Page 41 of Shutout
Wariness takes over her expression as I sit back up with dramatic flare. Before she can react, I grab her on a headlock and pull her against my chest. A little shriek gets muffled against my sweatshirt as I brush the palm of my hand over her hair.
“You—you—” Liv can’t finish her threat under the attack, and I almost think she’s given up on retaliation until I feel her trying to grab at my stomach.
I slow down the motions and ask out of curiosity, “What are you doing?”
“I’m trying to pinch you,” she responds gravely. I stretch my neck to see, and even though she’s using her fingers as pincers, all she can grab onto is my sweatshirt. “Why isn’t it working?”
The second I release her, she sits back at a distance. But whatever epithet she’s about to throw my way, it dies in her throat as I grab the hem of my sweatshirt and lift it.
Her eyes pop wide open at the display. I keep my body fat at maximum ten percent, and every muscle of my body is cut. I don’t have to glance down to know that even though I’m sitting, my abs are more defined than if someone had Photoshopped them on my picture
“This is why you couldn’t pinch me, Aceituna. There’s just no fat.”
After tearing her attention from the numbers tattooed down my left side, she says, “Watch me.” Faster than a lightning strike, she digs her fingers around a ridge of my abs and pinches. Hard.
“Ouch!”
Harrumphing, she lets me go and starts trying to comb her hair. I rub my skin, biting down a grin because her face is red as a beet. It could be because of the headlock situation, or because she liked what she saw.
I’m playing with fire but this is the most alive I’ve felt in weeks—months, even. And yeah, maybe I’m the damn author of the infamousfriends foreverwords, but what if weshouldbe more than friends? What if I could gradually show her that we could be so much more?
CHAPTER 16
OLIVIA
He’s killing me and he has no freaking idea.
Brooke and I have always been handsy but not like this. Back in the day, we used to smack and pinch each other like nobody’s business. He’d grab me in his infamous stinky headlock and I’d punch him and kick him until he let go. It was wild to me that it made some of his girlfriends jealous when they got to kiss him and touch him in ways that didn’t cause pain.
But this? This is weird. It’s like a mix of the two. I’ve never been gladder to be on the receiving end of a headlock, because after those casual touches to my ear I was ready to pull him into a corner. Who knew ears were so sensitive.
Surely not him, or he wouldn’t have touched mine on purpose.
By the time Emily and Alyssa finally join us, I almost want to kiss them. I can’t take anymore of sitting next to Brooklyn, watching him snooze on his backpack. Why does he need eyelashes so long? Or lips so luscious? But also, he should shave because that little stubble is offensive to my sensibilities. Sensibilities that are a bit too tingly right now.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Emily says as she takes the seat across from Brooke. “There was too much traffic this morning coming from my boyfriend’s.”
I try not to perk up at that. She has a boyfriend? And here I thought she was angling for a chance at Brooke. Still, I keep my head down in case my thoughts are visible on my face.
Alyssa chuckles. “And I just didn’t want to get out of bed.”
That’s not gonna help her become a hockey girlfriend, if that’s what she wants. Brooke gets up at five in the morning everyday for a run before practice. It’s been like that since high school. But this is none of my business.
“Nah, you guys were right in time. We were early.” He rubs his eyes with a big yawn and I don’t know why I hadn’t noticed before, but he has massive dark circles around his eyes like he has barely got any sleep for days. I wonder what’s wrong.
“Uh…” I drag my eyes away from him and try to focus on the girls. “Shall we get started?”
“Yes.” Alyssa clasps her hands, a bit more excited than she should be for what is essentially a pretty basic assignment. “I came up with a few scenarios we could create some interesting dialogues from.”
In the end, we end up choosing the career option because it’ll make it easy to talk about ourselves. The next half hour transpires in easy silence as we individually come up with bullet points about our career paths that we can translate, and then turn into a conversation. It’s like the kind of stuff Brooklyn and I did in high school Spanish, except a lot more expensive, but it sure is going to fulfill my goal of easy credits.
The scraping of his chair on the floor pulls me from the monologue I’ve been typing up. “Sorry,” he says in a whisper. “I’m gonna take a bio break. Anyone want anything from the vending machine?”
“A Sprite for me, please,” Emily says with a smile I now guess is sweet, rather than flirty.
“Red bull. I still need to wake up.” Alyssa’s eyes still carry the glint of interest, though.
Brooke stands to his full height and looks down at me. “I know what you want, Liv.” He has the nerve to pull at my earlobe softly before he leaves.
