Like, literally.
I’m in the air, nearly to his shoulders, smiling from ear to ear, when I glimpse Grey, over on the sideline, applauding with a huge grin on his face. Huge.
There’s nothing “half” about it at all.
And it comes with a wink.
16
HE’S WAITING FOR ME OUTSIDE THE GIRLS’ LOCKER room after the game.
I shouldn’t be surprised. But I am.
I open the door and see him nearly in profile, most of his back to me. I stand there, my breath hitching. Gone are his pads and helmet, replaced with street clothes and the crisp scent of boy soap.
“Hey.”
Grey turns, half smile in place, wet surfer-meets-newscaster hair glinting under the sodium lights.
“There she is: Liv Rodinsky, ringer.”
A smile perks up on my lips. “A ringer would imply expertise.”
He takes a step my way, a shadow casting over me. There’s not a soul near us—the locker room was completely empty of cheerleaders and Kelly by the time I finished getting ready. And I’ll admit I took my time—mascara, blush, even a thin sweep of Addie-style eyeliner—hoping to look decent for the planned team trip to Pat’s Diner for postgame pancakes.
“I’d say you gave Wyandotte Rural quite the seminar on how to score points—three passing touchdowns in one and a half quarters?” Grey’s eyes meet mine and my heart flutters. “Master class.”
“Or complete and utter luck.”
“Or that.” He takes another step, and suddenly we’re just inches apart. “But it takes a lot of natural talent and hard work to make luck look that easy.”
I punch him in the arm. Mostly because I’m not sure what to do with him so close. I’m used to feeling him against my skin, when our shoulders bump against each other or our hands brush as we walk down the halls, but he never stands there like this, with weight behind what he’s doing. “Aw, shucks,” I say, trying to will the heat away from my cheeks.
Grey’s eyes narrow and the half smile freezes in surprise. “It can’t be. Is mighty Liv Rodinsky, an immeasurably fearless quarterback on the field, actually afraid of a puny little compliment?”
Soap and giddiness surround him as the toes of his Nikes nuzzle up against mine. Suddenly more nervous than I’ve ever been in my entire life, I shove my hands in the front pockets of my jeans. Days ago, I didn’t even know Grey Worthington existed. But now? Now I can barely breathe around him. Somehow, I maintain eye contact. “I’m not afraid of anything.”
“Of course not.”
The flutter in my heart quickens as Grey lets his hand close the distance between us, his fingertips grazing my cheek, moving down until they gently tip up my chin. My pulse stutters. He’s inspecting me, searching for hesitation but actually seeing so much more—and that’s something I’m afraid of.
He shakes his head. “No fear there right now. None.”
I should play tough. Hang in my comfort zone. But instead, as so often over the past week, I feel a smile creeping up, and I have to hold myself back from snagging his fingers and kissing them. “Never.”
Grey’s mouth softens and he leans in, so close that his polo kisses my forearm. He raises a brow, smile falling from his lips in a way that’s a good thing. All desire to hold back has evaporated. My breath vanishes and I tip my chin up toward his, the swoop of his lips my whole field of vision.
“O-Rod!” Addie’s voice cuts through the slip of air between us and we jolt apart.
Addie flings herself at me in a jumble of long arms and legs, and I’m fairly certain Grey is grazed by friendly fire. “You. Were. AMAZING.” She squeezes all the air out of my lungs. “Totally unbelievable. Outstanding. Genius. Every adjective in my arsenal.”
“Thanks,” I say, feeling a little guilty. She had two matches this week, and my practices went late enough that I didn’t even try to make either one. But here she is, cheering me on like always.
“So, you can take a compliment,” Grey whispers, but rather than getting a rise out of me, it has the effect of whipping Addie’s attention from me to Grey.
“She’s gonna take more than a compliment. She’s gonna take your job, dude. Watch out.”
I start laughing, but they both spin on me, faces hard.
“I’m serious,” Addie says.
“She has a point,” Grey says, nodding. “I was dying to get in there tonight, but if you keep playing like that, I’m going to have to bribe Coach for minutes.”
I could brush them off. I could play coy.
But it’s true. I did much better than I ever, ever thought I’d do as a quarterback in an honest-to-God football game.
Can I add another “ever” in there?
Because EVER.
The rush of what happened tonight is still zinging through my pulse points, even more than an hour after my last touchdown.
Forty-five minutes after shaking hands with the other team, my helmet off, hair down—the looks I got from Wyandotte Rural were fabulous.
Thirty minutes since I shot a confident smile across the locker room at Kelly, her annoyance level stuck at eleven.
Fifteen minutes since I hopped out of the shower.
And about a minute since Grey touched my face like that.
So I don’t brush off their praise. But because I can’t reconcile the thrill zipping through my veins with the burn of butterflies in my gut as I meet Grey’s eyes, I go with a trick play to buy myself some time.
“Who wants pancakes? I’ll drive.”
Grey’s got his arm around my shoulders. More technically, he’s got it around my chair, Mr. Manspreader Supreme at work at ten thirty on a Friday night.
No one seems to notice or care. Jake and Kelly are working very hard to ignore us at the opposite end of five tables strung together. The boys between us don’t seem to give a shit. And directly across from me is Addie, who would normally be cataloging every inch of Grey’s body language in embarrassing detail to tease me about later, but who isn’t paying a lick of attention because she’s found something infinitely more fascinating: Nick Cleary.
The attraction was instant, like freaking lightning. He immediately recognized Addie as “the hot girl who trashed my twin sister at state.”
Note to all boys: There is no better way to pick up Adeline McAndry than to call her hot and talented in the same sentence. The steak-and-potatoes Prince Harry thing probably didn’t hurt his chances.
Kelly was either not amused or a strawberry jam tub just happened to bean Nick in the jugular 2.3 seconds later. Addie immediately swept the jam off the banquet and squeezed in beside him, smile a bazillion watts.
“Earth to O-Rod,” Grey whispers into my ear as a note of boy soap, crisply sitting atop his skin, drifts my way.
Rather than whipping around—which would put our mouths way too close together—I side-eye him with a little smile.
“Yes?”
“Seen a Martian yet?”
“Very funny, Captain Kirk.”
His lips tip up at the corners. “Don’t worry. It happens to everyone. It used to happen to me even.”
“What did?”
“That posttouchdown buzz.”