

I suppress my smile. I can’t deny how fun it is to sneak around with her. We were discreet over the summer, of course, but it’s one thing to have all of New York City to play with, and another to be on a college campus with half her family. Whenever I see her and there’s nowhere private to say hello, I wink at her. Her cute blush is worth the risk. Hopefully we don’t work this out of our systems for a good long while.

When practice finally ends, I give Micah a couple takeaways and book it before anyone can trap me in a conversation. I hurry to my dorm, nearly jogging along the lighted walkway, and smile when I catch sight of Isabelle lounging against the front door. She’s still in her uniform, the royal purple jersey with 10 stamped across the front standing out against her fair skin.

I back her against the building as I kiss her, my hand reaching for her ponytail and tugging.

“Hi,” she says breathlessly.

“Did you win?”

“You didn’t check your phone?”

I shrug. “I wanted it straight from you.”

She winds her arms around my neck, giving me another peck. “We absolutely crushed them.”

“Atta girl. I wish I could have seen it.”

I hear the footsteps of someone approaching, so I tug her around the corner, and in the process, manage to knock over a recycling bin. It clangs loudly as it hits the ground. Isabelle freezes, giving me a wide-eyed look. The guy who just walked out of the building pauses, but continues on his way.

As soon as we’re alone, she bursts into laughter. “You’re such a nuisance,” she teases as we crouch to clean up the mess. At least it was recycling, not trash. “This is Bryant Park all over again.”

I snort at the memory. The New York Public Library had an art exhibit in the park in July, and there may have been a teeny, tiny issue involving a display that, to be clear, looked a lot like a regular tree. “Purely accidental.”

“You knocked over half the exhibit!”

“And they should have bolted it down, if they didn’t want anyone leaning on it.”

Her grin sparkles in the early evening light. “It wasn’t so much leaning as like, a mauling—”

I cut her off with another kiss. “Is tonight the night we finally finish New Girl?”

“Oh my God, please. Then we can start Gossip Girl!”

“I never agreed to that.”

She tugs me to the door, practically bouncing with excitement. “Oh, shush. It’ll give you all the warm New Yorker fuzzies.”

Chapter 16

Izzy

I stare at the sign hanging on the door to the pool with dismay. “You have to be kidding me.”

After what went down in the pool shower, we couldn’t resist going back, and over the past few weeks, Nik and I have combined actual swimming workouts with another kind of cardio. No one suspects anything, and I’ll never object to starting the day with an orgasm in the showers and an off-campus breakfast run. We’re just enjoying each other’s company for mutual stress relief, after all.

Today, though? The pool’s closed for maintenance.

Nik squints at the sign. He still looks sleepy, which would be adorable if not for the fact I can’t shove him into the pool to wake him up. I’ve been careful not to spend the night at his dorm, so I rarely get to see him like this.

“Huh. That’s a bummer.”

I unwind my hair from its bun and shake it out. “A bummer? You mean a catastrophe.”

He stifles a yawn. “We have another option.”

“Going back to bed?” I say hopefully.

“No.” He smirks. “Going for a run.”

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