Emerald eyes meet mine, and we both burst out laughing. Whatever tension had been wracking Dallas disappears with her laugh. I stop before she does, just watching, enjoying the way the Shakespeare mention makes her face light up.
“What? What did I say?” her friend asks.
Dallas takes a step closer, hesitates, and then crosses to stand beside me.
“It’s okay, Stella. I’m fine. Promise.”
Stella’s gaze flicks back and forth between the two of us.
“You sure? How much have you had to drink?”
“None.”
Stella’s eyebrows raise, and some kind of silent conversation passes between the two of them. When Dallas faces me, her expression, like her friend’s, is hard to read. I miss her openness.
“I should probably go,” she says. And unlike when we were kissing, this time I can tell she means it.
Part of me is relieved that one of us is able to step away, but I’m both ashamed it wasn’t me and disappointed that it was her.
I shove my hands into my pockets. “Okay, Daredevil.”
Her friend snorts. “Daredevil?”
Dallas doesn’t look away from me, and neither of us bother replying.
“It was nice to meet you, Carson.” She holds out her hand, and I take it. A handshake isn’t exactly what I want, but I’ll take it. She smiles, and I smile, and I can’t resist using her hand to tug her a little closer.
I lean down to her ear, wishing I could talk to her without her friend watching us like we’re the best new reality show on TV, wishing she would be the Dallas she was ten minutes ago. “You’re not going to make me beg, are you?”
She pulls back to look me in the eye, and her lips are distractingly close to mine.
“For what?”
Even though she definitely kissed me back, I still find myself anxious to ask, “Your number?”
“Oh.” Her face falls for half a second before she smiles, and that one second of disappointment undoes me. What does she want? And more important . . . how do I give it to her? “Right. Give me your phone.”
I hand it over and wait while she programs her number in. Her friend Stella is still there watching silently, and this is quickly becoming the strangest night of my life. But when she hands back my phone and our fingers brush, I know I wouldn’t have it any other way.
She smiles and turns to go, but I can’t resist pulling her back one more time. This time I’m less controlled and when I whisper into her ear, my lips brush against her skin. Her fingers wrap around my forearm and squeeze.
“One more thing I’m willing to beg for, Daredevil.”
The goodbye kiss she gives me is short and chaste and only lands on the corner of my lips, but I feel it all the way down to my knees.
I watch her leave, and am disappointed when her friend is the one to look back over her shoulder and not Dallas. They don’t head back inside, but instead slip through a gate on the side of the house. I stay outside for a few minutes, but then decide that I have no interest in sticking around now that Dallas is gone.
There’s a sliding door at the back of the house, and when I open it and step back into the noisy house, I pull out my phone.
I start scrolling through my contacts while I meander through the crowds looking for a familiar face to say my goodbyes. I reach the Ds, and Dallas isn’t there.
My stomach falls, and my feet pull to a halt in the middle of the room. I shouldn’t be this devastated by a girl not giving me her number, but I also don’t know how to block out the feeling that’s spinning through me. I go to shove my phone back in my pocket when I see it.
Daredevil.
It’s two names down from where I had expected to see Dallas’s name, and the spinning sensation in my chest doesn’t lessen, but spirals even faster.
“McClain, why are you grinning like an idiot?”
I look up, and there’s Levi Abrams on the couch with a petite brunette sitting in his lap. Silas Moore and a few other teammates are with him, and my grin falls.
The world wastes no time in reminding me exactly why I shouldn’t be getting distracted by girls or parties or anything like this.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, Abrams.” I look around at the rest of the team members. The new coach is strict about inappropriate conduct, so I’m surprised there are this many players here and at how wasted they all are. They take shit for granted . . . things I would kill for. But I’m used to feeling that way. Growing up poor makes you hyperaware of all the other things people take for granted. But in this case . . . it might eventually work to my advantage. Let them rest on their laurels. It makes it that much easier for me to catch up. “I’m heading out. See you guys at practice.”
I hear some calls at my back, some asking, some daring me to stay and party with them. I just wave a hand and head for the door.
And maybe I’m borrowing trouble, but as I head for my truck, I type out a quick text.
Still thinking of that list.
Dallas’s reply comes a minute later, and I settle in behind the steering wheel, not bothering to turn the key in the ignition.
Who is this? Carson?
I hope there are not any other guys
out there making a list like this one.
And if there are?
I’ll just have to make sure my list is
better.
Maybe I should make a list of my own.
Maybe we should make one together.
Maybe we will.
Chapter 6
Dallas
Stella kept me out late again on Saturday (thankfully not at another party, but at the coffee place just off campus). Even after we turned out the lights for bed, we stayed up a while longer talking across the small space that separated our twin beds. Because of that, I snooze two too many times, making me a few minutes late for church on Sunday morning. When I squeeze past Dad sitting in his usual spot at the end of a pew a few rows from the back, his gaze turns steely.