Kam
I ZIP MY fly.
Ahhhh. Nothing like a little stress reliever the morning of a big game. I help Darla stand. She runs her hands up my chest and locks her arms around my neck. “I love starting my day with you.” She has that starry look in her pretty green eyes.
“Sugar, I’m a better caffeine rush than coffee.” I smile, unhooking her hands.
“You’re more than just a rush, Kam.” She blinks up at me flirtatiously. “How about I wear your practice jersey to the game tonight, so I can show everyone I’m your number one fan.”
Time out.
If there’s one thing that screams ‘item’ in this school, it’s wearing a player’s football jersey. And, umm, no thanks. I’m not in the market for being anyone’s significant other, boyfriend, or one half of an item. And Darla knows that. Everyone knows that. I spent the last three years with the most cold-hearted bitch in school, and I’m done with duos. I’m done with status and done with image. Done with the captain of the football team dating the head cheerleader.
Senior year is all mine. No strings attached.
The warning bell rings for first period. Couldn’t be better timing.
“We better go.” I avoid responding altogether, making a quick getaway. Am I being a dick? Yeah, a little. But you shouldn’t ask questions you already know the answer to. I open the door to the storage closet and peek my head out. The coast is clear, no faculty in sight. Get caught making out—or, in my case, getting head—and it’s suspension row for us. I don’t think The Touchdown Club would be too happy their star player had to ride the bench because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.
Darla and I slip into the growing mass of students filling the hall. I move fast, snaking my way through my peers and away from Darla. Scot-free. Or so I think. I’m not ten feet in when I run smack dab into Laney Summers. She gives me that look. Her big blue eyes sharp. Yup, busted. She always knows.
“Blowin’ off a little steam this morning?” she asks. Her tone is curt but amused at the same time. The city girl sometimes drops the G off her words. It’s cute as hell. She’s cute as hell.
“You know me so well.” I smile down at her. The sweetest, most enticing smile I can manage. She rolls her eyes as we walk down the hallway and into chemistry together. The first time I met Laney was in this very spot. Chemistry class, the beginning of the school year. Our seats were already assigned, and lucky me, I got to sit with the new girl from New York, whom I knew all about already. Her cousin, Miranda, filled me in. Miranda was one of my ex’s best friends until we broke up. Our separation divided our group, and Cheyenne actually demanded people choose sides. So everyone did, and they chose mine.
Laney was forced to move to Alabama when her parents got divorced. Pretty harsh moving the summer of your senior year. Miranda basically threatened my life if I wasn’t nice to her. Me? Not nice? To a girl? I asked if she remembered whom she was talking to. What I wasn’t prepared for was Laney not being nice to me! I called her sugar—not even thinking—I call everyone sugar. She snapped at me right off, saying she had a name and I better use it. I apologized and told her I’d use her name. From that moment on she’s been Lemon. Sweet if you add sugar, sour if you don’t, and I’m waiting for the moment I get to pour some sugar on her and really take a bite.
Sassy, city bitch.
I fell in love with her immediately.
“You coming to see me kick North’s ass tonight?”
“You sound pretty confident in yourself, country boy.” She drops her backpack on the floor next to the table covered with glass beakers, test tubes, and burners.
“I am confident, Lemon. We’ve beat them once already. Actually, I wouldn’t even use the word beat, annihilated is more like it. It’s in the bag. Bet I don’t even get sacked.” I cross my arms haughtily.
“Oh, well, if that’s the case, I’ll probably just stay home and surf Facebook. Doesn’t sound like it’s going to be a very interesting game.” She curls her lip.
“Lemon,” I stress, causing Laney to smile smugly. “Are you messing with me?”
“It’s so easily done.”
That’s what she thinks.
“So, you are coming?” I sit down in my usual first period seat, with Laney a few inches away from me. It’s my favorite place to be. Breathing in her . . . exotic scent. It’s the only word I can come up with.
“Miranda would decapitate me if I didn’t.”
“Do you hate football so much that Miranda has to threaten you to go to a game?” The concept is foreign to me.
“No.” She shrugs. “I just don’t get what the big deal is. It’s a game.”
My mouth drops open. “Sugar, it’s not just a game in these parts. It’s a religion.”
“Is that why there’s a play called a Hail Mary?”
Now I’m the one rolling my eyes. “You don’t like anything about football?”
She smirks darkly. “I like you in those tight pants.”
My blood heats. “So, you do like me?”
“I like to look at you.” She flirts. I love when Laney toys with me. It electrifies my insides.
“Lemon—” I lean in close to her ear, getting an injection of her intoxicating scent. “If you hang out with me after the game, I’ll let you do so much more than just look.”
She burns me with those scorching blue eyes. “Thanks, but no thanks. I’m not interested in being just another touchdown in your end zone.”
I can’t stop the ridiculous smile from spreading across my face. “I love when you talk dirty to me.”
Actually, I love everything about Laney, from the way she looks with those red streaks running through her hair, to her casual Converse, and smart mouth. She’s the anti-southern belle. And exactly what I need.
“You better be careful, Laney Summers, or else you might get caught from behind.”
“Is that a threat, Kamdyn Ellis?”
I glare at her like I want to devour her. “It’s a threat, and a promise, and a pledge.”
“You don’t scare me.” She crosses her arms and scowls adorably.
“Oh, no? Care to put your money where your mouth is?”
“And what did you have in mind?” Her pretty eyes narrow.
“A bet of sorts.”
“We’re eighteen. We’re not old enough to gamble.”
“Then let’s just keep it between us.” I lower my voice provocatively.
“I’m listening.”
“If we win tonight, I get you.”
“Excuse me?” Laney’s eyebrows shoot up.
“If we win the state championship, I get to have you, in the bed of my pickup, to do with what I want.”
“You want me to bet my body?”
Maybe your heart, too? I hold back.
“It seems to be the only way you’ll give me the time of day,” I offer vulnerably, hoping my humble tone and baby blues will persuade her. It works on all the other girls, but Laney is different. She doesn’t topple that easily. She needs persuading and a challenge.
She sighs, as if considering. “What’s the spread?”
“Spread?”
“Yeah, you know, how much do you have to win by?”
“For a girl who claims she doesn’t like football, you can talk a good game.”
She shrugs. “It’s discussed nonstop in my house. I listen with one ear open.”
She is always surprising me. Since day one.
“Okay.” I mull it over carefully; the last time we played North we won by seventeen and that was with all their starters healthy. Since then, they’ve lost two of their best players to injury: their quarterback and a tight end. “Twenty-point spread.”
Laney’s eyes widen. “That’s a huge number. Are you that confident?”
“Baby.” I put my hand on her leg and run it up her thigh. “Football is what I know. So, yes, you’ll be mine tonight.”