My body goes rigid. I hope my eyes go cold. I move to stand, to get my butt off the grass and get out of here before he comes over to make that dumb, smiley small talk of his, but Jordan grabs my arm, her eyes still trained on Bradley as he enters the field with a giant grin pasted on his face, all the way up to his grey eyes, creased happily in the corners. He runs a hand through his unfortunately stunning, windswept light-brown hair that sneaks past his ears, all overgrown and wavy. For a fleeting millisecond, I can’t blame Jordan for staring, but the millisecond is over almost before it begins.
I turn away, attempting to take my friend with me. ‘Jor. Jordan, it’s time to go—’
‘Hey, May!’
Great.
I swivel back and make sure I shoot a glare at Jordan on my way around before my eyes land on the man himself.
‘Manmayi Velasco,’ he calls, still wearing that dumb grin.
He’s significantly taller than I remember, which is not unexpected, considering it’s been just about five years. Last we’d met, he had just started to get taller than me. I don’t love the fact that even if he sat down beside me now, I’d have to tilt my chin up to look him in the eye.
He saunters over to the bleachers where we’re packing our things up, and the rest of the girls, unhelpfully, are about as gobsmacked as I am. Someone has to say something before I burst a blood vessel.
Unfortunately, that someone is CJ Bradley.
He rocks back on his dumb polished boots.Boots. He can’t have been on Oklahoman soil for more than twenty-four hours.With a tip of his head, he says with a smile much bigger than this situation calls for, ‘It’s been a minute, huh?’
Well, hotdamn, it’s been more than a minute, and this fool is acting like we just saw one another last month. I’d like to call him out on it, but I’m not sure if I’m capable of forming words in my anger right now. I don’t think it’d benefit anyone even if I did try to form words.
‘You stayed,’ he continues with an air of pride. Pride? Who gave him the right? He didn’t stay. He jumped ship the second he got the option. He had the chance to come back, and he deliberately turned it down. What the hell is he so proud of?
I grit my teeth. ‘CJ—’
‘Everyone who’s anyone in lax knows about you,’ he begins with a charming smile – the trademark Bradley smile, the smile that caused me all my problems to begin with. That’s how he gets you. It’s like one of those ridiculous fish with the dangling light in front of its face. ‘Can’t wait to see you play in person, May.’
‘I’d prefer Manmayi.’
Jordan elbows me, although Bradley seems to ignore it completely.
‘Well,’ he says, beaming in that blissfully indifferent way of his, ‘you sure you wouldn’t want to scrimmage together again sometime? Just once? For old times’ sake, y’know.’
‘I’d rather not,’ I reply tightly.
It’s true. If I were to get on the field with him again, I wouldn’t trust myself to overcome the uncontrollable urge to rip out his hair strand by strand.
With that deeply uncomfortable thought, I give him a courteous parting nod (too courteous, if you ask me). I tap Jordan’shand, snapping her out of her stupor. ‘I gotta get going. I got chores to take care of,’ I tell him stiffly.
I clamber to my feet, duffel over my shoulder, and haul my ass out of the crime scene as quickly as I can with Jordan in tow, leaving Colt looking over his shoulder with a hint of something that might be regret in those normally unfaltering eyes.
‘Colton James Bradley,’ says Jordan once we’re well away from the field. The allegedly fierce attacker has a dazed quality to her voice, all starstruck.
‘Thank youso muchfor giving him a beat to open his big mouth.’
‘Oh?’ She turns her wide-eyed gaze to me. ‘What happened to junior year? When Manmayi Velasco said she was “grown up now”?’ Jordan throws air quotes around the final three words to ensure they hit their mark.
‘Doesn’t count when you’re dealing withhim,’ I mutter, focusing on the airbrush strokes of theHOME OF THE RIDERSmural on the wall outside the field to distract myself from the conversation Jordan has boxed me into. ‘If he can’t grow the hell up, why should I?’
‘Yeah, that’ll happen when guys go pro like that.’ She tilts her head at me in that same spirit of curiosity.
I run my hand through my ponytail of straightened hair with a heavy sigh. The last time I had any contact with Colt was when he was leaving for New England, and I hadn’t heard from him since. The definition of a teenage boy who never grew up.
‘Y’all had your moments.’
‘Damn if we did,’ I snort.Momentsis one word for it.Momentsis the wrong word for it.
Chapter Five
