“He didn’t see it coming.” Oz beams with a well-deserved smirk.
“You got to play a lot. They love you,” she tells him, stroking his ego. He gets it a lot from others, but I know it means more coming from her. He hasn’t had anyone but Bates and me to praise him, and it actually means something.
“Are they the only ones?” he questions rather seriously, but his lips are still curled, making his question seem like it could be a joke.
“Nah, we all love you.”
He finally lowers her to the ground, making sure not to let her go, then his mouth presses to her ear. I can’t hear what he says, but I do see the way her breath catches and she fists his jersey.
I’m sure he’s telling her he loves her. The high of the win is flowing through his veins, making him feel invincible, but luckily, I know how she will respond.
“Yes,” she says softly, and her eyes dart to me. She probably thinks we planned our ambushed confessions. We didn’t, but our heads work the same no matter how different we are.
He pulls back, grabs her face, and plants a kiss on her lips, not even caring that people are snapping pictures and walking right past him. I don’t blame him. I just hope he can handle the shit people will say when they know the truth about our relationship with her, because no matter how open-minded people say they are about this kind of shit, they aren’t.
“I need to go shower and answer a few questions from reporters.”
“Eww, you’re famous.” Waylynn scrunches up her nose in a joking way, but I know there’s probably some truth to her words. Waylynn is more like me in that regard—content being out of the spotlight.
“Not yet, baby, but I’m on my way.” He kisses her quickly, then looks at me. I hand her the crutch I have while he bends to retrieve the other. “I’m going to be a while. I’ll call when I get out,” he tells me.
“Take your time.”
Oz tosses his head back and laughs, catching on to why I would say that. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.” He points his finger at me, then runs his eyes over Waylynn in a leer before jogging to the locker room and disappearing down the hall.
“He’s coming with us tonight, right?” she questions as I lead her back to the elevator.
“Yeah, he’ll be there.”
By the time we make it to the sidewalk, Waylynn is out of breath. “Sorry, this is so much harder than walking.”
I think about having her wait here and offering to go get the car, but I don’t want to leave her alone. The streets are packed. “I can call an Uber?”
She bites her lip and looks around. “I feel bad because it’s only a few blocks,” she hedges, not saying no.
“It’s fine, let me check and see how long the wait is. I bet there are already drivers here to get people back to their cars.” Sure enough, all we have to do is walk down the block to find the car.
I lean my head in and give the guy her address while I’m shortening her crutches to fit into the backseat with us.
“I’ll get her home,” he says, checking his mirrors like he’s ready to pull into traffic with the door still open.
“She’s not going alone,” I answer, then climb in and shut the door. It smells like day old coney dogs, and when I look over at Waylynn, she has her finger trapped under her nose, daintily blocking her nostrils.
I’m not that nice. “Damn,” I scoff, thankful we’ll only be in the car a few minutes.
“You can just take Hill, the driveway is off the back.” Waylynn’s voice comes out nasally.
“You’ll still need to pay the full amount,” he says, easing into traffic.
“No problem.” I crack the window, and he looks back at me through the rearview mirror.
“I have the air on.”
“It smells like shit in here,” I comment, meeting his stare, and he looks away quickly.
Waylynn covers her lips with her fingers, and her eyes get wide like she’s worried the guy is going to do something or I offended him.
If she weren’t on crutches, I would have asked him to drop us off down the street, but I direct him into the driveway so she’ll have the shortest walk possible.
