Page 16 of Breakaway Goal

His eyes bore into mine. “Staring contest,” he solemnly pronounces.

I roll my eyes, but just those two words are enough to feel like there’s a hand pulling my heart up from the floor it just sank to. “Rhys …” I begin to protest, but he cuts me off.

“Right now.” He slaps his hand against the surface of the picnic table with resolution. “Staring contest. Let’s go.”

For years, Rhys has cheered me up by challenging me to staring contests. It really shouldn’t work as well as it does.

There’s something about the way his expression becomes so intense, his features pulling sharp enough to cut glass, his eyes flashing with absurd concentration as his brow settles low above them, over a freaking staring contest that it makes me crack up every time.

Sure enough, it’s the same story today. I’m trying to hold back a quivering smile the second I pull my eyelids back and lock my gaze with his. The competitive intensity on his frozen-still face has my jaw shaking as I try to bite back laughter.

I don’t make it to five seconds. My defenses crumble and peals of laughter burst unbidden from my lips. A wave of endorphins washes over me, chasing away the sad feeling that had just gripped me.

“Now,” he begins, “about being the odd girl out. Well, I won’t dispute the odd part …”

I scoff, followed by balling up a napkin and throwing it playfully at Rhys’s face. But with his damn hockey reflexes, he swats it away effortlessly.

“It’s your first week,” he says, “it’s going to take some time to adjust. I know you can be hard on yourself when things aren’t going as well as you hoped they would, and you know I can get the same way.”

I nod as I chew on another nacho. It’s an aspect of both our personalities we’ve talked about a lot and helped each other out with a lot over the years.

“So give yourself some grace, and realize that even if you’re disappointed in how the first week went, it’s only the first week. You have a whole semester to meet people, and it’s going to happen. I know it is. Here, I have an idea. Do you have any homework or anything due next week?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “For my Figure Drawing class, we have a set of sketches due on Wednesday.”

“And you have a Monday session before that?”

I nod.

“Perfect,” Rhys says. “Have one or two of your sketches finished by Monday. Ask one of the students who sit next to you or behind you or whatever if they can take a glance at them and let you know if they’re any good. Tell them you’ve just changed your major and never had a college art class before, and you just want a knowledgeable outside opinion before you turn in your first official art assignment. Pick someone who looks friendly. Use it as an icebreaker.”

My eyebrows tick up. That’s not a bad idea.

“Maybe I’ll try that,” I say. I know I’ll be nervous to do even that, and I’ll have to summon some courage to go through with it … but it’s doable. It’ll take no more courage than the amount that I’ve summoned plenty of times in my life to do things that made me nervous at first.

I finish my half of the nachos. I grab the empty container and twist around to toss it into the trash can behind me. At the same time, I reach for one of the napkins we have piled on the side of the table—and when I do, a bolt of white-hold electricity rushes through me.

I wasn’t prepared for my hand to brush against Rhys’s as he reaches for the napkins at the same time.

I’ve touched Rhys before. Obviously. Hugs, playful slaps to the back, hand-fives, you name it. But for some reason, this unexpected contact that I was totally unprepared for sends an intense thrill lacing through my bloodstream.

Instantly, sparks sizzle up and down my back, my nipples pinch into firm nubs underneath my shirt, and my thighs clench while a tender ache pangs between them.

The heat in my face tells me that my cheeks must be red as ripe apples when I turn back to face Rhys.

He, on the other hand, looks totally normal.

And why wouldn’t he? An incidental brush of the hands with a girl you just consider a friend? A girl you probably think of as basically a sister given how you grew up together? To him, it was nothing.

To me? My heart rate hasn’t come close to settling down when we get up from the bench to walk towards our next classes.

My stomach still feels like a pool of hot liquid when we reach the end of the block. His next class is one way, and mine is another.

“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around,” I joke before we part.

He winks at me, an innocent motion that gives me a feeling of wings flapping in my belly. “More than likely.”

When I sit down in my next class, my hand is still tingling.

---