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Emerson
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I PUSH BACK AGAINST the wall hoping that it will open and swallow me up at any moment. It doesn’t. But I’m not sure I can handle talking to Austin any longer. If he gives me a run-down of the game, play-by-play, I’m ninety-nine point eight percent sure I’ll knee him in the balls.
He’s a nice guy, cute, I guess, if you like a chiseled jaw, olive skin, and piercing blue eyes. Let’s not forget the muscles for days and a smile that can make a nun’s panties quiver. Yeah. He’s hot, but I’m not interested. I’m there for Colt. I couldn’t care less about the game. It makes Colt happy, so it makes me happy. I’m here to drag him out for ice-cream. Something he likes after a game.
“Did you see that hook shot?”
“Mmm-hmmm. Yeah it was great.” I’m not paying attention to what he’s saying. I attend the games for Colt, and because he’ll want to talk about it later, that’s it. “You’re a superstar. You should have got MVP.”
“I know, right? I’ve been working on that move for months.”
I smile up at him. He towers over me. Taller than Colt. He’s so proud of himself, I don’t have the heart to tell him Colt nailed that move when he was eleven.
“So anyway, are you coming to the party tonight? I’ll save you a dance.” Austin winks. He freaking winks. Does that work on girls? A twitching eye, making him look like he has a nervous tic? My mind can’t comprehend why girls fall for that.
Giggles and the sound of heels clacking on the tiled floor lifts my gaze from the water stain on the opposite wall. With their arms linked, three girls teeter down the hall toward us and the locker room.
I guess winking worked, judging by their flirty gazes and smiles aimed at Austin as they strut past. Short skirts, tight tops and more cleavage than a strip club. I glance down at my outfit. An old pair of Colt’s running shoes, gray sweats, also stolen from Colt’s closet, and a t-shirt tied at the waist. I’m not out to impress anyone.
Austin opens his mouth to say something, then closes it as his eyes follow the path the fluffle of basket bunnies take. He returns his eyes to me and shuffles his feet. His thoughts are written on his face. It might as well be painted on his face. The lust. He wants to follow them but doesn’t want to be rude.
“Go.” I lift my head in the direction the fluffle went, and Austin grins.
“Catch you later, Em. I’ll save you that dance.” He walks backward, lifting his arm and pointing at me before he spins and runs. “Hey, ladies!”
Cue the giggles again.
I lean my head against the wall and close my eyes while I wait for Colt. The team are all back in the locker room now which means he should come around the corner right about...
“Austin, Em? Really?”
Now.
“It’s not like that,” I say as Colt comes toward me, throwing his arm over my shoulder as I lean into him, leading me down the hall to the exit. He’s freshly showered and smelling like lime and coconut. He stole my body wash again. It’s fine, whatever, smells better on him than me, anyway.
“Good, because I got a lot of money riding on this.”
I pull back, pick up his hand and lift his arm off my shoulder before angling my body to face him. “Excuse me?”
He grins and hoists his gym bag higher on his shoulder, the action pulling his black t-shirt tighter around his muscular arms.
“Don’t give me that look. Explain.” I ignore the dimple in his cheek and the way his pink lips quirk in amusement as he stalks off down the hall.
“I may have bet on your sex life with Rome,” he calls over his shoulder as he gets farther away from me. I stumble over my feet trying to catch up, cursing him and his long damn legs.
“You what?” I punch him in the arm, not that he can feel it. Stupid rock-hard muscles.
“It’s not like you’ll sleep with him—”
“Because you won’t kiss me,” I say, ramming my fist into his shoulder again. This time hard enough he winces and trips sideways. We’d only been at FU for a few months. I was still so wary of people. Still didn’t trust anyone other than Colt. It’s hard to put your faith in people you don’t know when you’ve been burned before.
I’d gone on dates. But they never went further than one. Colt and I were both doomed to spend our college years as virgins, too afraid of the opposite sex. It took Colt approximately four-point-three days of being on campus before he strolled into our tiny one-bedroom apartment to announce he had a date and was determined to see it through so he could get laid. He didn’t. The second he mentioned my name, the girl bailed.
I, on the other hand, have maimed no less than four guys for getting too handsy, and bruised quite a few egos. The only guys who want to date me now, either have no clue about my reputation, or they do, and they love the challenge.
“I'm not kissing you, Em.” He holds the door open for us to walk out. Such a gentleman.
