Page 33 of Shutout
The girls are so into the game, I don’t have the heart to pull them away from their fun. Slipping into the crowd, I slowly make my way through the living room in search of a bathroom I can have a lil cry in. Hopefully that’s all I need to remind me that going down the path of crushing on Brooke leads nowhere good.
CHAPTER 13
BROOKLYN
“—With me?”
“Hmm?” My brain scrambles the speech this girl’s giving me, which is rude, though probably not as much as if I vaulted over the stairs to really bypass her.
“I said,” her annoyance penetrates through my thick skull and I finally look at her. Her mouth is downturned into a pout, one hand delicately resting over her chest. Her well-displayed chest. “Do you want to go somewhere more quiet with me?”
My eyes trail over her head, over the multitude of people talking, dancing, drinking, or playing games in the living room—and they land right on my best friend. She’s watching a beer pong game from the edge of the crowd circling the dining table. Maybe she’s warm, because she pushes the sleeves of her hoodie up her arms. Now she’s laughing at something one of the competitors says, and I don’t know why but my gut twists. I haven’t heard her laughter in so long—don’t even know if I could get a chuckle out of her now.
“Well?”
“Sorry,” I say on autopilot. “I’m looking for someone.”
“A girl?” the stairs troll asks.
I tuck my tongue against my cheek and nod. “Yeah, a girl.”
“Well, I’m a girl too.” She licks her lips in a way I’m supposed to react to, and she even goes as far as running her hand down my stomach.
I pluck it well before she reaches the waistband of my jeans and offer a tight smile. “A specific girl, that is. Can I please get going?” Huffing, she finally lets me through, not without muttering some colorful language. Funny that it comes from someone who a moment ago wanted to undress me.
Right before I reach the landing, though, I take another peek at the beer pong game and?—
Where’s Liv?
I focus harder on the players. Maybe she’s joined the game. But there are only the two Strikes and the other girl Liv was with earlier, and Liv is still MIA. I crane my neck this way and that, pop into the kitchen and nada.
Did she go off on her own? Or did she go off with someone? Is it someone she can trust? What if she gets in trouble? We try to run a pretty tight ship in this house but the guests can sometimes be an issue.
And then I hear a very sharp, “Excuse me.” I whirl around and find some people parting down the hallway with grunts and curses. But that was her voice.
They move out of my way more easily. And there she is, by herself, trying to open the first door on the right.
“What are you doing?”
Liv jumps in her skin. “Brooke? What are you doing here?”
“This is where I live.” I stuff my hands in the pockets of my jeans.
“I mean, herehere. Weren’t you flirting with some girl earlier?”
My eyebrows rise.
So she noticed that?
Her expression is starting to darken so I don’t dare to tease her. Instead, I say, “I just wanted to make sure you’re okay. You shouldn’t ditch your friends when it’s this crowded.”
“I just need to use the bathroom.” She blows a raspberry that lifts a strand of her hair, only for it to fall back on her face.
My fingers tingle, and I know that the only way to cure the itch is to tuck her hair back. Or to comb it, the pads of my fingers softly caressing her scalp.
What the—where did that come from?
I clear my throat. “Well, that’s not a bathroom. That’s?—”
