Page 40 of How to Score Off Field

She’s not…

She couldn’t be into me.

Grady shoves a bottle of beer in my hand, slaps me on the back, and makes a beeline for the mass of bridesmaids, but it’s not to greet the bride.

Great.

I get to lay on the couch listening to him fucking, er, one of these chicks,whoever she ends up being.

I take a swig of the beer, averting my eyes so I’m not caught staring at the group of girls—or unintentionally make eye contact with Tess ’cause, for real, I can’t take them off her.

If she wasn’t Grady’s sister, I wouldn’t have guessed she was a little sister. Does that make any sense at all?

She doesn’t look like anyone’s baby sister…

She looks mature and sexy, and I tug at the collar of this damn shirt that’s choking me and making it impossible to breathe.

White dress.

Thin straps.

I don’t see anyone but Tess standing among that group of girls. Her smile is big, she’s laughing with her head tipped back, and she hasn’t stopped scanning the room as if she were searching for someone.

Dude, stop. Look away.

I glance away toward the dance floor, watching the line dancing there, the Boot Scootin Boogie, the actual name of the hall we’re in. They play the song that’s the namesake of the place several times a night—always have, probably always will. The crowd loves it, and it energizes the place.

There’s cheering as people line up on the floor to kick, step, hop.

Suddenly, a hand wraps around my lower arm, and I’m being pulled.

“Come on, let’s go dance.”

I don’t dance, and I don’t have cowboy boots on. Line dancing in Texas without them is sacrilegious. I’m one thousand percent sure about that.

Even Tess has them on with her strappy, sexy dress. Hot-pink metallic ones that wink at me from her feet.

Damn, she’s cute.

Still, I let her pull me.

She has a drink in her hand, and I wonder if she’s drunk. Probably since it’s eleven and they started their bachelorette party at the same time we started ours—seven o’clock with dinner, drinking, and the honky-tonk.

Lucas and his fiancée wanted to end the night together, so here we all are.

Tess leads me to the middle of the floor, yanking at me until we’re part of the masses, bumping my hip to get me into a position. She laughs.

“You should see your face,” she shouts over the music.

“What about my face?”

“You look horrified.”

She must mean that I look horrified to be out on the dance floor.

Which I’m not?

Not really.

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