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He ran onto the court, and got into his spot with a final wave to Tully.
They played well.
In fact, they played more than well. He wasn’t sure if it was because the Bears were off their game, or if he was just on his, but he managed to get the ball past them many times over, and make several shots of his own. The crowd ate it up.
But he found he cared less about the crowd than the single girl who looked slightly impressed every time he doubled back after making the team another two or three points. She clapped with the rest of the crowd, and when they happened to meet each other’s eyes, she gave him a slight nod that just gave him more energy.
Girls came to cheer for him all the time. Not all those girls were his seemingly hard-to-impress fake girlfriend, and he found that he really wanted to break that stoic face of hers with his sporty skills. If she wasn’t impressed with his academic abilities, surely this would put him a little higher in her mind.
When the buzzer rang out finally at the end the crowd erupted as the Richmond Hawks managed to win their first game of the season. Long gone was the losing streak, and Nathan Rondeau had somehow managed to pull himself together enough to fix it nearly single-handedly.
And he was excited. Too excited. The kind of excitement that made him jump and whoop with his teammates and rush across the floor to Tully who was standing in the same place and clapping.
What was she doing all the way over there? She should be celebrating with him.
Her clapping paused as he rushed her, and the row of cheerleaders jumped aside to make way for him.
Her eyes widened, and before he could stop himself and talk some sense into his mind, he wrapped his arms around her.
twenty-one
tully
Nathan smelled like sweat, and he felt like sweat.
His uniform was damp and sticky and while she had decided to fully embrace the idea of people looking at her, she hadn’t fully embraced the idea of being . . . well . . . embraced.
She went rigid, her arms stock still at Nathan’s sides.
Over his shoulder, she could see his teammates pointing at them.
An arm around her shoulder in the hallways was one thing. But she didn’t letanyonehug her. Not her family, not Stephanie, and even Erik while they were in a relationship.
She didnotlike being touched. Shehatedbeing hugged.
But she didn’t blame Nathan. He was excited, caught up in the moment. She herself had been caught up in the moment before and that ended up more than just a little hug, so she wasn’t upset.
Just uncomfortable. Extremely, extremely uncomfortable, because touching was really,really, not her thing.
It took him a second to realize that she was not reciprocating his hug and he pulled away. Whatever was on her face must be enough because his hands dropped immediately and he put a few feet between them.
“Sorry,” he said, and sheepishly looked her over, like he was making sure he hadn’t hurt her to warrant this reaction. It wasn’t his fault. She should have been clearer about her limits with this sort of stuff. She could handle it if she was expecting it. “Sorry, got a little excited.”
She adjusted the hem of the jacket awkwardly. “It’s fine.”
He ran a hand through his messy damp hair and looked behind him at his still celebrating team patting each other on their backs.
Jolie was there too, but she wasn’t looking their way. If she saw what happened, she was ignoring it. Probably for the best, because Tully was sure she looked far from convincing when he hugged her.
“I, uh, I’m going to get cleaned up and then I’ll take you home.”
“Stephanie too, remember.”
“I know.” He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder and disappeared into the locker room with his teammates.
“Look at you two,” Stephanie said, walking over from the side. Her flag was already stored away, and she pulled her funny-looking hat off her head. “You look so sweet,” she said loud enough so that the people leaving could hear. It would be even better if Joliet had been there to hear it as well, but she had oddly been one of the first to leave—unhappily hopefully.
“He did that all on his own. The only part I had in it was freezing up.” Tully did the opposite of Stephanie and mumbled quietly so that no one would hear. This felt like a continuation of her earlier pestering, and Tully was eager to put a stop to it before it really started. She motioned for her friend to follow. “Come on. Nathan is taking us home.”
