Page 52 of Game On

He waves away my concern. “I’ll deal with it.” He looks down the hall, then kicks away from the wall. “We have another basketball thing.”

“Okay.”

“I told them how you guys were running this morning, and that it was your idea.” His fingers graze mine, and then they linger there almost like he wants me to hold his hand.

My skin tingles where we touch. I need to talk to both him and Alec. Are they seriously okay with this? I know how close they are, they would never let a girl come between them, which is why I don’t fully understand what’s going on. I’m theirs. The whole school knows it now. “But all three of us did it,” I tell him, pulling my hand away finally.

I hate the sad look on his face afterward, but then he pulls his hand through his brown hair, mussing it up until it looks adorably cute. We don’t say anything more until we get to Timothy Dale Court. When I first lock eyes with Lake, he freezes me in place. He’s pissed already, and I haven’t even been here all of two seconds.

“Don’t worry about him,” Sloan whispers.

Of course he would say that. He’s never been held down by him before.

We practice outside shooting today. Nothing formal. Just one person taking a shot while the other rebounds and passes it to the person waiting. I kick Shawn and Matt’s asses, but let’s face it. I should. I’m the shooting guard. This is kind of my thing.

When we finish, Alec throws me a bottle of water and then slips a sandwich out of his bag. “My sister made this for you this morning.” From the outside of the sandwich, I can see there’s peanut butter in there for sure. It’s so thick it’s oozing out the sides. “I’m pretty sure she drew a basketball in the middle.”

“Well played, Christopoulos,” Sloan calls from the end seat. He watched us the entire practice even though I wished he’d take a nap. They certainly don’t need him here for this, and he won’t even be able to get some sleep after school because we’re headed to Alec’s away game.

“That’s cute,” I tell him. “Tell her thank you for me.” I’m not a huge fan of peanut butter, but I eat it anyway. It’s the thought that counts.

“They’ll be at the game tonight, so you can tell her yourself.”

I smile at him, then my stomach dips. If they’ve claimed me in school, does that mean we’re involving parents and families and—?

Lake stands abruptly. “Rhonda’s waiting for me, so…peace.” He throws up two fingers and leaves the court out the glass doors.

“Isn’t Rhonda…?” I look at Ryan.

He shrugs, a slow smile coming over his face. I’m not sure exactly what it means, but it looks sexy.

The rest of the day goes by without an issue. I text my mom I’m going to be late since I didn’t get to see her that morning. I was right about her staying out late for drinks with the girls.

After school, I meet the Ballers just outside the front doors. Ryan, Lake, and Hayes slip into a car with some girls. Sloan starts walking toward his Jeep, but I reach out to hold back on his hand. “You’re not driving. We’ll go in my car.”

He doesn’t fight me on it, but when we turn to go around the side of the building, he doesn’t let me pull my hand away either. In fact, he slips his fingers through mine and holds on with a firm grip, his thumb passing up and down my thumb the whole way to my car. When we get there, Sloan gets in the front and Shawn and Matt get in the back. We’re not two minutes into the twenty-minute ride when Sloan is passed out. I’m a little surprised. I wasn’t sure if Ivy could calm down enough around someone to let him do something as vulnerable as sleeping in front of others.

When we pull into the away team’s parking lot, he’s still asleep. I tell Shawn and Matt that we’ll be right there. They shut their doors politely as I hit the button to put the roof back on. Taking my seatbelt off, I angle myself toward him, watching his eyelids flutter. He’s always been the uptight one. It always seemed like he had everything in place, but that wasn’t it, was it? I feel bad for him. His parents fighting all the time.

Sloan shifts, and then moans. The sound makes my cheeks blush a deep red, but what he does next makes the area between my legs heat. “Mmm, Tessa,” he says, drawing out the s’s. His words are barely discernible, but I hear it. I sit up in my seat, biting down on my lip. He’s having a dream about me. He moans again, shifting a little more. I touch his shoulder, trying to wake him up, but he’s out cold. So much of what Sloan does is on his terms. Making them claim me. Kissing me in front of everybody just because he wanted to show everybody that I was his. Right now though, he’s out.

I climb over the center console and place my knees on either side of him. Then, I press into him, kissing his neck first like he always does to me. I breathe him in deep, smelling the musk of cologne he put on that morning. Once I start kissing him, I can’t stop. I kiss around the front of his throat, and then up to the area behind his ear.

“If this isn’t happening, I don’t want to wake up.”

I smile. “Stop talking, Ivy.” I take his lobe into my mouth and gently bite down. Then, I work my way over his jaw and to his lips, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner. When I pull back, he blinks at me. Then, I lower myself onto him until we’re nestled together.

His hands move up my thigh and then around my waist. “I’m really sorry for acting that way earlier. I don’t know what got into me.”

“I think it’s because you have a dick. It’s pure science.”

He chuckles. When he looks at me again, his face is soft. “I mean it Tessa. I’m sorry. I should never have kissed you like that.”

“Shh,” I tell him. Then, I cuddle in next to him, keeping my head on his shoulder as his hands come around me. “Let’s take a nap.”

“What?”

“I’m serious. You said you can’t sleep at home. Let’s sleep right here.”

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