Teardrop Shot(28)

Juan stopped just shy of joining our group and conversation. He was waiting.

And I was waiting too. No one missed my questions. I didn’t even miss my questions. I was waiting because I didn’t know how to process this conversation. I narrowed my eyes at him. “Are you messing with me?”

There was another burning feeling in me, moving up, spreading over my stomach, my chest, rising all the way to my neck. It was a burning feeling that I hadn’t felt in so long. I almost didn’t recognize it.

“Is that another attempt? ’Cause that’s lame too.” He smirked. “Thought you weren’t a camp groupie?”

Well…there was always going to be a fine line with that one, especially with him, only with him.

I closed my mouth and bit down hard. Juan Cartion was listening to our conversation, and not even hiding it. The Cruskinator was coming in too, his large hands on his hips.

I focused back on him, trying to ignore the other two and now a third was coming over. “We have an audience.”

Reese’s eyebrows pulled together, skimming a look over his teammates. “So?”

“So.” I coughed, smiling and dipping my head down. My hands were almost shaking. “I should get the cage open. Excuse me.”

I wasn’t running. I honestly wasn’t.

I wasn’t hiding.

I wasn’t avoiding.

I—just—I’d hid from life while I was with Damian, then hid for another year, and Lucas had been a crash and burn attempt at jump-starting my whole living again. This, though. This, with a minor conversation with Reese Forster (yes, I had to say his last name because his first name didn’t put it into the best perspective) had me feeling things I’d almost forgotten could happen in me.

I felt normal, for a small moment.

I was a girl crushing on a guy, not a fangirl gawking over a celebrity, and it hit me hard in the chest. Right there, making that thing pumping and skipping a beat.

That was what I’d been afraid of.





I was normal again the next morning. So normal I was boring.

No fangirl. No creep or freak. Nothing. Not one iota.

Reese looked at me, and I barely reacted.

Reese asked me for a ball and I handed one over, just fine. My hands only trembled a slight bit. See. Totally freaking so-blah boring.

I could’ve put myself to sleep, I was that lame.

I was tragically normal.

That lasted until the afternoon.

Reese was in the hallway when I came out of the bathroom. He was leaning against the wall, and his head lifted as I exited the door. He pushed off from the wall and declared, “You’re being weird.”

Holy shit. He finally knew me.

I grinned, not wanting to go back to the gyms. No one else was in the hallway so I leaned back against the other wall. “Hate to break it to you, but that’s my norm.”

“No. Not like this.” He indicated me. “I can tell. You’re off from your usual weird shit.” He scowled. “I don’t like it.”

I raised an eyebrow. “My usual weird shit?”

A smile ghosted over his face. “You don’t think I didn’t know you were watching me that first night?”

Oh. I squirmed. This hallway suddenly got really hot.

“Or the next morning when I jogged past with Juan?”

I’d been a creeper both times, standing and hiding against the wall.

And really. I glanced at the back end of the hallway. Keith didn’t believe in using an air conditioner for the indoor gym, said all the windows were enough for the ventilation, but maybe we needed to add more windows.

My voice came out strained. “You knew I was there those times?”

“One of the guys heard you freaking out the first night they got here, told me about it last night after he saw us talking by the courts. Figured I needed a warning.”

I could’ve been a puddle by now.

“Oh, God.”

A slight chuckle from him. “I don’t give a shit about that. You about to start creeping outside my cabin window?”

Yes. Maybe. I mean, no.

“What cabin are you in?”

The corner of his mouth tugged upwards. “Yeah, right. I’m half-tempted to tell you. I want you back to how you were.”

“How I was what?”

“Being weird.” He raked me up and down. “You’re being normal. I don’t like it.”

I frowned a little. “You’re very vocal and demanding.”

“I know what I want.”

And apparently, he wanted me weird. Well, I could so out-weird him.

I mean—where’d that come from?

Now my eyebrows went up. “I don’t get a lot of requests to go back to being crazy.”

He grinned, but then shrugged and readjusted his leaning stance against the wall. His hands went into his pockets. “I don’t know. Just doesn’t feel right.” Then that grin came back. It was teasing now. “Or maybe I thought I was getting my own ball girl for a second, and before you run with that one, I mean as in someone to retrieve my balls for me so I don’t have to stop shooting hoops.”

I almost cooed at him, all the embarrassment shifting to more comfortable terrain here. “That’s cute. You want an errand girl.”