Page 25 of In It to Win It

She rolls her eyes. “I think that’s pretty safe.”

“Tuesday,” he says. “Against Nashville.”

My head jerks up. He’s going to be playing the first game of the year against Manny? Uh-oh. I cast a wide-eyed glance at Lacey.

“Oh!” she exclaims. “Um . . .”

JP flashes an evil grin. “Yeah.”

“JP . . .” Théo says warningly.

“What?”

“Remember those bad decisions we were talking about earlier . . .?”

“Yeah.” He purses his lips. “I’m not going to do something stupid.”

“Okay.”

“I can’t speak forhim,though,” JP adds bitterly. “Clearly, he’s an asshole.”

I catch my lower lip between my teeth. He doesn’t know exactly why Manny was so jealous.

We make eye contact and a shiver works down my spine, both of us knowing we did a lot more than dance together.

Lacey wrinkles her nose. “We hung out all the time when I first moved here. I thought he was a good guy.”

JP’s jaw tightens.

As if sensing the tension snapping around us, Lacey changes the subject again. “Hey, today I saw one of the graffiti condoms.”

We all stare at her blankly.

“Haven’t you heard?” She gazes around at us. “There’s a guy going around town finding dicks that people have painted on buildings and walls, and he spray-paints condoms on them.”

“Uh . . .” I shake my head. “I hadn’t heard about that.”

“Oh, I did,” JP says.

“I saw one today.” Lacey grins. “It’s hilarious.”

“All those unprotected dicks do send a bad message,” JP says with a chuckle. “Safe sex is important.”

A vision of naked JP rolling a condom onto his impressive erection floats before my eyes. I whimper, quickly turning it into a cough. He shoots me a raised-eyebrows glance. My cheeks flame.

“Says the guy who thinks safe sex means not getting arrested,” Théo says.

JP shoots him a narrow-eyed look. “Hey.”

“You got caught in a storage room in the arena,” Théo says. “And the backseat of a car. And?—”

“Yeah. You believe in safe sex. You always took a condom when you went out.” JP pauses. “Although it was always the same one.”

Théo cracks up, as does Lacey.

“Also, I thought your definition of safe sex is a padded headboard.”

Lacey wipes tears from her eyes. “Oh my God, JP.”

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