Lucky grunts when I say the L word and doesn’t even bother to look up from her spastic sorting. But Harper stops long enough to sneer my way.
“I do and don’t. We’re sort of complicated. It’s not like we don’t care about each other, but we both sort of agreed to take a break once we got to college. We’ve been together for over a year now.” She tosses the disco dancer costume aside and trades it in for a gypsy.
Breaking it off for college? God, they’re just like Grant and Darcy—at least that’s what I imagined. They heroically decided to break things off because neither one of them thought the distance thing could work. Although, if the shoe were on the other foot and it were Grant and I having to deal with a scholastic separation, I’d be devastated if he wanted to break up. “I think I’m ready, though. You know, to get serious again. I can’t stand the thought of all those girls crawling all over him.” The gypsy costume slips right out of her hands as she gets a faraway look in her eyes. “It’s like every day we’re apart makes me miss him a thousand times more. I’ve even thought of transferring.”
“No!” Lucky shouts from the bowels of the sales rack.
“I concur. You belong to us now.” I’m sorry I ever led her down this long distance path to heartbreak. I happen to know Justin is an entire coast away in California. Way too far to travel for the weekend. And honestly? The unsavory things she says about him make me glad he’s been sequestered by the continental divide.
“Anyway, love isn’t really something I’m familiar with. My mom was too busy jet-setting with her socialite friends, and my father had companies to destroy while adding to his empire.” Harper has mentioned a time or two that her fatherownsNew York. I just thought she was being cute until Lucky informed me it was all but true.
“Love is an illusion.” Lucky gasps, partially emerging from the sales bin. “My brother thinks he’s in love.” She shakes her head as if she has pity for him. I happen to know that Daisy, the girl he’s professing his affection for, is darn easy to love. I wish Lucky would give her half a chance. I would die for Owen to be with someone like her. Piper is annoying and spastic and way too wild for my brother. I’ve seen her act flat-out bossy, and it pisses me off. Lucky doesn’t know how good she has it. “My brother can be a moron.” She looks to me. “And so can yours. Trust me, love went the way of antenna TVs and poodle skirts.” She pulls up a felt skirt with a white fuzzy pooch sewn near its hemline, and both Harper and I reject it, just the way she’s rejecting love.
“Love has to exist.” I pluck a sexy policewoman’s costume off the shelf in my size. “Dibs.” I rattle it their way for approval. “Love is what makes the world go ’round. Don’t you people read bumper stickers?”
Harper snatches back up that gypsy costume and presses it against her chest as if she’s giving it a hug. “It does make the world go around—in fairytales.”
“And that’s why I’m wearing this”—Lucky pulls forth an itty bitty fairy costume complete with wings and sparkly pink fishnets—“to see if I can find true love’s kiss.” She blinks those overdone lashes at us ten times fast. “All right, I’ll fess up. All I really want on Halloween night is a happy ending.” She points to her crotch, and the three of us break out into cackles that would make any coven of witches proud.
There’s no way I’d ever let Lucky give her virginity away like candy on Halloween. But I’ll be damned if I’m not gunning for true love’s kiss on that very night myself.
Or sooner.
Tuesday afternoon, Grant texts and invites me to a practice game, so of course, I arm myself with my two best friends, and we hit the gym as soon as that clock strikes four.
Lawson and Rush are there running up and down the court, getting all hot and sweaty, too, but I don’t dare take my eyes off the prize. As much as I’m aware that there are plenty of other shoes squeaking up the gym floor, the only squeaky shoes I happen to be concerned with have one hot boy attached to them. Grant is a specimen in his usual attire of Levi’s and a T-shirt, but stripped down in silky basketball shorts and his Mustang jersey, he’s a downright Adonis. And holy shit. He’s sporting a tattoo of a demented looking dragon on his right arm. All that time we’ve been doing the shoulder shuffle I had no idea there was a serpent lurking in there. The number twenty-one is etched on the back of his jersey, and instantly those become my favorite digits.
