Page 28 of Jace
And as he nears the wooden folding doors, I propel the ball with a mighty throw–not even using half of my strength–directly at his back. As I mentioned, head injuries are serious, so I'm not aiming to cause one, just to make a point.
The ball strikes its target with precision, and the guy crumples neatly through the doors, disappearing from view, eliciting enthusiastic cheers from the onlookers.
I dust off my hands in a fake show of arrogance, a goofy smile on my face. “Well, that tidied things up quite nicely, don't you think?”
Lamar laughs heartily, slaps me on the back, and heads back to our booth. Since the show’s over, I haul Jace with me and push him in first, sliding in next to him, blocking out everybody else quite effectively with my broad back.
Suddenly, the music resumes, and Jace winces. Again.
“Christ, are you sure you–”
“If you are going to ask me one more time if I’m okay, I’m going to throw a football atyourback,” he grumbles, and I chuckle.
“Feel free to give it a shot, but I doubt those puny arms can launch it very far.”
In response, he raises one arm, flexing his tanned bicep, which yeah, spans the short sleeve of his shirt pretty well. “You calling this puny?”
“Hmm, I dunno,” I joke as I poke the solid muscle with my index finger. “Maybe you should start hitting the gym with us if you want to hold your own.”
He huffs at that. “Please, I can handle myself and you know it. But I’m a lover, not a fighter.”
“Well, I think you being a lover was the start of that little feud to begin with.”
He snickers and promptly groans, letting his forehead fall against my upper arm in surrender. Instinctively, I wrap my arm around his shoulders. “It does hurt,” he mumbles.
Pulling him a bit closer, I make him groan happily this time. “Need a little hug, buddy? A kiss to make it better?”
“From you?” He gazes up at me, winking mischievously, his hand coming to rest on my thigh as he stares at me, letting his gaze drop to my mouth. For the gazillionth time. “Always, you know that.”
A smile tugs at my lips, but before I can come up with a reply tothat, Lamar pipes up.
“Jace is looking at you like the groupies were looking at him,” he mock-whispers, causing everybody at the table to laugh and prompting Jace to sit up straight again.
A towel-wrapped ice bag suddenly lands on the table with a thud. Jace seizes it without bothering to glance at the provider, placing it on the back of his head with a sigh of relief. Eyesclosed, he sinks back in his seat. “Oh, thank you. I love you,” he groans.
“You'd better, sweetie.” I glance over my shoulder to find Missy standing there, she shrugs. “Thought he could use one.” She proceeds to lower herself on Lamar's lap, making herself comfortable. “And I know you love me. You’ll love me even more if you don’t have a big painful lump tomorrow and we can dance our ass off at the celebratory party.”
Lamar hushes Missy at the same time that Jace opens his eyes again in interest.
“Celebratory party? What for? For when they win the first home game tomorrow?”
Lamar slaps his hands over his ears and sings a 'nanananana' as if he doesn't want to hear them. Superstitious idiot.
“Yeah,” Missy confirms, her dark eyes wide. “After they win a home game, there's usually a bash at one of the jocks' places. They're up first.” She inclines her head toward me and Lamar. “And those parties are legendary.”
“Makes one wonder why I wasn’t invited yet, I thought I was your BFF.” Jace nudges me with his elbow, and I grimace at him.
Before I can explain, Lamar chimes in again. “No one’s been invitedyet, because we won’t talk about said partyyet.” He actually gives his girlfriend an irritated glare. “Don’t jinx it, babe.”
“Really?” Jace responds. “So, if you guys lose tomorrow and the home game victory doesn't happen, I would've missed out on these epic parties?”
“Sssh!” Lamar shushes again.
“What? You know the party will happen, you’ll probably win for sure.”
“Oh no, Ty,” Lamar whines to me, “he’s doing it. He’s jinxing it. We're going to lose tomorrow if you don’t fix this, Jace. I don’tcare that you just got whacked in the head. You need to undo this jinx.”
Jace blinks, clearly unaccustomed to jocks and their superstitions. I kind of want to tell Lamar to shut the hell up because it’s stupid, but I too honestly have that little nagging feeling in my gut that you shouldn’t tempt fate before a game. I’m still a jock after all.
