Page 16 of Nothing Like the Movies

“This is Wes Bennett, my old next-door neighbor,” Liz said, waving a hand in my direction like I didn’t matter. Like I’d just been some kid in her neighborhood, not the guy who had a tattoo on his arm that perfectly matched the one on her shoulder.

Shit.Had she gotten it removed?

She wouldn’t have, would she? I mean, that sort of thing was expensive, wasn’t it?

It was insane, that I was focusing on that of all things, but it’d break my whole fucking heart if that tattoo was no longer there.

“We were childhood buddies,” she explained, her mouth smiling at me while her eyes did the opposite.

I tilted my head. “Is that what we were?”

I hadn’t thought it was possible, but her cheeks got even redder as she met my gaze and bit out, “Yup.”

Damn, but I need to kiss her.

“And this,” she said to me as she pointed to the guy, “is Clark.”

JustClark? No explanatory title, like “my friend” or “a jackass” or “my bodyguard”? Who was Clark to her?

“Nice to officially meet you, man,” he said, reaching out and shaking my hand. “Impressive throwing today.”

“Thanks,” I said, unsure how to behave when this question mark of a person was being annoyingly nice.

“There’s a lot of buzz around the whole number-one-recruiting-class-in-the-country thing,” he said. “And I myself am hard-core ready to fanboy all over that exhibition game in a couple weeks, so consider yourself warned.”

Exhibition game.I swallowed around what felt like a razor when he uttered those two words, and I lied, “Yeah, really looking forward to it.”

“I watched film from summer league, and your fastball is money.”

“Thanks.” I looked back at Liz, and she was watching us with her eyes narrowed, either in irritation or confusion. Maybe both.

So I said to her, “So did you want to get out of here?”

“Oh, I don’t think Clark would like that,” she said, going big on that frozen grin again.

Nowmyeyes narrowed, because she had that conniving Little Liz look on her face.

“Why not?” I asked, at the exact second Clark looked at her and asked, “Why not?”

Liz blinked fast and said to me, while wrapping her arms around the dude’s stupid enormous bicep, “Because my boyfriend gets very jealous.”

CHAPTER EIGHT

“I like this boy…. And he likes someone else….”

“Well, obviously this boy is a complete moron.”

—Clueless

Liz

I glanced up at Clark, and he wasn’t hiding it.

He had zero idea what I was doing.

“You get very jealous,” I said to Clark in a cheesy singsong voice, trying to transmit my thoughts with my eyes as I breezily said, “Even though you think you don’t.”

His eyebrows screwed together and he looked confused.

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