Page 31

MAYA

Theo had been right to call Devonte and James’s place—whoever they were—a dump.

It felt like a frat basement had thrown up over an entire house.

Every inch of the floor was sticky, the couches looked like they were picked up from the street, and their wall art was a tapestry with an internet reference I hadn’t heard since I was a freshman.

It was disgusting. But admittedly, I loved it.

The music was blasting so loud we could hear it from the sidewalk, so it wasn’t surprising that it was nearly impossible to hear each other once we got inside.

“I’m gonna grab a beer,” Theo yelled over the music. The bass practically shook the walls. “You guys want anything? Good for now?”

Iris and I waved our water bottles of liquor, and Theo nodded as she headed off. There’d been a couple of hours between the game and the party, so Iris and I had gone home to change, eat, and pregame. We met in the middle with Theo, who said some of her teammates might also come by.

“I didn’t realize how good we had it at the 151,” Iris said over the music .

I laughed. “I guess our frat days aren’t behind us yet.”

“God has abandoned us.”

I spotted Theo from across the room chatting with Danny. I didn’t think I was that tipsy, but with the way it was impossible to take my eyes off of her, I knew the alcohol was setting in.

Despite my best efforts, I kept finding myself right back in Theo’s orbit.

I waited for her to do something that I didn’t like, anything that could give me the ick, but nothing had come up.

Normally, it took so little for me to stop being interested in someone—their laugh, the way they spoke to others, the way they texted.

Things that always made me feel mean, but I knew were only rooted in the fact that I’d never actually liked them.

It was different with Theo, like she couldn’t do anything wrong in my eyes. Everything she did was cool and confident and sexy.

Even the way she’d handled the people coming up to her before the game was cool.

She handled it like a pro—kind but firm, posing for pictures but also putting a stop to it when she got tired.

She kept me and Iris out of the way as much as possible.

And the way she’d put her hands on my waist had nearly made my knees weak.

Theo might’ve taken away my desire to sleep with anyone else, but she had also managed to amplify my sex drive in the process. The more time I spent with her, the more time I spent thinking about her hands and her arms and the way both of those felt on my skin .

My plan of getting close to her so far had only backfired and made me want her more. I was starting to think that my only way out of it was attempting to sleep with her, but that felt extreme and risky, even for me. I had a feeling once I had Theo, I was never going to want to let her go.

Danny and Theo walked back over toward us, and I averted my eyes, attempting to look like I hadn’t been staring at Theo the entire time.

“Hey,” Danny greeted us. As we formed a small circle, Theo moved to my side, and every inch of my body felt like it was on fire. I’d never been so aware of another person’s presence.

“Hey,” I said over the music. “Thanks for the invite.”

“Yeah, of course,” Danny said. He looked at Iris. “Heard you’re a basketball fan?”

Iris’s face flamed up, and I looked between Danny and Theo, wondering what was going on. I didn’t want to make any assumptions, but I had a feeling Theo had something to do with it.

“I am,” Iris said, and based on her body language, I knew my cue.

“We’re gonna go dance,” I said and grabbed Theo by the arm, moving her away from Iris and Danny. Danny roped her right into a conversation involving player names I didn’t recognize, not wasting any time at all.

Theo and I found ourselves in a corner of the room where I was still able to keep my eyes on Iris without being in the middle of the conversation. The alcohol temporarily took over my body, and I leaned against the wall, looking up at Theo.

Theo took a swig from her beer can, standing over me.

She’d done a lot in making me realize how much I liked being around a tall woman.

It was hard for me to ever imagine having a crush on someone who wasn’t at least four or five inches taller than me going forward—which limited my dating pool to basically her and her teammates.

“How did you figure it out?” I asked.

Theo leaned in closer to me so we could hear each other. A cloud of light cologne followed—a scent I couldn’t place that was sexy and not overbearing. She was so close that if I turned my head, I would be able to put my lips to the skin of her cheek.

I wanted to. But I knew I couldn’t.

“What do you mean?” she responded, her voice low in my ear. She put her hand on my waist as she ducked her head, and I nearly blacked out.

“Danny and Iris,” I said, trying to sound as normal as possible.

