Page 61 of Hate the Game
“There are a whole lot of cheerleaders half naked in your suite right now.” I pulled away and kept my eyes anywhere but on them. I was an idiot. I should’ve made a nest of clothes in my shitty closest back in Texas and stayed there.
“Fuck.” Cole groaned. “I swear to god I’m not cleaning that shit up this time.”
Jax pulled me away from Ryder and tipped my chin up so I had to look at him. “It’s football tradition here at USC. Each year the cheerleaders break into our rooms and redecorate. It’s always random and it’s always a pain in the ass. As you can see, none of us are in our suite having an orgy.”
“Oh, god.”
“How about you come to dinner with us and we can talk about how angry you just were.” Jax laughed and leaned down to kiss my forehead. “Such an overactive brain in that head of yours. Burgers good?”
“A burger sounds fucking amazing.” Cole threw his arm around my shoulders and pulled me away with him. “I could eat a whole fucking cow right now. Or you. Damn, you smell good, Sav.”
“You have no idea.” Jax smirked at me, eyes flashing.
Ryder grunted. “Tastes pretty good, too.”
I squeaked and took off walking faster, away from them. What the hell was happening?
***Savannah***
Dinner plans had morphed somewhere along the way, and now we were scarfing down greasy burgers at a drive-in while a corny eighties horror flick lit up the screen. And I was in Heaven. We’d all piled into the bed of Jax’s truck and we were squeezed in tight. The temperature was dropping but the amazing amount of body heat they put out was helping to keep me warm.
Cole winced as one of the characters on screen was murdered. “Jesus. If I ever fall into a horror movie I’m just going to offer myself up to be killed first thing. I can’t fucking stand the idea of someone chasing me.”
Jax snorted. “You have people chasing you nonstop during games.”
“Yeah, and sometimes I want to roll over there, too.” He leaned into me and eyed my burger. “You gonna finish that?”
I shoved the last two bites into my mouth and stared at him with chipmunk cheeks. Ryder was on my other side and he shocked the hell out me when he reached over and pried my lipsopen. He pulled out half of what was in my mouth and threw it over the side of the truck.
“You’re going to choke yourself. And I’m not going back to campus early because you died over a burger.”
Jax and Cole laughed so loud and hard that the car closest to us honked and yelled for us to shut the hell up. I barely managed to swallow my bite before I erupted in giggles, too.
“I may not go back to campus at all. It took me months to get rid of the glitter they used last year. If there’s more glitter after the fit I threw last year I refuse to play for this god forsaken team for one more day.” He was so cranky about the room redecorating that he’d been grumbling about it nonstop.
“I bet you looked super cute with glitter all over you, though.” I batted my eyelashes at him and then gasped when he flicked his ice water at me. “Hey! I’m already cold, jerk!”
“Why didn’t you say so?” He scooped me up and slid into my spot, putting me back down, but in his lap. He wrapped his arms around me and huffed in satisfaction. “There.”
Jax jumped down and when he came back he had a blanket. He settled in the spot Ryder had vacated and tossed the blanket over all of us. “Better?”
“Are you going to askhimif that’shiscome blanket?” Cole teased even as he adjusted the blanket to make sure it was covering me.
“Excuse me?” Jax’s lip curled. “Come blanket?”
“Cole kept a come blanket in his truck and tried to make me lay on it.” I squealed when he poked me in the side. “Hey! No poking me like I’m the Pillsbury dough boy.”
“No telling people I have a come blanket then.” His eyes narrowed and his lips twisted in a smirk. I knew he was going to say something terrible before he even opened his mouth. “Well. I guess I do now…”
Ryder’s arms tightened around me as I did my best not to squirm. They were all making comments about the things we’d done together like it was no big deal. Had they been sharing notes? Jesus, that thought was horrifying.
I stared straight ahead at the movie but reached over to slap Cole’s chest. “Idiot.”
We joked around for a bit and watched the movie for a bit before Ryder shifted and pressed his hand over my stomach. “Did you go to Texas?”
I blew out a shallow breath and remembered that I was wearing shapewear. No wonder I was struggling to relax. “I did. It was awful so I came right back. Um. I need to do something. Could y’all close your eyes?”
Jax shot me a funny look. “What the hell could you need to do that we can’t see?”
