Page 19 of Wildcat
Ah, shit.“I was going to call. Just now, I was talking to my buddies about it.”
She laughs and lets her arms fall to her sides. “Let’s make a pact. I won’t tell my father, and you won’t pretend to care when I walk away and act like I don’t know you.”
She starts to leave, and I reach for her, wrapping my fingers around her wrist. The contact sends tingles all the way up my spine. “I was going to call. I swear. My schedule is nuts right now, but I wanted to invite you to the first home game.”
“You wanted to invitemeto a game? A girl you didn’t even tell you played hockey.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. Damn, am I sorry.
She shakes her head, making her brown hair move around her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no reason we need to run into each other again.”
“Come to the game,” I beg.
“I’ll be there… for my dad.”
“How about after?”
“You don’t need to do this. I’m a big girl, and I knew exactly what I was getting myself into the other night.” Her eyes drop, and she does a sweep of me from head to toe. “Just not who I was getting into it with.” She inhales sharply. “All the things I told you. Oh god. Please don’t say anything about me dropping out of school. I will tell him. I just haven’t found the right time.”
This is what she’s worried about? That her dad will find out she quit school, not that she spent last weekend riding my dick? Well, that feels… honestly, I’m not sure.
“Your secrets are safe with me.”
She tenses. “Ditto.”
I imagined this moment—seeing her again—a whole lot differently. For starters, I thought the expression on her face would read more excitement than repulsion.
“I don’t have any secrets. Don’t get me wrong, your dad may very well send me across the country if he learns what I did with his baby girl in my hot tub, but I’ll tell him myself right now if it means I can do it again.” I bring my hand to the curve of her neck. “You’re all I’ve thought about for the past week.”
Her lashes flutter, and her pulse races under my touch.
“Scarlett.” Jade appears around the corner, a warning in her gaze as she waves Scarlett over. “Your mom is looking for you.”
She nods, walking away from me, and toward her friend. I have so many more things I want to say, but this isn’t the place, so I don’t follow. Before she disappears, she glances over her shoulder to find me still staring after her. “See you around.”
She can count on it.
8
THE INTERNET SUCKS
SCARLETT
Jade bringsthe bottle of wine from the kitchen and refills my wine glass while peering down at the screen of my phone. “Stop torturing yourself.”
“It doesn’t even look like him. Seriously. Would you have known this guy was Leo?” I hold up the Wildcats roster photo of him. His hair is shorter, and his eyes are wide, like someone startled him seconds before they took the photo. I’ve never seen a more perfect “deer in headlights” impression.
My best friend drops into a chair across from me in the living room. I’m hiding out inside, trying to convince myself that I don’t care, Leo,myhot Leo, is actually Leo Lohan, Wildcats star forward, and currently in the back yard of my family home.
“You know I don’t follow sports, but he does look better in person.”
I groan, drop my phone, and bury my head in my hands.
Her voice is the calm to the chaos raging inside of me. “Do you think he really would have called and asked you out again?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. We’ll never know now. I blocked him.”
“Youblockedhim? Why?”
