Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter #25)(75)

There was only about fifteen seconds left on the clock when I realized we were going to win. Even I was into the game now, cheering and clapping along with everyone around me as Will passed to Darnell, who passed to number twenty-two. It looked like this guy was going to land a shot, but as it left his hands it was intercepted out of nowhere by a Frankston player, who dribbled the ball a little down the court. Then, way too far away for it to possibly go in, he took a shot. And then, impossibly, it did go in, increasing their score by three points and putting them one point above us on the scoreboard.

“No!” I shouted, and Juliette swore emphatically beside me.

We only had a few seconds left. There was no way we could win now, right? The ball was passed quicker than I could keep up with down the court. Back and forth, back and forth. Then, one of the Frankston guys went to pass to another, but Darnell quickly dodged around the front to block the second guy from receiving. The ball bounced out of bounds, and Darnell crossed the line to take the pass. He bounced the ball a couple of times, scanning the Collinswood team. He brought the ball in, and it looked like he was going to pass to a blond guy who broke free of his own defender. But then, Will tore through out of nowhere, and Darnell shot the ball at his chest. Will grabbed it, flipped around, and in one fluid motion took the shot.

It went in with a swish of the net.

I knew from the roar of the crowd surrounding me that it had been a winning shot. The scoreboard flipped over to put us one point ahead of Frankston. A few seconds later the buzzer sounded to signal the end of the game, and the Collinswood team swarmed inward to Will and Darnell, hugging them and clapping them on the back, shouting with joy.

Then a couple of the guys lifted Will onto their shoulders. Unlike the way he usually acted around that group, though, he didn’t look self-impressed or cocky. Actually, he looked kind of astounded.

“Come on,” Niamh said to me, grabbing my hand.

“What?”

“We’re going down there, come on!”

We weren’t the only ones going onto the court, but it clearly wasn’t the norm for people in the crowd to spill in around the players, though. It seemed like more of a close friends and family thing. But Niamh tugged me, pulling me after her down the stairs. Then she broke away from me and ran to Darnell, who picked her up and spun her around.

Will spotted me as the guys lowered him to the ground. I hung back on the edge of the court, suddenly self-conscious. I didn’t want to ruin this for him.

But he came over anyway, approaching me with long, confident strides. “Hey,” I said when he got closer. “That was amazing, I—”

He cut my sentence in half by grabbing me by the shoulders and kissing me.

I let out a squeak of astonishment. This was the exact last thing I could’ve expected to happen at that moment. Well, maybe that wasn’t true. Maybe the last thing I expected would’ve been the grand entrance of the Great, Ethereal Being, floating in on a cloud and playing the accordion while a group of warehouse aliens performed an interpretive dance to the tune. But in the realm of things that were actually possible, Will throwing his arms around me and kissing me hard on the mouth in front of everyone who mattered ranked approximately number one million, five hundred and fifty-two thousand, three hundred and seven. Point five.

He broke away, and didn’t even check to see who was looking. He just locked his eyes on me. “I love you,” he said.

There were no words. I couldn’t think of a possible way to reply to this. I just stood in dumb shock. Then I looked around on Will’s behalf. About half of the basketball team had paused in their tracks, staring at us with open mouths. For them, this was probably less expected than synchronized dancing warehouse aliens, I guessed. In the stands, Juliette was beaming down at us. And Will’s parents, who’d gotten about halfway down the stairs to congratulate him, were simply standing and watching with blank expressions.

I turned back to Will who, it seemed, was purposely not looking behind him to check on people’s reactions. “Why aren’t you at your gig?” he asked.

Why had the world suddenly tipped upside down? What, exactly, was going on? “Uh, I skipped sound check. It starts in fifteen minutes.”

“Did you drive here?”

“Yeah.”

“Come on.” He grabbed my wrist, and now it was him who was dragging me. This time, toward the side door. Dizzy with shock, and suddenly surged by an adrenaline rush, I broke into a run with him, as we pushed through the door and broke into the cold evening air to sprint across the parking lot to my car.





22


I could barely focus during the gig. Throughout the whole performance, I fixed my attention on the table at the back of the room where Will sat. For the first couple of songs, he sat with his shoulders hunched over, making himself small. All I wanted to do was throw my bass on the ground and run across the room to hug him and tell him everything was going to be fine, but I couldn’t.

Then, during song number three, Darnell, Matt, and the girls burst through the front doors of the Lost and Found in a group. Will watched them through dull eyes as they filed into his booth. I was desperate to know what they were saying, but heartened by the fact that the girls were there. I couldn’t imagine Matt giving him a hard time without Lara tearing him a new one, and there was no way Darnell would say anything that might upset Niamh.