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Her lips part at the same time her pupils dilate to the color of night, and I swear it’s as if she can read my mind. Sees what I want to do so badly that my balls are nearly cut off from their circulation as I do my best to restrain myself.
Don’t think, just do.
I shoulder-check her in my urgency to wash away the blow my ego takes—which she seems to be an expert in—and dribble around her doing a layup.
The fervor in her gaze is replaced with complete and total bleakness in less time than it takes to make one solid blink.
Shivers race, spasming their way down my arm like spiderwebs of friction and lightning from where we briefly touch. Hailey has to have felt it too. There is absolutely no way she hasn’t because I do everywhere.
I do a better job of hiding my disappointment as I center myself back on her. Her face and mind are a tangled flash of thoughts and turmoil.
This little lesson has reached its peak anyway.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for your tournament? Why did you come here, Hailey?” My own frustrations bring us back to the center of why she’s come here in the first place.
Hailey tucks her chin, and I follow, mirroring her on a winded exhale, echoing her so that I am once again maintained in her line of sight. Her sole focus. “Stop trying to hide from me, Williams. You and I both know it never works.”
Hailey’s eyes jolt to mine.
Our stares are equal parts intensity and truth.
At least it is on my part because why else has she sought me out? She could go anywhere to blow off steam for…whatever it is, but she hasn’t. She’s here. She found me.
My heart palpitates with the speed of a hummingbird’s wings.
…Of everyone, Hailey chose me.
Then as if the atmosphere is trying to fuck with my head that much more, a breeze sprouts from nothing, tugging a thick strand of hair in front of her face.
My thumb strokes the softness of her skin, savoring the smoothness like its velvet, and her chin dips automatically to my palm as I tuck it back in place.
Blooms erupt, budding inside my stomach when her breath stutters at my touch. The buttery brown of her eyes makes my spine grow stronger.
There’s something here between us. A blind force neither of us will admit to but can’t deny either. I see it. The last shred of ice has been thinned to nothing. Hailey’s going to explain herself. She’s going to tell me why she came.
She’s one solid breath away from letting me in—
“Hey, they’re you are. I thought I saw your car out front.” This beating thing underneath my ribs instantly dies at the sound of my sister’s approaching voice. “You ready to head out soon?”
I could scream, we were right there.
“What’re you guys doing?” Rory asks, completely unaware of what she’s just interrupted.
I don’t bother shifting my head in Rory’s direction. With the way the weight of her feet shifts from the coarseness of the grass to the solid thud of the court, I know she’s made herself welcome in my prison.
“I was giving Finn a lesson,” Hailey says as she pulls back, clearing her throat as she withdraws herself from me once again.
My heart sinks further.
“Not a very good one,” I mock my annoyance, playing my role perfectly as I toss the ball off the backboard. Anything to distract myself from the blanket of emptiness I know Hailey’s eyes shifted back to.
The muscles in my arms contract as my teeth clench, straining in my own agony. I’m pissed at myself for even allowing her the idea of getting back in my graces when I made it clear I don’t want to be friends.
Something happens—anything—and instantly, my first reaction is to fix it. It shouldn’t be…Hailey’s the one who abandoned me, not the other way around.
“Okay,” Rory drawls, dragging out the one word because you’d have to be an idiot not to notice the tension between us. “We’ll meet up with you and the other hellhounds later then?” she asks me, sounding too hopeful.
I dribble, skirting between them, not only planting my feet but perfectly executing a backward dunk. My legs swing, body stretched until I gain enough momentum that I ricochet, launching myself back toward them.