“Think about it. If you did, I’d stop hassling you. I might find myself a boyfriend and get out of your hair for a while.” I smile at him, hoping he’ll take the bait. He doesn’t. Instead, he crosses the parking lot to our car.
Our car. I say it’s ours, but it’s really Colt’s car. Everything is Colt’s. He’s here on scholarship and Mr. James pays for everything else so Colt can focus on his studies and training.
Meanwhile, I’m up to my ears in debt, and my part-time job as a waitress in the local Chinese restaurant barely covers the cost of my tuition, let alone food and bills. It’ll all be worth it in the end. Or so I keep telling myself.
I’ll graduate with a degree in marketing and graphic design. My long-term plan is to start my own design business and market it myself.
My short-term plan is much simpler.
One kiss.
I long to be kissed. Once. Just enough to take the fear out of it. To prove to myself I can do it, and then I’ll be more confident. It’s getting to the point now the lack of trust isn’t my issue, it’s the fear. I’m almost twenty and haven’t kissed a boy yet.
How screwed up is that?
Now I worry I will be so bad at it, I’ll blow my one chance by biting the lip of whoever the unlucky suitor is, or something embarrassing, like swirl my tongue around and around like a washing machine and make the guy nauseous. I’ve heard horror stories like that.
“Don’t be like that. I like you in my hair.” Colt opens my door for me, running his fingers through his cropped hair, darker from the shower. He can be a real charmer when he wants to.
I narrow my eyes at him and drop into my seat.
“Back to this bet,” I say when he’s seated beside me.
“Like I said, you won’t screw him, so I took the opportunity to make us some cash. You should thank me.” He switches the car on and backs out of the parking spot.
“Thanking you for having such confidence in me. Or is that lack of confidence in my romantic prowess?”
“Romantic prowess? Who the fuck says that? You need to get your nose out of those sexy books you read. I’ll bet they’re all written by old ladies who haven’t had a good dicking in forty years.” He snickers.
He loves teasing me about my romance novel collection. But if I can’t get love anywhere else, I might as well lose myself in the fantasy of a story.
Who doesn’t crave an all-consuming love like that?
“I’ll have you know, that is absolutely not the case. Besides, if that were true, does it matter as long as the book is good?”
Colt shrugs. “How am I supposed to know? I don’t read. Do you want chicken? I want chicken.” He signals and pulls the car left, heading down a street where there is no ice-cream.
I snap my fingers in his face. “Focus.”
“Chicken.”
“Colt.”
“Em.”
“What’s this bet?”
“What?”
I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath. He gets so distracted, but sometimes it’s hard to figure out whether he’s doing it to mess with me, or his focus has shifted. Most of the time it’s his focus. Sometimes though, when I’m trying to have a meaningful conversation, he’ll switch topics just to piss me off.
“The bet with Rome?”
“Oh yeah. I bet him two grand you won’t let Austin in your pants.”
My eyes widen and I gasp. “You bet two thousand dollars on my sex life?”
“I bet two thousand dollars on your lack of sex life. There’s a difference.” He leans forward and turns the volume up on the radio, then beats the steering wheel as though he’s some kind of John Bonham wannabe.
I turn the music down. “You don’t have that much money. Are you insane?”
He gives me a side glance. “You won’t lose. It’s not a problem.”
“Your faith in me is astounding. So how long?”
He’s not wrong though. I can’t bring myself to hold a guy’s hand, let alone kiss him. There’s not a chance in hell anyone is getting in my pants.
“How long what?”
“How long until this bet pays out.”
Colt signals again and turns the car around in the middle of the street, heading back in the direction we came from.
“Six months.”
“Where are we going?”
“I want to do something.” He says as he pulls the car over to the side and gets out. He leans down and peers through the open door. “You coming or what?”
“Are you going to kiss me?”
Colt narrows his eyes before shutting the car door and walking away, assuming I’ll follow. His assumptions are always correct. It’s infuriating sometimes.
I’m joking, and I don’t expect him to kiss me, as much as it would help me get over whatever is holding me back. But it’s sort of become a long-running joke now. I like to just throw it out there, hoping one day he’ll surprise me and shove his tongue down my throat, if for nothing else than to shut me up.
My stomach grumbles and protests as I climb out of the car. It had been looking forward to ice-cream. And chicken. Instead, I follow Colt into the dingy store front with a neon green sign in the window flashing ‘open’.