“I’d had a feeling when she was being weird with him, but I couldn’t tell if he’s the mysterious basketball player or if she was nervous being around one of his teammates.

She also gets shy around you, so I didn’t write off the possibility. ”

“Shy around me?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah. She worships you, dude. She’s a legacy Lakeside Green basketball fan.”

Theo chuckled. “I can’t tell if that makes me more or less nervous talking to her now. ”

“Why would you be nervous talking to her?”

Theo opened her mouth to respond before stopping herself, blushing and looking away in the process. She backed up, creating physical space between us.

The sight of her blushing was so cute that it took everything in me to not to comment on it, gushing about how everything she did was simultaneously so cute and so fucking hot. The words were on the tip of my tongue, the alcohol making it impossible to keep my thoughts to myself.

“Wait, do you want to impress Iris?” I asked, suddenly broken out of my haze of staring longingly at her as her words—and then following silence—registered. “Be honest—do you have a thing for straight blondes or is this for my benefit?” I teased.

Theo rubbed her hand against her jaw, her eyes directed away from me. “Pleading the fifth on that one.”

A feeling surged in my chest that reminded me of spring weather and standing in the sun and laughing with my friends during a perfect night out.

It was a welcome change of pace from how I felt any other time I was sure someone was flirting with me.

I’d been starting to think it was impossible not to be at least a tiny bit bored by someone’s moves.

But I was never bored when it came to Theo.

I stood up from the wall, closing the gap between us. I tilted my chin up toward her. Adrenaline coursed through my body, but the alcohol numbed it. It turned out it was much scarier to flirt with someone I actually had a crush on, even with the help of liquid courage .

“I can’t believe you want to impress me,” I said, externally still teasing her, but internally feeling like I was jumping off a cliff.

Theo looked down at me. I held my breath, waiting to see how she would respond. I couldn’t tell if she was going to take the bait or not.

“Why wouldn’t I want to impress you?” Theo asked, her eyes on mine. The blushing and the coyness I’d seen in her earlier completely melted away. She meant what she was saying. I didn’t know her well, but I knew her well enough to know the silent game we were playing.

My stomach swooped. “You’re the big basketball star. I should be the one trying to impress you.”

“You don’t like basketball. I have to prove my worth some other way.”

“And that is?”

“By setting up your friend with a basketball player she’s had a crush on forever,” she said.

I didn’t bother to fight off my smile. I grabbed her by the arms, leaning in close to her. “Did you have a feeling before today, or did the way Iris was acting give her away?”

“I didn’t know for sure, but I know Danny, and he seems like one of the more likely candidates for someone to have a crush on. The rest of the team are kind of assholes anyway, so even if she wanted one of them I don’t think I’d set her up.”

“God, you are so hot,” I said, a phrase I’d picked up to say under just about any circumstance—Iris getting me coffee in the morning, the grocery store clerk loading my groceries just right. But as soon as the words left my mouth, I saw my mistake.

Theo let the comment slide off, her eyes flickering with something, but quickly letting it go. The party shrank down to just being us, everything else melting away into the background.

I wondered if this would finally be it. That we would finally kiss, finally see what was actually going on between us.

Theo McCall had turned me into the kind of person who got antsy and impatient about being kissed. Rather than being the person who would just make the move and get it over with, I was now the girl who stared at her crush and waited for her to say something, to do anything.

As my eyes flitted from her eyes to her lips to her jawline to her hands that I desperately wanted to weave my fingers through, I knew I was done for.

I wanted her more than I’d ever wanted anyone in my life.

And not because it was a game, not because I was forcing myself to push her away or get close to her.

I just wanted her. Simple as that.

The realization hit me like an emotional breakthrough that usually came to someone in therapy. It was a punch to the gut and a rush of relief all at once. It’d been so obvious—to me, to Iris, probably to Theo—but it’d never felt so clear.

I had a crush on Theo McCall, and I knew it for certain because if she wanted to kiss me right now, I would let her. And I would enjoy it. And I would absolutely want more from her .

We inched together, my back getting pushed closer to the wall as Theo got closer to me. I didn’t even attempt to stop it, to question if this was really the right thing for us to do.