Page 12 of Pump Fake

I went with it, and when the waitress asked for our order, I relayed both along with drinks.

“Two shots of tequila, too, please,” Brielle added before she left.

I raised my brows. “Are those both for you?” I wasn’t drinking that. During football season, I allowed myself a beer or two tops. That was it.

She pursed her lips. “Are you judging me? Because I wouldn’t be surprised, minus the save at the bar.”

“You mean the favor you asked of me—saving you from the mean girls?” I kind of liked that I had some leverage.

Her arms crossed over her chest, and something sad seemed to swim through her eyes.

“Are you okay?”

She waved away my concern with a swoosh of her hand and a sigh. “Yeah, it’s… nothing. Just family stuff and school, I guess.”

I leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Want to talk about it? I’m a pretty good listener.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Why? So you’ll have something else on me?”

“Defensive much?” The corners of my lips twitched. Riling her up was fun. The waitress arrived with our drinks, and after she left, I pushed my shot toward Brielle. “Yours?”

My body tightened as she held my gaze, touched the shot to her lips, tilted her head, and downed it in one gulp. The slendercurve of her neck working as she swallowed had me shifting in my seat, imagining more than she would probably want to know.

“Yep. Don’t judge. I had to put up with my frenemies tonight. I need this.” The second went down as quickly as the first had. “I’m not up for a round with you, either, so let’s settle on a truce for tonight.”

I couldn’t stop the grin if I wanted. “That’s your second favor”—I shrugged—“but sure. I can get on board with that. What are the rules, then? Lay ’em on me.”

Her lips twitched. “No talking about what I was doing with those girls. And definitely no talking about my job or your delinquent nephew.”

And there was the reminder of why I had to play nice. “Deal. But then you owe me two favors.”

She shook her head. “One.”

“Fine.” That was all I needed for Preston anyway. Or it had better be, so long as he’d listened when I’d told him to get his shit together and stop acting out.

She tapped her nails on the table, her gaze sweeping the quaint if not jam-packed restaurant. I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d been there before or if she liked it as much as I did. Our waitress set chips and salsa between us, and we passed the time talking about mundane things like classes we were taking at Fall Lake U—which I learned she attended as well—and what teachers were difficult.

Our food arrived shortly after, saving me from trying to think of a topic of conversation. I knew nothing about her other than that she was a substitute teacher and, therefore, an education major.

We dug into our meal in silence. I would’ve been worried about the tequila she’d downed if she hadn’t been eating.

The food was good and gave me a break from feeling like I mooched off Aurora’s cooking. Since she took over, I swore Ihad more energy and my performance on the field was at the top of my game. Liam, Kylian, and I tried to help where we could—which was mainly emptying the dishwasher and trash and cleaning anything she’d left to soak, and we chipped in for groceries. Still, going out was nice. And I hadn’t ordered too far off what I needed to eat during season either. Or at least, I was convincing myself of that and doing a damn good job.

“So.” Brielle set down her taco. “I heard you guys won today. Congratulations. How did you do?”

She wanted to talk football?“Yeah, thanks. It was a great game, and I scored two of the touchdowns. But I can’t take all the credit there. Kylian’s an amazing quarterback. He makes it easy.”

“I hardly think anything is easy when playing against the other teams.”

“Do you go to the games?”

When she shrugged again, her icy-blue eyes lit like a snowy winter’s night—which wouldn’t be a bad thing with the hot September weather we were experiencing lately. “I try to, but today got hijacked by the thing we aren’t talking about.”

“Unwanted responsibilities. Got it.”

“But yeah, I like the games. They’re exciting. Hockey too.” Her lips curved into a full smile. “And Maverick Davis is hot. My roommate has a secret crush on him.”

I laughed. “You like Mav, huh? Maybe I’ll introduce you. Just don’t mention his name around my roommate Liam.”

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