“What?” He laughs. “It works!”
“I’m not doing that.” I don’t particularly want to see other women doing that. I hope Emily isn’t tempted to do that.
He makes another shot. “What would it take to get you to flash me right now?”
“Nothing!” I make another shot.
He grins. “I think we’ve found the winning formula.”
“So, I’ll always lose unless I’m playing you?” I bat my eyelashes and smile sweetly. Damn. He’s sucked me back in with hardly any effort at all. “No one else makes me feel this way … James.”
I absolutely should not have said that.
His pupils swallow the lightning blue of his irises, and he clears his throat. “If you’re ever uncomfortable with an opponent, you always have the option of asking to play in teams.”
Oh. “That is a very good pointer. Thank you.”
He seems to return to normal, shaking his head. “No, no, no. Don’t thank me. To win, you have to be pissed off. Even if you’re not playing me, just imagine me jerking off to fantasies of you flashing me in this basement. That should do the trick.”
He lands another shot. “How much do you hate me?”
I roll my eyes. “It’s not a constant level. It fluctuates. And depends entirely on you.”
My shot bounces off the wall behind him.
He taps the ball on his lips after he retrieves it. Gross. This entire basement must be coated in years’ worth of germs. “You’re going to have to dig deep then. Only think about the bad times. The worst times.”
The first time will always be the worst.
“I did hear you shit out your lungs last weekend. How about that?”
Every muscle in my body quivers with the memory. “It’s your turn.”
He shakes his head. “We already know I can play this game better than anyone else. I don’t need any more practice. You do.”
“Afraid to ask me more questions?” I taunt. “Not sure you want to hear my answers anymore?”
He sails another ball straight into a cup with such force that it falls over, spilling the ball out onto the floor. The sound echoes with one, two, three, four bounces before silence descends.
“Could you ever love me more than you hate me, Sophie?”
I toss a ball up and down several times like he did, testing its weight, feeling its smoothness, imagining it doing exactly what I want it to do.
I make another shot.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Earth to Sophia! Come in, Sophia!” Shannon waves her hand in front of my face.
I can barely focus, even with that kind of intervention. “What?”
“What is wrong with you?” She glances around where the squads are taking water breaks between drill rehearsals. “You’re usually so on the ball when it comes to band, but tonight, you’re moving around like a slug and perpetually staring at absolutely nothing.”
Oh, I wouldn’t call it absolutely nothing. It’s not like I’ve never noticed Jimmy is an extremely attractive man. Hell, I slept with him. But every time he takes a turn at getting on the tall ladder to conduct, I can’t stop staring. I’m staring at every fine muscle movement, even when he’s not the one on the ladder.
“This might be the vilest thing he’s ever done to me,” I mutter.
Shannon throws her arms in the air. “Goddamn it. I knew I shouldn’t have agreed to his private little initiation! What did he do to you? I’ll kill him and save you the trouble! But since I’m your best friend, I’ll still let you mutilate his corpse before we hide it.”
Oh, I’m thinking about mutilation all right. The kind that results in sweat-soaked sheets, ultimate satisfaction, and bone-weary exhaustion.
“Do you learn voodoo in ITK?”
She looks at me like I’ve finally lost it. “Um … no. Why? Do you think he cursed you?”
I nod, still seeing the muscles in his thighs flex as he supports his weight against the ladder even though he’s currently sitting in the middle of the clarinet section. One of the women lays a hand on his arm. He’s more muscular than he was before. A fully realized man instead of on the verge of it. I’ll bet all that weight bearing down on me would be delicious …
He smiles at her like he’s grateful for her attention.
Oh, God. I know his every expression.
Worse, I’m not even jealous he’s receiving affection from someone else. Worse yet, I’m fully aware of how this scene would have sent my blood pressure skyrocketing in the past.
“He did it,” I breathe as a weird sort of peacefulness rolls over my body. It’s not a welcome sensation at all. Not when I’m simply giving in because there’s no fight left in me. I’m just succumbing to the inevitable. “He did exactly what he said he was going to do.”
And with only a tiny little question. One I never even graced him with a verbal answer to. I simply turned away and walked back to my hotel. He didn’t dog after me, and it doesn’t even matter.
I think I have loved James Fossoway for a very long time.
“You look like you’re going to blow chunks,” Shannon states. “Maybe it’s time to call the game and let me take you to the health center. You’re probably coming down with something. Half the people in my Contemporary Lit class were out today with a stomach bug. It’s striking early this year.”
She’s trying to make conversation, but I’m still thinking about it.
I love him.
How much do I hate him?
Did I ever?
Did I really?
Is there room for love in all this hate?
Am I confusing love for hate? I tried to pretend to, and now, it’s happening for real.
Nate approaches. I see him coming from the left, but anything except my periphery is filled with Jimmy. The way lines form around his mouth when he smiles. How he laughs with his whole body. When he’s anxious, he ruffles his own hair. He doesn’t pull his hands through it the way most men do when they’re uncomfortable. Anyone he graces with a direct gaze feels like the center of the universe for as long as they have his attention. He is that focused on anything and everything he does.
“You’re up, Soph.”
“Huh?” No matter how much I blink, I can’t break the trance.
“It’s your turn to conduct the next drill.”
“Oh, okay.”
Nate glances between me and Shannon with concern. “You okay?”
I nod. “No.”
“She’ll be fine.” Shannon waves him off. “You just need to get back in the zone. Remember all the horrible things he’s done to you. Remember how he acted like he didn’t know you.”
A horrible thought attacks my odd tranquility. “Did he do that? What if I imagined it? What if I pretended not to know him because I didn’t know how to handle seeing my one-night-stand virginity eraser in a place I never expected him to be?”
Shannon grimaces. “He really did fuck you up. You have become completely out of touch with reality.” She turns toward the field and lets loose a whistle. “Jimbo! Get your ass over here!”
More than a few heads turn because it is completely out of place for a section leader to order a drum major around like that. And even more out of place for him to obey like a well-trained puppy.