Page 24

Grant

“I don’t think she needs you to speak for her, Anders.” He puffs out his chest, stepping slightly in front of Brooke, and I immediately see her eyes narrow in anger.

I smirk because my girls got fire and I’m here for it, but I will not keep letting this asshole get to her when she’s made it clear she wants him to leave her alone.

It’s time I get the message across. “I’m not speaking for her, dipshit.

I’m repeating what she said.” Shaking my head at him and notice Brooke bite her lip and look away, trying not to laugh at me, calling him a dipshit. “Try listening to her.”

“Quit telling me what to do.” He steps closer, sounding more like an angry child than a twenty-one-year-old man.

Brooke is shifting uncomfortably from foot to foot behind him. If she weren’t here, I would push his buttons and maybe get him to snap, but I don't want her to think I'm like that and want to spend time with her today.

“Carmichael,” I call over to his baseball buddies as they square up to Josh. “Come get your boy. He’s bothering me.”

Luckily for me, Flynn Carmichael and I are cool, and he swiftly comes over and puts a hand on Josh’s shoulder to ease him back into their group without too much drama.

“You’re going to regret that, Anders,” he shouts one last parting shot, not wanting to piss off his captain by starting a fight.

“Good to see you, Jim,” I call, giving him the middle finger.

“Saving me that time, huh?” Brooke asks with a slight smirk, arching an eyebrow at me as she steps closer, drawing my attention back to her.

“The least I could do for making you wait.” I grin as I turn to her and take her in. Her hair is loose and wavy, she's hardly got any makeup on, and she looks beautiful wearing casual jean shorts and a white long-sleeved shirt. I also notice she’s barefoot.

“Huh? So not only can I not handle myself, but I was waiting around for you.” She shakes her head, rolling her eyes and looking away from me.

“Of course you were.” I shrug. “These parties are way more fun with me around.” I thought I would earn another flirty smile, but she frowns instead.

“I made some friends,” she says, biting her lip nervously.

“That’s great, Brooke.” I smile down at her. “I know them?”

“No!” her voice rises as her eyes widen, and I frown“, uhh no, you don’t, but I’m going to get back to them; you don’t mind, right?” She motions behind her to the pool house, where I’m guessing she’s been hanging out.

Bear and Adam said they had lost track of her, and when I asked if they looked, they both hit each other over the back of the head like it was obvious the other should have done it.

“Oh, okay.” I’m trying to play it cool, but I thought we would spend the party together once I got here. Also, who are these friends? Are they guys? Is she interested in another guy, and she doesn't know how to tell me? “Come find me if you need anything,” I offer lamely, not sure what else to say.

“Sure.” She smiles, and I watch her walk away, hips swaying enticingly, and I wish I could walk up behind her and convince her to change her mind and spend the party with me, but I won't because she's finally finding her feet, and I don't want to ruin that for her.

“Come find me if you need anything,” Bear whispers next to my ear, appearing out of nowhere. I groan that they had turned up at the worst time, knowing it sounded lame.

“Yeah, you need anything…. come find me,” Adam joins in, chuckling.

“Ha, ha, ha, now come play beer pong with me, you idiots.” I punched both of them in the arm. “I need to catch up.”

We walk past the baseball boys who nod at us, and I glare at Hayle, silently giving him another warning.

Two hours later, I’m still in a funk. After we finished playing beer pong, we joined a poker game inside, where Adam ended up cleaning the floor with everyone.

It’s dark now as we walk out into the backyard, Edison bulbs lighting it up.

It’s cold as balls, but the pool house has steam drifting out the open doors, showing it is still warm in there.

We walk in, and I notice Brooke straight away at the other end of the pool.

She is sitting on a sun lounger and laughing with her two new friends, who I can breathe a sigh of relief are girls.

“What’s wrong, man?” Bear asks as we sit down in pool chairs with beers in our hands. Adams somehow has found a girl in his lap already, and she's attached to his face, so he’s not currently part of our conversation.

“Nothing,” I grunt, but my eyes don't stray from Brooke.

“Go talk to her.” Bear kicks my leg with his sandaled foot.

“No,” I grunt again. I had already thought about that.

“I don’t want to bother her. She’s making friends.

” I sigh, taking my hat off, running my hands through my hair and placing it back on backwards.

