“Oh.” Every muscle in her body relaxed, her guard dropping. “Well, I hung out with Niki quite a bit, too. She was more like a little sister, but still. And I was on friendly terms with most of the girls in our class—although some of that was because they were using me to get to you.”
“That sucks.”
“It wasn’t great, but…” She shrugged. While it had stung, having Gavin by her side made it easy not to care. Although she and Kristin weren’t exactly friends, at least she didn’t actively try to drive a wedge between them the way some of his other girlfriends had done. Even when the two of them were canoodling, Julie quite enjoyed her time hanging out with the football team.
She wasn’t one of those women who got along only with males, either. On top of being an introvert, she’d prioritized showing up for Gavin’s games and events, same way he’d done for her. In college she’d had awesome female roommates, and she had a great study group in med school. All of whom she still kept in touch with, in spite of living scattered throughout the country. “No regrets,” she said.
“No regrets.” Gavin extended a fist and she bumped it. Then he stepped closer, his forehead crinkling as he did so. “Is that for Kory? A treat for later to show him how sweet you are?”
“I’m not that sweet,” she automatically said, following his line of sight and glancing down at her cleavage. “What are you even talking about? Do you mean…?” She couldn’t bring herself to say her boobs were a treat.
“One, yes, you are. And two, you’ve got an M&M”—Gavin pointed, and she went cross-eyed trying to see the candy. Apparently it’d been so long since anyone touched her that she’d lost sensation.
“I still don’t see it. Can you help a girl out, or what?”
Ever so slowly, he stretched out his arm and plucked the candy from between her skin and the lace cami she’d put underneath her long chunky-knit cardigan. His fingertips barely brushed the lace, as if he were merely removing a fuzzy piece of lint. Perfectly respectful, but as he lifted the candy away from her, his pinky grazed her collarbone.
A tingle coasted across her skin, and her stomach rushed up, up, up to rest in the vicinity of her rib cage.
Well, that answered the question of whether or not she still had sensation there, but clearly her skin was confused.
“Remember what we used to say about the green ones?” Gavin asked, amusement lighting his eyes, and a lightbulb clicked on over her head.
“Oh yeah. Something about how they make you horny.” In order to prevent herself from snickering like a thirteen-year-old boy, she pressed her lips together. “But aren’t you and I already there?”
Gavin’s eyebrows arched in surprise, and shit, that made it sound like…
“Whoa, that came out totally…” Julie furiously shook her head. “That wasn’t what I was saying at all…” She blew out a breath, pausing to arrange the words correctly in her head so they’d come out of her mouth that way as well. “I just meant, since it’s been so long since either one of us got laid.” She added a light shove for good measure. “Perv.”
Gavin laughed, and it was definitely at her expense. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.” He parted his lips as he lifted the candy to his mouth, and Julie snagged his wrist, stopping it a few inches short of its final destination.
“Don’t you dare eat that,” she said. “I earned it fair and square.”
“You earned it with an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit.”
“We’re not wearing helmets.” She tightened her grip and tugged on his arm, opening her mouth as she maneuvered underneath the candy.
Gavin swallowed, and victory screeched through her. He was going to let go of the M&M! Last second, he wrenched his arm free and popped the candy-coated chocolate into his mouth.
“Seriously? You’re the worst.”
His resulting grin not only showed off her pilfered chocolate, but also suggested she’d given him a wonderful compliment. “Yeah, but you already knew that about me.”
She shook her head, fighting a laugh. Then her phone beeped with an alert. “Shoot. That means my date is in thirty minutes, and I still need to get ready. You still on for the plan?”
Gavin flashed her a thumbs-up, which she took to mean he was in but reluctant enough about the part he was playing he didn’t want to verbally confirm.
But if she was going to go experiencing tingles at the lightest contact, that was all the more reason to ensure that tonight went well.
…
Gavin sat at the kitchen counter, tapping the fingers of his free hand against the granite countertop. Every few minutes he checked the time, but it never seemed to change. The last thirty minutes felt like football minutes, where the refs were calling a tight game, someone had been injured—hey, that one fit him right now—and the clock hardly moved.
Bored and antsy, he wasn’t sure what the hell was wrong with him. He increased the speed of his tapping, so focused on the motion he didn’t realize Dad had come into the room until he opened the fridge door. Dad grabbed a bottle of beer, angling toward Gavin in the classic you want one? motion.
“Nah. I gotta drive Julie to her date.”
Dad nodded a couple of times, but the creases in his forehead didn’t smooth out. Over the past few years, a hint of gray crept in at his temples and scattered throughout his jet-black hair. As opposed to making him appear older, the overhead lights merely added a bit of sparkle, his salt and pepper goatee providing an edge of refinement.
In a lot of ways, Dad had always been his hero. He was bigger than life, accepting, patient, and kind, and he adored Mom and spoiled his parents and kids. He’d gone from playing college basketball to working as an electrical engineer, and was currently a crossing guard for the school “for fun.”
Thanks to Dad’s large stature and the neon orange vest he wore, there wasn’t a chance in hell any drivers would claim they hadn’t seen him, and no one wanted to be on Rashad Frost’s bad side.
He popped the lid off his beer and settled on the stool next to Gavin. “You okay with Julie going out with Kory, then?”
Okay. Such a vague term. During his years sitting the bench with the Pythons, any time someone asked how it was playing second string to one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL and wondered aloud if he’d ever get gameplay, Gavin had responded with It’s okay, my time will come—despite wondering if it ever would. After he’d been hurt and the defender who’d sacked him kept apologizing, he’d told the guy he was okay. Same when his coaches and teammates asked, both then and now.
Currently, he didn’t feel okay, though. Frustration constantly ebbed and flowed, and that irritated him extra, because not all of it came from his injury.