Not after he called me alarming.
God, just thinking about all of the embarrassing shit he probably thought about me makes me blush and want to dry heave at the same time. Every time I think about the fact that he read that letter, my soul dies a little bit. And I can’t even enjoy the silly time capsule letter I wrote because I can’t bring myself to read it. What should have been a fun little trip down memory lane is now this shameful, burning secret.
I dribble the ball harder, launching it at the hoop, and it miraculously goes in. At least I can still do something right.
“I didn’t realize anyone actually used this hoop.” Austin appears on the front porch in gray sweatpants that are innocent but far too sexy to be legal.
His hair has grown a bit shaggy, and I want to run my fingers through the long blond streaks, and there is a smattering of hair on his jaw. It’s a bit darker than the style on his scalp, and it makes me wonder if there is any on his stomach, running down past the waistband of those gray sweatpants …
Woah. I clearly need to get laid. Or be less pathetic. The fact that I’m still having fairly vivid sexual dreams about a guy who called me alarming really speaks to my mental state.
“I come out sometimes to shoot around and think,” I tell him, turning my back.
Please go inside, please go inside, I chant in my head.
“I miss a good old outside hoop. Shooting around in my driveway at home is my favorite pastime.” Austin’s voice comes closer as he talks, and I know he’s walked down the porch steps and onto the driveway.
“It’s the best,” I agree, nodding but refusing to look at him.
Every time I think about this guy, my face turns beet red with shame. I can’t believe a person I was so into, had real feelings for, knows my innermost embarrassing thoughts. This is every girl’s worst nightmare, and I live with him. There is literally no way I can escape seeing him.
“Want to play HORSE?” He raises one thick blond eyebrow in challenge.
Austin towers over me; there is a reason he was the guard on our high school men’s basketball team. I know I have some skills on the court, but there is no way I’ll win in a trick-shot contest against him. Do I really need another failure when it comes to this guy?
“Nah, I’m good.” I pass him the ball on a bounce, and he picks right up where I left off dribbling. “You can play.”
I turn to head inside, and his hand on my elbow stops me. It’s the first time he’s touched me in weeks, and I can’t help but stutter-step and shut my eyes. My breathing changes, becoming shallow and cautious. Just the whisper of his fingertips on my skin makes embers burn low in my belly, and I can’t control the way my heart smashes against my rib cage.
His dark blond eyelashes flutter closed, as if he can’t handle the fragile connection we have right now either. I watch the tic move through his jaw, and for one moment, I think he’s going to pull me flush against him and dip down to take my mouth.
But he doesn’t.
“Taya. Stay. I want to play with you, it’s why I came out.”
His confession ignites a flicker of hope in my chest and also makes me weary. Per usual, Austin is jerking me around. When am I going to stand up and stop letting him have all the power here? Will there come a day when I say no more and refuse to participate in this?
If there is, it’s not today. Because he’s too close, and he’s touching me. And I’ve had this fantasy before, of us playing basketball. It ended with us in the grass, him on top of me, moving over me.
I close my eyes, pushing out all of the doubts, insecurities, false hopes, and whatever delusions I’m still holding on to. I can stay here; I can play the game. It won’t affect me.
Yeah right, a little voice whispers in my head.
In the next breath, Austin stops touching me, and I feel like the rug has been pulled out from under me. I miss that light pressure of his fingers on my elbow. I want to know how his hands would feel all over me. I’ve thought about it for so long, and dammit, I just want to know.
“I’m pretty damn good at HORSE.” Mentally, I pull on my armor, allowing me to joke and be the cool girl with Austin.
“But not as good as me,” he boasts, dribbling the ball with ease. There is something about watching him, his hips loose and moving with the motion of the ball, the way his big hands handle it effortlessly …
I’m definitely wet. Yep. Need to change my underwear.
“If you win, you can make me do whatever you want.” He throws out a gauntlet.
The way his arm muscles tense and constrict whenever the orange leather slides off his fingertips is distracting.
“Like not talk to me for the entirety of you living here?” I give him a saccharine smile.
“Good one.” He winks. Is there anything this guy can do that I won’t find attractive?
“And if you win?” I dare to ask.
The smug asshole actually smirks. “I get to kiss you.”
And my stomach bottoms out. “Austin …”
My voice is all caution, a warning issued for him not to fuck with me.
“Taya. Just trust me.”
Just how am I supposed to do that? I want to ask.
We begin playing, the first two shots an easy sinker from the foul line. Austin is all grace and beauty when he plays, and I catch a glimpse of his abs when he reaches up to shoot. As I move to make him gain an O, pun not intended, I feel his eyes tracking my ass in the black yoga pants covering my legs from the right side of the court.
This game is a special form of torture. Foreplay that I’m sure will lead nowhere.
I sink my shot, and then Austin follows suit. We both make it, so no one has a letter yet. Austin backs up to almost the back of the driveway, onto the grass, and then turns around. Shit, he’s going to throw it over his shoulder without looking.
As if he has eyes in the back of his head, the bastard shoots and scores, chuckling under his breath. “Think you can make that?”
I sashay past him, careful not to touch him but pass just close enough to hear his intake of breath as the heat of my skin warms his.
“Watch me, jerk,” I glower.
Except the nerves in my stomach clank together like dishes in a clumsy waiter’s arms. And when I throw it over my shoulder blind, I know it’s not going in.
I earn my first letter, an H.
Two more rounds and we’re both tied with the first letter after Austin narrowly misses the shot I take from behind the basket. It was pure luck that I made it, and even luckier that he missed.
The game continues without us talking, but we’re circling around each other like animals performing a mating ritual. My skin is hot and itchy by the time I’m able to make any of my shots, because Austin insists on walking the ball over instead of just bouncing or dribbling it to me. He always insists on touching my hand as he gives the ball to me, or bumping my elbow with his, or catching the ends of my hair on his fingertips.
I miss a shot and add an O to my tally. Then I make the next and miss the next two. There is only one letter left, I’m one mistake away from being the loser, and my stomach does a nosedive thinking about Austin’s lips on mine again.
“I’m about to win.” He smirks at me.
Something in my resolve, the poker face I’ve held this whole game, breaks.