Page 5 of The Nice List

“I’m sure. I knew you had plans before I decided to come today.” I refrain from telling her that’swhyI decided to come this weekend. “I kind of want the place to myself to girl it up without you scowling at me all weekend.” I laugh at my sister’s eye roll.

“Okay. Well, I won’t be far.” She slings her backpack over her shoulder. “We’re just going to his dad’s hunting cabin on the edge of the county.”

“I’m not a kid, Alexis. I have a car and a phone. I’ll be fine,” I assure her with a smile.

She nods before leaving and it’s all I can do to wait for the door to close before releasing a sigh of relief. Thankfully, she’s too excited to spend the weekend alone with her boyfriend to cancel her plans and hover like I was fearing.

Maddox was drafted to the NFL as a kicker for the Tennessee Tornados and training camp starts next week. So, after this weekend, it will be a while before they have any time together.I know the feeling.

I make my bed with my pink sheets and rose printed comforter before grabbing my bag of toiletries and heading to the bathroom down the hall. Thankfully, the dorms are pretty empty since the official move-in day isn’t for another few weeks,because I spend an exorbitant amount of time cleaning, shaving, and buffering my body to prepare for what IhopeCory’s idea of Christmas in July will entail.

By the time I make it back to my dorm room, Cory’s shift has already started at Ball Busters. He didn’t specify a time for me to come in, but I’m too excited to see him in person to wait any longer. To be honest, I’m surprised we’ve managed six months of conversations without either of us breaking our pact not to visit until I moved here.

I’m glad we did, though. He’s gone from the hot guy who gave me the best kiss of my life to my best friend. He gets me in a way that my family and other friends never have. They would never understand some of the dark desires I have—most of which I wouldn’t even know how to name without the spicy romance books I read—since all they see is the bubbly good girl I’ve always been. Cory accepts it all as part of me.

Although, he has expressed multiple times that reading something and actually doing it are two very different things. I laugh as I think about the time he dropped his phone after I told him I wanted to try a primal play scene.

“Fuck. I would love to hunt you down and ravage you. But that’s one of those things that you may not like when it comes down to it. I may not either since I’ve never done it,” he says huskily.

“So, do it now. Get on your bike and come to Cherokee Forest. I’ll hide,” I giggle.

“No. Not now. When you move here like we promised. Then, you’re all mine, pretty girl.” He chuckles at my scoff. “Right now, I want you to send me a picture of what’s under that soft pink sweater you were wearing when we met.”

“Like…a nude picture?” I ask hesitantly.

“Not nude. I want to see that in person,” he insists. “How about one in just your bra?”

Since I’m already in just my bra and panties—because I have a habit of overheating when we talk like this—I reapply my dark pink lipstick and look over my shoulder, snapping a picture of my reflection in the mirror before hitting send. I hear a clatter on his end of the line and giggle when I realize that he just dropped his phone…again.

“You’re fucking killing me, baby,” he whines. Then, in a more possessive tone he asks, “You wear that sexy lingerie around all those high school fuckboys?”

“You asked for it,” I huff. “And technically, yes, I wear this around the fuckboys at school, not that they would ever know or guess. I wear sexy lingerie all the time—because I like to feel sexy—but no one else has ever seen it before now. Only you, bad boy.”

He lets out a growl. “I’ll be your bad boy alright. You’re making it really hard for me to get on that nice list.”

I laugh. “You’re making it really easy for me to get on the naughty list.”

The next day he told me that naughty girls need ink and since he knew how much I like girly aesthetics I’d probably want flowers. I’d admitted that I would love to have a tattoo of roses since they’re my favorite flower.

That memory has me reaching into my bag for the same lingerie set I wore in the picture. I pull on a short-sleeved dress in the same shade of pink and slide on my tan wedge sandals before heading out the door when my phone advises that my Uber driver has arrived.

The driver meets my eyes in the rearview mirror. “Are you sure you don’t want to go to TG’s Happy Hour instead? You’re a little overdressed for Ball Busters.”

I shake my head in response, and he shrugs before driving me to Ball Busters.

When I step through the door of the sports bar, I nearly trip in my heels. It looks completely different than it did the last time I was here.

Chapter 4

Cory

“Are you sure you don’t want any color added before I shade the rest?” Maxine asks as she wipes down my stinging chest. “You said her favorite color is pink. I could make her lips and bra pink like the picture. Oh, and the roses on her arm thataren’tin the picture.”

“No color.” I shake my head. “The pink won’t look right on my tanned skin. But you can do the roses in all the shades of pink when you tattoo them on her.”

My sister shakes her head. “I never thought I would see the day my badass little bro was this smitten over a girl.”

“Smitten?” I bark out a laugh. “I mean…you’re not wrong. But when the hell did my badass big sister start using words likesmitten?”

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