Page 30 of Hard to Score

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I ask on the defensive. I’m so done with his shit.

“That means you have a reputation for being a ball-busting bitch who doesn’t take no for an answer.”

“And the problem with that is what?” I snap.

“Not a goddamn thing,” he says but the sarcastic chuckle he emits eats at me and eggs me on.

“Since we’re into being honest,” I say. “How about I let you in on a little tidbit?”

“Lay it on me, Brex,” he says pushing himself off the wall and holding his arms out, not caring who walks by or if they see anything. “I’m all fucking ears.”

“I look at you and see one of the most gifted and talented quarterbacks I’ve ever seen but the man beneath is too goddamn afraid to step into the limelight. It’s hard to score if you never want to touch the fucking field, Bowman.”

“This is where you stop talking,” he says, anger in his voice, but oddly no belligerence. There’s clarity in his eyes, a challenge, that frankly is the most honest thing he’s shown me yet.

“You don’t have the right to tell me what to do anymore,” I shout. “Just like you didn’t when we were teenagers in the Keys.”

“Bullshit,” he sneers. “I had every right to.”

“Give me one reason why you think you can.”

“Because . . .” His eyes roam the length of my body, but this time they don’t do a very good job hiding what they’re thinking like they did earlier. This time they telegraph every goddamn thought. Lust. Need. Greed. And I’m confused why we’re fighting when he looks at me like that. “Because . . .”

And with no pretense or preamble, Drew Bowman steps into me while dropping his bottle to the grass. His hands frame my face, and he kisses me.

It’s heat and need. It’s demand and desire. It’s a soft tongue but a greedy mouth.

He tastes of anger and longing, and every ounce of pent-up frustration I feel toward him I sense it back from him.

There are no thoughts of the people at our backs. No second given to where we are or how this happened. It’s just Drew and me and a teenager’s fantasy coming to fruition.

“This is wrong,” he murmurs and then kisses me again. “So fucking wrong.” He rests his forehead to mine, his hands still on the side of my face, my own pulse so loud in my ears I swear he can hear it.

“Drew.” My breath is unsteady.

Much like my heart is.

“Just friends.”

It’s my turn to laugh, step back, and look at him like he’s the lunatic he sounds like.

“Are we back to the drinking game again?” I ask.

A sheepish grin slides onto his lips and every single thing about him right now—disheveled hair, crooked tie, incredible eyes—owns me completely.

“If I keep saying we’re friends it will remind me that we are. That I haven’t thought about you way too many times in the past few days. That we don’t have a tangled history neither of us want to address.”

“I thought we weren’t allowed to talk about our history.”

He throws his head back and emits the craziest laugh that has me shaking my head, trying to figure out if he’s losing it.

“Do you know how many years I’ve waited to do that? To try that? Ever since that stupid goddamn game of spin the bottle.” He runs a hand through his hair as he hangs his head sheepishly, stumbles slightly, and chuckles. “Now I know.”

“Now you know,” I repeat, more than shocked at his confession.

Wasn’t he the one who hesitated to kiss me when the neck of the bottle landed on me? More importantly though, did our first kiss affect him as much as it did me?