“She's never made her own friends before; they were all Josh’s, and I don't want her to feel like she just has us to hang out with.”

Beer puts his beer to his lips and smirks into the bottle before finally saying, “You will not bother, Brookie. She practically buzzes when you’re around. Plus, she's been with those girls all day; she won't mind you going over there.”

I hum in response; I'm still conflicted on how I want to continue my evening. “I’m going to grab another.” I get up and make quick work of getting from the pool house to the kitchen without getting cold.

“Hey, Grant.” A girl I have hooked up with in the past stops me as I reach down and grab a beer out of the bucket on the floor.

“Hey.” I look up and give her a distracted smile, still rooting around the bucket for a decent beer.

“Haven’t seen you around much recently.” She’s moved in front of me now, so I can’t ignore her.

“Uh yeah, been busy with practice and games,” I say, trying to remember her name like the asshole I am.

She’s pretty with blonde hair; she’s wearing tiny shorts and just a bikini top, clearly getting with the theme.

A month ago, I would have leaned into the moment and flirted with her, but right now I just want to find a decent beer and get back to the pool house.

“I’ve been to a few games.” She brushes my arm with her hand. “I love watching you play.”

Why did this ever do it for me? I subtly pull my arm away. I much prefer Brooke’s playful banter to being treated like I’m a piece of meat. “Thanks?” I say and notice her holding one of the coolers Brooke likes. “Hey, where did you get that?” I nod at the drink.

“Oh, there’s a bucket out in the yard. I’m almost finished, if you want to grab me one,” she purrs at me.

“Oh, actually, I was going to get one for my friend.” I give her a weak grin and inch away, stepping towards the door to the deck.

“But we could sit and talk,” she pouts at me; I don’t think I’ve ever sat and talked with her before, and I’m not about to start now.

“Uh, maybe another time.” I move past her to the yard and find the bucket quickly, pulling out the flavour Brooke drinks the most and decide enough is enough. I haven’t fooled around with or even kissed another girl since the first week she arrived on campus.

Things have changed for me. I don’t want to go out partying and hooking up.

I want to spend time with Brooke, helping her with The Drop, going for walks or runs.

I could even take her on a date. I came here to spend time with her, so here goes nothing.

Walking back into the pool house, Bear and Adam seem to have disappeared somewhere else, so I walk over to Brooke and the girls sprawled out across the loungers.

“Hey.” I grin down at Brooke as I reach her side. She looks up and smiles back; she seems happy, leaning against the backrest with one of her new friends sitting near her feet.

“Grant!”

She also sounds happy to see me, so that's good. The girls are staring at me with wide eyes. Nothing new there; I bend down and hold the seltzer out to her. “Found one of these and wondered if you needed one.” I give her a smirk as she sits up, smiling even bigger now and goes to grab it from me, but I pull it back. “There’s a tax attached, I’m afraid. ”

“A tax?” she pouts with untrusting eyes. She’s a smart girl.

“Pool tax.” I nod.

“Pool tax?” she repeats back to me slowly, scrunching her face up.

“You’ve got to come for a swim with me.” I give her my best innocent smile, like I don't have ulterior motives of getting her to myself.

“I wasn’t planning on swimming, plus everyone’s moving inside now.” She frowns at me, looking around at the emptying pool house.

“True, but it’s still hot in here, and you are wearing pool attire.” I shrug, still holding her seltzer hostage a little further out of her reach.

“You should go for a swim, we were going to head inside and see what's going on in there anyway,” the blonder of the two girls says, winking at Brooke as they stand. “We can meet you in there after .”

“See, come on, Brooke, I know you want the seltzer.” I waggle it at her.

“Fine,” she grumbles, waving to her friends as they walk away.

She stands and begins to slip her shorts and then her top off, revealing her matching green bikini.

My eyes travel up her body hungrily. This is the most skin I’ve seen of Brooke’s.

I’m blown away by her tanned skin and a firm body from running and all those yoga classes she swears by.

I hand her the seltzer, grab my beer and lead her over to the shallow end; the pool is empty now, and apart from a couple of people at the far end away from us, it’s just us in the pool house.

The water is soothing and warm as we walk down the steps, and I can see her sigh as she sinks lower and cracks open her drink, taking a long chug.

