“Thanks so much for taking her home, Hazel.” Ollie nudged me to get my attention and I turned to look at him, not having much choice in the matter now. I couldn’t be rude. It was a mistake. The green of his eyes was deeper today, less brown. I knew it was the jersey. It was always that way. A bead of sweat slid down the side of his face and he ran a hand through his hair like he always did. I knew it was a habit of his, just like I knew so many other things about him.
“You owe me.” I tried lightening the mood like I had with Scarlett. I nudged his shoulder but only came into contact with a pad.
Dragging his bottom lip into his mouth, he raked his teeth over the fullness and his eyes heated. He leaned his face close to mine. “You name it and it’s yours, brat.”
My face flamed and my mouth watered. Lord, he was a terrible flirt and by terrible I meant amazing. I swallowed the saliva pooling in my mouth and stepped back.
“Cut it out, Olls. Quit giving her a hard time. She came all the way so your ass would have a way home tonight.” Scarlett attempted to save me.
He eyed me. “Oh, I haven’t even started giving her a hard time yet,” he said before walking backward down the stadium steps, hot eyes still on me. I was thanking whatever gods were listening that he was walking backward. Please, God. Spare me that ass. I couldn’t handle it after his damn lip trick.
“You’re shameless, Oliver Knox,” Scarlett called down to him.
She wasn’t wrong. Oliver flirted with all the women. I never could tell if he had a preference for a certain kind of girl. If it walked and had tits and a vagina, he flirted.
“Bye, ladies,” Oliver said loudly and jangled Scarlett’s keys over his head before doing the most awful thing in the world to me—he spun around and gave me his ass. And God, was it a marvelous ass. Immediately my eyes ate it up. Was there anything better than a hot ass in some football pants? It was round and firm and high and I bet I could have bounced fifty quarters off of it. But I didn’t have any change. Damn. That was just my luck.
I was being mesmerized by the twin all white globes when they stopped just barely and my eyes diverted up to see Oliver looking over his shoulder and smiling. Damn him. He gave me a slow wink before continuing down the steps at a trot.
The tease. The bastard. He knew how good-looking he was. It didn’t matter a bit that he was my best friend’s brother or that he was a year and a half younger than me. Oliver Winston Knox was fine on a regular day, but in a football uniform he was the stuff dreams were made of. My dreams to be exact.
He knew what he was doing. Winnie knew he was off-limits to me, but goddamn, he looked good in those football pants. And a girl could only take so much.
Scarlett put her arm through mine and pulled me up the steps slowly. “Stop giving him the satisfaction of him knowing how adorable he is.”
“I didn’t say he was adorable,” I denied. And I would deny deny deny until the cows came home.
“You didn’t have to. Because your face did,” she deadpanned.
She had me there. “So, finish telling me about The Luk Callihan.” I changed the subject quickly.
“Well, his baby sister will be in my class this year.”
“Wow, that’s crazy. But pretty cool, too. What’s he doing now anyway? Did he end up playing professional ball?”
We climbed into my car. “Yeah, I think he plays for some team down in Florida.” She opted for looking out the window and not at me.
“Like in the NFL?”
“Mmmhmm.” She nodded at the window.
“Do you know what team?” I asked, curious why she was being weird.
“Yeah,” she squeaked out.
I giggled. “Because you’ve been cyberstalking him?”
Her head jerked to mine, eyes big. “I didn’t say I’d been cyberstalking him.”
I pursed my lips. “No, but your face did.”
Rolling her eyes, she laughed. “Touché. Now drive me home, whore.”
After dropping Scarlett at her apartment, I headed right home, ready for a nice hot shower and dinner.
I checked the house for Pops, but I assumed he must have been at Amor’s for dinner. I made a microwave meal since I wasn’t much of a cook. I depended on Scarlett to feed me meals of actual nutritional sustenance a couple of times a week.
I went to the bathroom and stripped my shorts and hoodie off after laying my glasses on the counter. I stood there in my panties and bra. I looked myself over. I wasn’t tall, but I wasn’t short. I wasn’t skinny, but I wasn’t fat either. I was average. That pretty much summed me in one word. I was okay with that. Average was secure. I looked down at the scars on both of my arms from my elbows to my wrists. They were old and almost gone, so thin they were barely a memory anymore. I didn’t despise them. I wasn’t embarrassed of them. They were as much a part of me as Pops’s tattoos were a part of him. We’d both gone to war at a time in our lives and come back with marks on our bodies to prove it.
Age 12
It was very late and I probably shouldn’t have been up, but I was, because I was twelve, my hormones were raging, and Hazel was in my house. She was here nearly every weekend now. It was amazing. It was awful. Because lately, I’d had these thoughts. Not the ones from last summer where I put a frog in her sleeping bag while she and Scarlett had camped out in the backyard. Torturing Hazel was out and torturing me was in. It sucked. I wanted to put different things in her sleeping bag. Like myself. It was exciting, this feeling. It was equally terrifying.
It was scary as hell because I knew Hazel didn’t feel the same. She wasn’t sitting across the room giving me goo-goo eyes. Nope, that was all me. Instead, she was usually giving me a hard time. In fact, she’d found out last summer that my middle name was Winston. I know, it was hard to believe that my parents had gifted me with Oliver and Winston, but they had. And it was my cross to bear. Especially now that Hazel had taken to calling me Winnie instead of Ollie. Never in my life did I think I could hate a nickname worse than Ollie. But Hazel proved me wrong, as usual. Yeah, her favorite thing in the world seemed to be giving me shit. And still I sought her out like a fool.
I tiptoed down the stairs and toward the glowing light of the TV in the living room where I knew Hazel and Scarlett had put pallets on the floor. I heard the soft sound of snoring and thought maybe they were both asleep as I crept closer. I had to admit I was itching for a glance at Hazel’s sleeping face. She was still the prettiest girl I’d ever seen and I was looking forward to just watching her without worrying about her noticing. And boy did she notice. When she caught me staring at her, she’d raise her eyebrows at me and give me a what look that usually sent me scurrying back to my room and to my Nintendo Wii for the remainder of the day.
“What are you doing awake, Winnie?” Hazel’s voice made me jump and my gaze darted around the room, looking for her in the dark.
She was in the corner of the couch, sitting there alone in a pink hoodie and some leopard print pajama pants, the light of the TV casting a faint blue glow on her face.
“Couldn’t sleep.” I laughed awkwardly, hoping I didn’t come off like a crazy obsessed stalker who came down here to watch her sleep. Because that’s exactly what I was.