“Number twenty-one!” I belt it out so loud Grant glances up and gives a prideful nod. His eyes slip past me a moment, and he falters before getting back into the game.
“Would you be quiet?” Lucky bucks her arm into mine. “You’re throwing him off. Can’t you see the entire season is riding on his studly shoulders?”
“For your information, this a glorified practice game. The season doesn’t start for another week.” I’m all up on my college basketball now that my quasi-boyfriend is a serious contender to bring home the gold or whatever it is they vie for in this dribbling competition.
Hey! I just called Grant my boyfriend! Sort of. I glance around in the event the stray mind reader or two has seeped into our midst. Both Harper and Lucky seem equally absorbed in the mock game before us. The gym is nice and full considering there isn’t a whole lot at stake on the court.
A pretty blonde scoots into the row ahead of us, eyeing me as if I should know who she is before she plops in the spot just in front of Lucky. She’s probably a sorority sister—one of those older obnoxious sisters who’s a throwback to my own older obnoxious sister’s sorority days. Not that Aubree is obnoxious anymore, not really. Prison seems to have the ability to squeeze the obnoxious out of a person real quick. That wink she shared with the guard comes back to mind. But apparently, it doesn’t squeeze the sex drive out of a person, at least not Aubree.
The game goes on much longer than any practice should, but Grant’s team is winning, so that makes it just fine by me. Both Rush and Lawson are playing on the opposing team and can’t block my man no matter how fancy their footwork seems to be. I snap a few pictures of Grant in all his glory as those long tree trunks he calls legs run the length of the court. I take a few extra shots of his cut biceps as they strain and bulge each time he shoots the ball. I even get a clear shot of him in flight, in full extension just moments before the ball swirls the rim.
The buzzer finally sounds, and I jump to my feet, shouting and screaming the loudest. Bodies mingle onto the court, but Grant jogs in my direction with that ear-to-ear grin on his face.
“Way to teach those boys a lesson!” I belt out a laugh as Rush gives me the finger. “Don’t worry, baby,” I shout after him. “Once the season starts, you’ll have a real man on your team.”
Grant tips his head back with a laugh then stops short as I run down to meet him.
“You were a god among sweaty men on that court!” I go to high-five him, and my arms land around his neck instead. I’m so giddy to see him, to touch him after watching him dominate I think it’s time to unleash the power of that stolen kiss I promised my sister I’d land on this boy. Who the hell cares if it’s in a crowded gym full of onlookers? It’s melee in here. I doubt anyone will notice, let alone see.
My gut cinches with anticipation. “I wanted to high-five you, but I’d rather do this.” I hop up on my tiptoes and lunge my lips toward his. The last thing I see is the whites of his eyes as he gifts me his cheek with a quick turn of the head.
My heart thuds all the way to the soles of my feet as I pull back, rejected. My mouth opens to say something, but my arms fall loose as I stumble back a notch. That was no coincidental peck to his flesh. Grant couldn’t get away from me fast enough. His lips were the last place he was going to let me land a wet one.
“Ava.” His brows hike as that perennial sadness washes over him again. He tries to take me by the hand, but in an instant, both Lucky and Harper are swimming between us.
“Let’s get out of here,” Lucky whispers, but my feet don’t seem to work anymore.
“That was crazy!” a blonde flurry screams as she lunges her body against his. “You were Superman out there!” Her arms remain locked around his neck, and now it’s her on her tiptoes, her mouth right next to his. Dear God. It’s her. The girl from the stands. The one who eyed me like a predator after I cheered him on. And now I know why. She was pissed. But Grant doesn’t take those tired eyes off me. “I’m so proud of you, babe.” She plants a wet one right over his mouth, and this time he takes it, doesn’t give her the offensive and make her taste the sweaty slick running down the side of his face like he did me.
“Yeah”—Harper threads her arm in mine—“we’d better go. Likenow.”
