“No,” I laugh. “Usually when you make me mad. I’ll let you know the next time it happens. Then we can count together.”
In the strangest turn of events, we smile at each other. Because, for once, we’re not making each other mad. We’re getting along. Spencer squints at me, like I’m someone completely new to him. I know, because it’s the same way I’m looking at him.
He gives his head a slight shake, then shrugs. “When that doesn’t work, Hart gives me a pep talk.”
“Levi does?” I roll my eyes. “I can only imagine how well that goes.”
“Once, he spoke all of a Destiny’s Child song to me. Spoke it. Like a goddamn motivational quote. And then he got the entire team to sing it. It’s the dumbest shit,” Spencer cringes, running a hand over his forehead. But when he drops it, there’s a fond smile on his face.
I wish I had my camera. To capture that smile. This moment. But I have a feeling if I aim my phone at him for a picture, our fragile truce will end.
So, instead, I ask him the fourth question. I avoid any of the fan questions—especially the ones that want to know his thoughts on the sex tape. I hadn’t asked Levi about it in his interview, either, though most of the fans had asked about it. I decide to give Spencer that same peace of mind and return to the simple question I’d planned about how he makes a valuable addition to the Lakewood team.
When he answers that, I’m about to ask the fifth and final one, when he suddenly says, “Sorry.”
He has trouble meeting my eye again. I don’t need to ask him to clarify, though, because he then says, “For what I said to you. At Kellermann’s. And at The Six-Pack.”
I nod, blinking at my phone to clear the water gathering in my eyes. “Me, too,” I tell him. “For everything I said.”
“Last question,” he prompts after a quiet moment. His eyes are on me when I look over. Staring at my mouth.
Because the first time I’d asked the question tonight… had been right after I kissed him.
Heat floods my face. Had I really asked him to bang me? I definitely had not been thinking clearly. Consumed by… well, as he had so bluntly put it, horniness.
“Okay. Fifth question,” I say to distract myself from that train of thought. “What is your favorite romantic comedy?”
Inspired by my obsessive screenings of late, I’d asked everyone on the team the same final question. I’d expected the Leopards to meet the question with a roll of their eyes or a scoff that they only watch action flicks. To my surprise, a majority of them put a great deal of thought into their answers. What had started as a mild curiosity had actually turned into a wonderful gag with each player’s response. Levi, who had walked into the room at the end of Morris’s interview, started a heated debate with the quarterback on which actor is a better male lead for Meg Ryan. Morris swore by Billy Crystal. Levi wouldn’t hear a word against Tom Hanks. Natalie, also company to the argument, had had to referee by announcing they were both wrong and Hugh Jackman was the correct answer.
Now I wait, biting back a smile, to see what Spencer will say.
He gives me a deadpan look. “You really think I watch those?”
I maintain my blank expression.
“So fucking dumb,” he mutters. Then, “Mean Girls.”
My smile spreads slowly.
His mouth twitches. “Shut it.”
“Do you wear pink on Wednesdays?”
He grunts.
“Do you have a thing for mathlete redheads?”
“Fuck no,” he’s quick to say, shooting a quick look at the hair around my shoulders. “Gretchen Weiners.”
“It’s all that hair. So big. So full of secrets.” I gesture to my own hair with both hands. “So fetch.”
He shakes his head, but that small smile still plays about his lips. “‘Stop trying to make fetch happen’.”
I can’t hold it back anymore. I burst out in laughter. Because Spencer Armstrong quoting a movie so, so pink, is the highlight of this whole unfortunate night.
15
Spencer
Of all the groupies in all the parties on this campus, the worst one cornered me.
I take a step back and bump the wall.
Literally cornered, I think with an irritated twitch of my temple.
Tansy doesn’t notice. She follows my step, hand on my arm and laughing with her mouth too wide. Her hand hasn’t left my person in fifteen minutes. Like she knows if she lets go, I’ll bolt. It’s not wrong.
“—believe what she said about my toe touch—Like her back handspring’s any better—Then she had the nerve to go and—”
Tansy’s one of the football cheerleaders. Though I’ve never met a cheerleader I didn’t like—or fuck—I’ve managed to stay far from her this long. Mostly because the rest of the team refers to her as Saran Wrap.
Meaning, she clings.
Boy, does she fucking cling.
I lift my arm—the one with her hand—to take a drink. It drops. Only to be replaced when she switches her own cup to her other hand and then places that hand on my opposite arm. I gulp down the soda in my cup.
Letting Tansy whine on about her cheerleading bullshit, I glare across the living room at Morris, who sits chatting with Hart. If it weren’t for him, I’d be enjoying this party a lot more. With whiskey in this coke. As it is, though, I’ve been curbing my drinking since our talk at Kellermann’s, determined to get my act together.
Now, Morris looks up and says something to Hart. They both look over in my direction. Hart squeezes his hands and Morris mouths ‘Handsy-Tansy’. Neither leaves their spot on the couch.
Fucking dicks.
I search the party for another escape, maybe any of the three Tipsy Turvy hostesses. But Mason’s setting up cups on a fold-up table for drinking games, while Grayson talks off Stone’s ear in the kitchen. None of them even glance up.
Likewise, everywhere around the party, I see no one else I