I push a floaty over to her, which she leans her elbows on, and I join her on the other side, and she smiles at me again.

“You look like you’ve been having fun.” I sip my beer after knocking our cans together in cheers.

“I have.” She smiles over the floaty at me. “Nice to meet some other people; did you come with Gunnar?” she asks.

“Uh, no, he was in the middle of something with Sasha.” When I had left the apartment, he couldn’t even get a word in with her before she would cut him off again.

“Again?” she sounds as exasperated with it as I am. “I feel so bad for him; he’s constantly worried if she’s going to see anything on social media. I couldn’t even get him to shoot this new drop because she didn’t like the first one.”

“He told me about that; she wanted approval?” I scoff, shaking my head.

“Yeah! Said the pictures I picked showed him off too much.” She snorts out a laugh before taking a long drink. “If I had a hot hockey boyfriend, I would brag every minute of every day.”

“In the market for a hot hockey boyfriend, are you?” I waggle my eyebrows at her, more to make her laugh than to be serious. Well, not completely.

“Boyfriend? Right now?” She quirks a brow before laughing, showing she's just joking. “No way; I’m not ready for anything serious.”

I nod grimly; I guess that’s my answer to whether we could move this thing between us to being more.

“Maybe something fun,” she muses, bringing her lips between her teeth like she's thinking about it, “but nothing serious.”

“Fun, right?” I nod. Interesting, I could work with fun and Brooke.

She looks at me over the floaty with her tipsy eyes and smiles lazily, tilting her head. “The girls earlier were talking about you being fun.”

“I am fun, yeah.” I chuckle lightly, not sure what she’s getting at.

“You know what kind of fun I’m talking about.” She kicks me teasingly under the floaty.

I smirk at her and catch her foot before she can pull it back, I watch as she bites that damn lip. I look at her and can tell she’s let her guard down. “I haven’t had fun in a while,” I say, shrugging, pulling her around the floaty by her foot, and she lets me.

“No?” She says breathily, 'Now we are closer; I can hear her reactions better.'

“I’ve been kind of distracted.” I slide my hands up either side of her hips, and she puts a hand on my shoulder, leaning into me.

“That’s not good,” she says, looking up at me through her lashes while stepping back, pulling me with her; our fronts are touching, her breasts pressed against my chest. I sneak a look around to see if anyone’s paying attention, but it looks all clear, so I grab her hips and move her back to the wall for a bit more privacy.

“You could say I need some fun,” I whisper, stroking her hips.

“Well, you’ve got an entire party practically lining up.” She averts her eyes away, I’ve said the wrong thing, and I can feel the guard coming up. I’m desperate to keep her here with me, so I keep stroking my hands up and down her hips and sides, trying to bring her back slowly.

I lean down and whisper in her ear, “Maybe I’m only interested in having fun with you.”

“I’ve heard the stories.” She sighs, pushing on my shoulder so we are face to face again, looking up at me, but doesn’t move away. “Don’t pretend to make me feel special, Grant.”

I frown down at her, sure, I’ve messed around a lot, but that was before she showed up and made me look for her everywhere I go.

“You think I just want to have fun with you and then I’ll find someone else?

” I ask her while pulling her legs up to wrap around my waist. She gasps at the sudden movement, and she feels just how much I want her. “That’s not going to happen, Brooke.”

Her arms move more securely over my shoulders, and she’s biting her lip again, and it drives me crazy when she does that; I can tell she’s in her head.

“Tell me what you’re thinking, please?” I squeeze her hips as I beg her to get past whatever keeps pulling her away from me.

“I don’t want to be another girl you mess around with, Grant.” She looks away, embarrassed, but I put my hand under her chin and move her back to look at me.

“I would never treat you like just some girl, Brooke.” Staring into her eyes and watching them widen slightly. “I would treat you like everything.”

She pulls back to look me in the eye, searching for something, and I stare her down, letting her know I’m not joking around. Our flirting had never reached this intensity before.

She looks down at my mouth, and like something snaps for her, closes the distance and our lips meet finally, her hands slip from my shoulders into my hair, gripping it tightly, and I move a hand from her hip to cup her cheek.

I wanted to wait for her to make the first step to ensure she was ready, but now that I’ve got her, I’m not letting go.