“I’m lucky I got to see you play at all,” Elliott chides with a raised brow.
He and Maya look nothing alike. Whereas Maya’s all soft angles and fair skin, Elliott’s got the build of a quarterback with an olive complexion. But their sarcasm and facial expressions? Scarily similar. I’d know, considering I’ve been on the end of that sardonic eyebrow raise more than a few times.
“He just can’t help but start shit on the ice.” Jake laughs, fishing a handful of peanuts from the small dish at the center of the table. “Happens every game.”
“I’m definitely dating an attention whore,” Elliott agrees.
In classic Logan fashion, he throws a hand against his chest and gasps so loudly it sounds like he’s asphyxiating. Rather than rolling his eyes like the rest of us, Elliott smiles like it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen.
“Cole,” a tantalizingly familiar voice calls out. “You finally made it.”
Heart leaping, I spin and blink once, then again, confirming that it is indeed Maya who’s just approached, wearing a Bobcats jersey and a wide smile. Now I’m really damn happy I agreed to come out tonight.
Cam bumps my leg under the table, snapping me out of my stupefied surprise. Tonight’s really taking me for a ride.
I pull her into my arms and let the familiar smell of her perfume surround me. Fuck the bath bomb. This right here is what I need. I have no ideawhyshe’s here, but I’m relieved, nonetheless. “What’re you doing here, bean?”
It’s hard to miss the not-so-quiet comments of surprise from my friends at the nickname, but I block them out and focus on Maya.
“Enjoying a drink with the team after a win.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “Duh.”
“You were at the game?”
She nods. “Yup.”
“But you had class,” I state dumbly. Every Sunday from three to six, and Tuesday and Thursday from five to seven. Like a lovesick puppy, I have a reminder set in my phone so I can text her good luck before class.
She shrugs and shoots me a shy smile. “Yeah, well, after all the smack talk about kicking the Raptors’ asses, I had to see if you lived up to your word.”
I can’t keep the smile out of my voice. “You even wore my jersey.”
She huffs a breath. “It’s not your jersey, it’smine. I paid seventy whole dollars for this bad boy at the team store.”
Turning around, she drags her hair over her shoulder, showing me the back as if I don’t already know it’ll be Berrett embroidered in all capital letters. It goes halfway down her thighs, making it look like some kind of mini dress.
“Want me to sign it?” I tease. “Since you’re such a fan?”
“Hmm, then I could resell it for quadruple its value, right?”
The comment brings me back to when I first gave Maya tickets to the game, when she made a similar comment. I’m just as intrigued by her now as I was then. She’s a thirst I can’t quench.
“I told her you could get her a jersey for free, but she insisted on being arealfan and buying her own.” Sophie shakes her head. She slips into the open space next to Logan, making herself right at home.
“I was debating between your jersey or Cameron’s,” Maya says with a coy grin as she finally sits in the seat next to me. “Lucky for you, I like the number twenty-five better than thirty-five.”
A rough grunt explodes from my chest. I haven’t been jealous over a girl since Zara Owens chose to go to prom with Nathan instead of me during our sophomore year of high school. It was the first and last time we fought over a girl.
“I did play better than Berrett tonight,” Cam adds a little too loudly. “And I’ve got more abs than him.”
Chuckling, Maya brings her drink to her lips. “Good to know.”
When she sets her glass down, I grasp the leg of her stool and tug it toward me, putting distance between her and Cameron. He’d never poach, but that doesn’t mean I like the fake flirting. “How was class?”
A smile races over her face. “Really good. We dug into determining a character’s internal versus external conflict in a novel.”
A lightness fills my chest at the joy in her expression. “I don’t know what that means, but you sound excited about it, so I take it that’s a good thing.”
“Very good. I stayed after class to chat with the instructor, so I was a little late to the game.” She gives me a sheepish shrug. “But I made it before the halftime show.”
