Page 6 of His Reckless Freshman

“Just do us all a favor and stay away from that chick. If she’s dumb enough to approach any more of you, just politely decline and move on,” Sawyer tells us while Darian continues grumbling.

“Or you can rudely decline.” Slamming his locker shut, he sits down to tie up his sneakers.

Mac snickers again. “Damn, I hope she does approach me now. This could be fun.”

“Don’t be mean,” Jimmy warns him. “She’s just a little freshman, I think. She was so jittery.”

“How do you know?” Darian points at him.

“She asked me too, but I was running late and didn’t have time to talk. Plus, I hate interviews.”

I smirk, keeping the thought to myself. No big surprises there. The guy is an introvert through and through. I’ve been living with him for well over a month now, and though he’s starting to come out of his shell a little, he’s still the quietest guy in the house.

I like him, though. He’s good people. Solid, dependable, tidy. Even though I’m still getting to know him, I trust him already.

“Oh man, I hope she approaches me.” Adonis rubs his hands together, looking gleeful as he gets in on Mac’s line of thinking.

This poor girl. They’re going to decimate her.

And all because she made one little slipup.

I mean, I haven’t met her yet, but I’m guessing she was just nervous and it all came out wrong.

“Everyone just stay away from her.” Darian lays down the law. “People already think we’re shit; we don’t need any more attention thrown on us.”

It’s kind of weird that the paper is wanting to write an article about us. We never get any attention at this school. Unless they just gave this freshman a bullshit assignment to keep her occupied and out of the way.

Who knows?

But I’ll keep my distance. Darian and Sawyer are looking around the room expectantly, and the full team is here now, all listening to them.

Nodding along with everyone else, I agree to stay away from the jittery freshman. If she does approach me, I’ll politely decline. We need to protect one another.

No, what we need is more people showing interest in us.

But I keep the thought to myself, not wanting to suggest that this could actually be a good thing.

Because it all depends on what she writes.

It could be the worst thing.

Completely humiliating.

Yeah, staying away from her is the right decision.

“Let’s go, Cougars.” Coach ambles through the locker room, looking completely unenthusiastic about our training session. We trail out after him and the two assistant coaches.

Although the energy level seems kind of low, I run onto the court, catching the ball Jimmy throws to me and dribbling it down to the hoop. Doing an easy layup, I land back on my feet with a grin.

Something about the swish of the netting when the ball goes through the hoop makes me smile every single time.

I can feel the shifting energy within minutes.

The squeak of sneakers and the rhythmic bouncing of the ball seems to calm our nerves as we run drills and do what we do best—have fun on a basketball court without the pressure of an actual game.

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JOLIE