Page 10 of My First and Only Crush

CHAPTER6

SINCLAIRE

“You aren’t, not really.” Tension spirals across his face.

“Liar,” I say, the accusation sliding out of me on a breathless whisper.

His eyebrows shoot up. “Just because I’m frustrated, doesn’t make it your fault,” he murmurs in that thick, careful way of his. “But if you want a reason, we could talk about you hiding from your dad, for one.”

I wish I could tell him the real reason I did that. “He doesn’t want me underfoot.”

He shakes his head. “All season?”

Ooof. “I had my reasons.”

“You gonna ever tell me what those were? Because your internship ended in September.”

“You knew that?” I push up on my toes so I’m at least a little taller against the wall.

As he nods his head, his gaze searching my face, I catch a whiff of the game. Sweat and dirt and beneath all that, the very warm scent of Trick’s skin. Unmistakably him.

My heart is pounding. Maybe it’s the scent of hard-fought victory. Maybe it’s the darkness. The team is ten feet away, though.

We aren’t alone, and we’ll be interrupted any minute.

So this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to imagine that Trick might actually want to be alone with me like this for reasons other than protecting me and giving me lectures.

Even if I secretly like his concern for me, I’d like more adult attention, too, and I’m never going to get it, so I won’t feel bad for having a vibrant fantasy zinging around my head as he braces one arm above me and leans in even closer.

“You don’t have to be nervous,” he mutters.

“I’m not nervous.”

“Then is my texting game that bad?”

“I—”

“Did it ever occur to you that I’m just a big dumb jock who gets tongue-tied?”

I blink, confused. “What does that have to do with anything?”

I know he has social anxiety. But he’s known me my whole life. When I was little, he used to let me hang out and watch him do an entire batting practice, and we’d talk the entire time. And there was that one time the whole team flew to his ranch in Wyoming to ride horses. He was so good with me.

“It used to be easier.” He grunts. “Anyway. Get out of here. I have to go in there and say something.”

I grab the front of his t-shirt and yank—hard, not that it moves him. “Listen to me, Trick Lowry. You’re a legend on this team. You don’t need to say anything. You can just go in there and point to them, one by one, and they’ll know what you mean.”

He rears back a little, his arm sliding up the wall, and his lower body sways against mine.

I shiver at the accidental brush of contact, and his free hand immediately covers my upper arm and squeezes.

“You’re cold.”

“Nope,” I say, hearing myself from at a distance. “Maybe that’s just how I react when I’m pinned against the wall.”

Both of us go quiet.

“Not that I know,” I add in a rush. “This is my first time. I’m not the kind of girl who ever gets pinned up against anything.”

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