Page 125 of Most Valuable Players
He doesn’t move and I relent. “One minute.”
I leave him in the hallway, shut the door, and change out of my comfy yoga pants and into a pair of shorts. I swipe on lip gloss and a dab of mascara. When I pull the door open, he’s leaning against the wall, one ankle crossed over the other and hands in his pockets.
“Ready?”
He pushes off the wall and motions for me to go first. “If you are.”
We cross the street to the dining hall in silence. Heath seems perfectly at ease with the quiet, while I have a million questions on the tip of my tongue. He holds the door out for me.
“I should have assumed spending time with you would mean eating.”
“Always,” he says. “Plus, it’s where we met. We have history here.”
I huff a laugh and grab a tray. Now that we’re here, I am kind of hungry. Heath gets a much smaller portion of food than normal and I raise a brow.
“I already ate lunch once,” he admits.
We take our food to our usual table.
“What time did you sneak out this morning?” he asks.
I hesitate with a chip up to my mouth. “I didn’t sneak out.”
His left brow rises as he takes a bite of food.
“Okay, fine. I very quietly left at a ridiculously early time. Happy?”
“Obviously not since I tracked you down.”
“I’m fine, okay?”
He shrugs. As we eat, he tells me about his morning with the team doing community service and I tell him about running with the girls.
“Congrats on being drafted, by the way. Adam mentioned it this summer, but I didn’t piece together it was you until Reagan mentioned it last night.”
“Thanks.” He sits back in his chair, drinking his water and studying me.
“What?” I ask self-consciously.
“Trying to figure you out. What are you into?”
“Everything and nothing. I didn’t play sports in high school or anything like that.”
“Had to have been into something.”
“I was into socializing. Turns out you can’t make a career out of that unless your parents are rich and famous.”
“Damn those Kardashians.”
“Right?”
“Genevieve, Genevieve, Genevieve.”
I love the way my full name sounds when he says it. I was always sort of embarrassed by it. Teachers would comment on how beautiful it was, which to a middle schooler, is super humiliating. Kids would taunt me with it, at least until I got boobs, then it became some sort of bad pickup line.“Genevieve, huh? Cool name.”
Cue swooning. Not.
Except, I’m sort of swooning now and all he did was say my name. And I’m also staring at him when I’m supposed to be saying something. Anything.
