Page 39 of Hate Me Like You Mean It

Instead, I grabbed him by the bicep, pulled him back, and kicked the ball. My pulse fluttered when he laughed in my ear, hooking an arm around my waist and lifting me off the ground before I could start running.

“That’show you wanna play this?” I demanded, wiggling out of his hold as soon as my feet were back on the ground. He was still trying to figure out which direction the ball had gone, so I had a two-step head start in the sprint.

Just until his fingers curled around my wrist, forcing me to tug him along.

I was laughing so hard it was making me clumsy. My vision was blurring, my lungs were working overtime, and my ponytail had already started to fall out. “Holdonholdonholdon, time-out.”

He paused right away, no questions asked, waiting with his foot on the ball as my shaky fingers worked to quickly rebunch my hair. I opted for an extra loop with the elastic this time, making sure it was nice and tight before my hands dropped. “Okay. Go.”

I almost tripped over my own leg when he bounced the ball up. First with his foot, then once with each knee, before he bent down to my eye level. The ball landed on his upper back, and he grinned. Right in my face.

Show-off.

I swallowed my smile, reaching over his left shoulder. He dodged it, his blinding smile growing more lopsided and arrogant by the second. I swung right; he dodged it. Left again; he dodged it.

So I went for the throat.

He crumbled to the ground with a choked laugh the second my fingers wriggled into the side of his neck, his entire body bending into itself to make it stop. “Fuck.”

The ball landed a foot to his left, and had he not immediately snatched hold of my leg, the game would’ve been over right then and there. The two bright orange cups depicting the makeshift goalposts were the last thing I saw before I hit the ground.

We started scrambling, trying to get up while simultaneously keeping the other person down. I crawled, I jabbed, I shoved, and I fought with everything I had while dying of laughter. But he was stronger.

“Where did it go? Which way?” he demanded, pinning my wrists to the grass as we both struggled to catch our breaths. He had one knee braced on either side of my hips, his damp hair starting to curl.

“Relative to what?” I panted.

“Us. Let’s say our heads are pointing at twelve.”

“Are you serious? You thinkThe Real Housewives of Beverly Hillscovers reading analogue?”

He gave me a heart-shattering half smile. “I deserved that. But we both know you’re not actually daft, so tell me where it went while I’m still asking nicely.”

“Why? What’re you going to do? Waterboard it out of me with your dripping sweat?”

He released one of my hands so he could wipe his face with the lower half of his shirt.

If abs could kill…

I tickled them.

Of course I did.

It was the perfect opportunity.

He inhaled sharply, curling away from me like a dying spider. I scurried to my feet, my heart jolting when I felt his fingers graze my ankle. He missed.

I grinned when the top of my foot connected with the ball, borderline giddy when it tumbled between the two makeshift posts.

“Hah! I win!”

Dominic sat up, tugging his blindfold off. His eyes were shimmering, his skin flushed as he nodded. “Yeah. All right. Good game.”

And that—thatright there—was Dominic’s one redeeming quality. He’d never been a sore loser. Not even with me.

I gave a dramatic bow, then ran past him to get my stuff.

“What are you doing?”