Page 56 of Out of Bounds

The girl’s warm smile disappeared. "It’s astrophysics."

"Damn." Adam winced. "That’s what I meant. What did I say?"

She folded her arms across her chest. "And you told the cheerleaders I’m a biochemist."

"Can we chalk it up to I’m not smart?" Adam suggested.

"Yeah, we can," Ryan told him, and before I realized what was happening, his hand was on my back, steering me toward the circle of chairs. There was a round of thoughts I could’ve had about that. How pushy. How demanding. And howcouldhe haulme away from Adam’s fascinating attempt at a cleanup, without asking?

But all I could think about was Ryan’s hand on my back. The same hand that I’d seen shove over football players. The same hand that definitely would’ve engulfed mine.

And you know what they say about big hands….

Damn traitorous voice.

I could ignore it with the actual barbecue setup. It wasn’t just a round of chairs together. There were white tables with gold, silver, and bronze trophies. TwoHeadbandedboxes were stacked on each other at the end. We weren’t embarking on a family-friendly game night. We were looking at the second big event of the day.

I raised an eyebrow. "And we’re seriously playing?"

"Unfortunately."

The trophies were the size of dinner plates, gleaming in the evening sun. And, right behind the trophies, there was the one football girlfriend I hadn’t gotten a chance to chit-chat with at practice.

The other football girlfriends were a full-time welcoming committee, eager with introductions and handshakes, huge smiles, and offers to pick me up a coffee before the first whistle started. They lived and breathed the six-in-the-morning practices.

But June was different. With everything on her schedule, I hadn’t gotten a chance to say more than two words to her.

When Ryan stepped aside to help King with the grill, I found my chance.

"Hey." I gave a little wave and tried my best customer service voice. It wasstronglyimplied by Cleo that I had to make friends with all the football girlfriends. "Good to see you."

June didn’t bother glancing up from her phone. "You too!"

"It's such a great setup."

"And such a great game," she completed for me, still buried in her phone. "Sorry, Casey, I've got to take this."

"Kassie, it's…Kassie…actually." My voice trailed off like June did, back over to King by the grill. Most of the girlfriends had been so inviting. "Huh."

"Don’t worry about it. June’s busy." Ryan's voice brought me back to reality.

He saw that?

My cheeks burned. "No, it's fine—um—we’re not trying to win this game, right?"

"Nope."

"Good." I sighed, pleased. "We’re definitely losing."

"A guaranteed loss," Ryan confirmed.

It wasn’t hard finding a place to sit and everyone sat in obvious couple arrangements. That was where my expertise ended. They playedHeadbandedlike I'd never seen it played before.

The headbands were tossed away. We were separated into small groups and competed against each other. Everybody was handed a stack of cards and worked on getting their partner to guess what the word was. The more cards you collected, the more points you racked up.

Ryan and I weren’t exactly pros.

"Cold Christmas movie?" I munched on some chips when he passed me the bag. "Ryan, whatisn’ta cold Christmas movie?"

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