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“My friends. As I remember it, they were all pretty nice guys, and they left you alone. What did they do to relentlessly remind you that you’d cost us the championship?”
She looked upward, considering. “Let’s see, there were the beer cans you all left in my locker.”
“A harmless prank. We did worse to each other.”
Her gaze returned to his. “And you consider your friends to be nice guys?”
“Hey, sometimes running someone’s boxers up the flagpole is just another way to say, ‘I believe in you, bro.’”
She grabbed a small pot from the cabinets and filled it with water. “Then there was the wholeHashtag Don’t tell Olivia.”
He pressed his lips together. “I feel like that one was deserved.”
“And all the jocks gave me dirty looks for the rest of junior year. I had to live with constant glowering.” She put the pot on the stove, went to the fridge, and pulled out broccoli.
He waited for more. Her list seemed to be over. She took carrot sticks and a tub of hummus from the fridge as well.
“That’s it? Glowering? You’re complaining because my friends’ facial expressions weren’t pleasant enough?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand what it was like for me in high school.”
“Yeah, I don’t. In high school, my football coaches glowered at me every day. That was their default expression. In the NFL, they’re still that way. If you get on their bad side, they make you run up the bleachers and do endless pushups. And those are the people who’re trying to...” He stopped because she was standing in front of him, gripping the tub of hummus like it was a weapon.
“No one asked me out during junior year. And okay, granted, I wasn’t the only dateless girl at school. Sitting home might have had nothing to do with you, but I heard rumors that any guy who asked me out would have his car keyed.”
Mmm. Had that been a thing? He couldn’t remember. “I’m sure no one would’ve actually done it.”
She opened the hummus and stabbed a carrot stick into it. “Well, that’s nice to know. I sat home instead of going to junior prom.”
“You didn’t miss much. The music was too loud and most everyone ditched halfway through. Senior prom—that was the one you should’ve gone to, Leelee. I was voted prom king.”
She shut her eyes and took a long breath. “Even though I have an overwhelming desire to throw hummus on you, I’m going to resist.” Her brown eyes opened. Calm. Collected. “I think that shows true restraint, not to mention penitence for my teenage misdeeds.”
“Maybe.” He couldn’t resist. “But we’ve already established that I’m not penitent.” He dipped his finger into the hummus and put it in his mouth.
He saw the moment she broke—the flash of her eyes and the way she pursed her lips. She stepped toward him, hummus raised. He grabbed her wrist, laughing. Hummus splattered on his shirt but there was still quite a bit left in the tub. He flicked her arm backward and some flew onto her as well. She stepped closer to him, reaching in to jab him. He lowered his arm but didn’t let go of her wrist. She kept attacking, kept trying to smear him with hummus until he spun her around and trapped her against his chest.
The tub dropped to the floor. He kept hold of both of her arms. She was breathing hard.
His laughter trailed off. “My little sister never won a food fight against me. I should’ve warned you about that when you first started threatening me with your garbanzo bean puree.” He kept hold of her arms. “Can I trust you to behave now?”
“Probably not,” she said.
“Then I’ll have to keep hold of you.” He could smell her shampoo, that fresh floral scent he’d noticed before. He resisted the urge to lower his head and nuzzle her hair. She hadn’t been this fun in high school, had she? He suddenly felt a pang of regret that he’d known so little about her back then. They might have been friends. They might have been more than friends.
She leaned her head back against his chest and gave up the struggle. The feel of her against him was a distinct reminder that it had been a long time since he’d held a woman in his arms. Warm and soft. He lowered his head just a little. She smelled so good. Was she feeling any of the attraction of this moment?
She huffed a piece of hair away from her face. “And I did go to senior prom, Mr. Prom King. Ye-Joon, the foreign exchange from South Korea asked me, probably because he didn’t understand enough English to pick up on your threats. You just don’t remember me being there because you never noticed a girl unless she was in a cheerleading uniform.”
So probably a no to Olivia feeling any attraction between them. He let go of her arms and sauntered over to the sink. “Harsh, Leelee. I didn’t just date cheerleaders.” He picked up a rag and wiped off his shirt. “You’re forgetting about Makayla, the homecoming queen. She wasn’t on the squad.”
Olivia stepped over to him. Bits of hummus were splattered on her shirt, neck, and hair. Her hands weren’t on her hips, and yet her body language had the same attitude, challenging. “Too bad all the cheerleaders and homecoming queens aren’t around to sing your praises. For the next few weeks, you’re stuck with little honor society me with brains and talent.” She stepped closer, reached up, and wiped a dab of hummus off his cheek. Then, instead of washing her hands in the sink, she licked the hummus off her fingers.
The action was so unexpected, he just stared at her. Had she meant to be seductive or was she just making fun of what she thought cheerleaders acted like? He didn’t know how to ask and so just kept staring, trying to figure her out.
Man, if someone had told him in high school that one day he would be overcome with an irrational desire to lick hummus off Olivia Travers’s neck, he wouldn’t have believed them.
She picked up a strand of her hair that had been splattered. “I’m a mess,” she said, completely unaware of how close she was to having her neck licked. “Now I’m going to have to go take another shower.” She turned and flounced off in that direction. As an afterthought, she added, “Thanks for plugging in the stove.”
