Page 47 of Foul Line

Sloan wraps his arms around me, pulling me in close. “That’s hardly fair,” Hayes says.

“What?”

“I know you left the cabin last night. Are you saying you didn’t go to Tessa’s cabin?”

“I’m saying it’s none of your business,” Sloan says, smiling.

“Well, I’m saying, it’s someone else’s turn.”

Sloan’s arms tighten around me. “Both of you could have done the same thing I did, but you didn’t. You can’t be jealous now. Maybe we should start a schedule.”

I turn in his grip. “Say that again, and I’ll…I’ll kick you in the knee.”

His eyebrows shoot up in surprise. Athletes are serious about their knees. “You’re in high demand, Daddy’s Girl. I’m just trying to make it easier for everyone.”

I pluck Sloan’s fingers away from me and stand. I look at the three of them and then make my own choice. I sit in Hayes’s lap. His arms curl naturally around me. When the next thunder claps, he tightens his grip, and I know I made the right decision. It was probably instinctual, knowing he’d be the one that would make me feel safe.

Though Sloan pouts, I don’t think he’s too perturbed. He makes a show of it, pretending to be affronted, but I hope they all get used to it.

They all want me, and I want all of them. There won’t be any decisions in my near future.

24

The rain has died down a little, so the guys decide we should move to their cabin. Hayes refuses to let me walk through the wet grass, so just before we step out into the undeterred rain, he sweeps me off my feet and carries me with one hand hooked under my knees and the other hooked around my shoulders. I squeal in protest, but then he’s moving swiftly, and somehow, someway, I’m barely even jostled.

Alec runs up ahead and opens the cabin door for us. Their cabin is bigger than mine, mostly because it’s set up for more people. But just looking at it standing right there makes butterflies take flight in my stomach. This is so off-limits, right? I’ll be in a small, confined space with three of the boys I’m crushing on. The only thing that would make this more nerve-wracking is if Ryan decided to join us.

When Hayes moves inside, ducking under the door frame, he sets me on my feet. I look around, my heart in my throat. Right away, I can figure out who is sleeping where. I don’t even need them to move toward their separate beds to give me an inkling. A copy of Sports Illustrated is on Alec’s bed. It just so happens to have a baseball player on the cover. There are a few outfits on his bed, that he quickly picks up and throws into a suitcase stuffed under his bed’s metal frame. Sloan’s area of the room is nice and tidy. The bed is even made, a dark blue comforter adorning it. Hayes’s side is almost the most confusing. He has a book face down on his unmade sheets. There aren’t any clothes strewn about, but there’s a picture of a man and a woman next to his bed. None of the other guys has any personal pictures or anything out. I didn’t even think to bring mine with me. I can video chat my mom, and she’s the only one I’d have a picture to put out of anyway.

Alec props the door open with a lone chair. The wind circulates the room, almost tearing through it in a circular motion before it escapes again. When I turn, he’s leaning against the door jamb, staring out at the storm. The rain is still coming down sideways. The porch of their cabin is soaked straight through, but the rain isn’t coming all the way in, even with the door open like that. Sloan moves up behind me and drops a towel around my shoulders. I pull it around me. Just because I didn’t walk through the rain didn’t mean I missed out on the soaking factor.

I stay on my feet, nervous to be here with all of them when we’re not playing or talking basketball. We’ve never hung out together like this for the purpose of hanging out. Like Sloan said in the gymnasium, it’s a new kind of territory to traverse. It’s something I’m going to have to get used to if my plans for next year go as I want them to.

I walk up behind Alec. “It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” Straight ahead of us, the lake is a gray sea of turbulence. It’s hard to look past the onslaught of rain, and it might be the electricity in the air, but it makes goosebumps sprout over my body. Mother Nature is nothing to mess with. She can be beautiful and damaging at the same time.

He smiles down at me. “I love watching the storms back home. We have a sun porch with huge windows on every side. We all sit out there during days like this.”

“Roberta isn’t scared?”

A smile teases his lips. “She is, but that’s half the fun.”

Hayes comes up behind me. He takes the towel in his hands and starts to dry me off. I close my eyes at the feeling. He works the towel into my hair at the base of my neck and then down both arms. Quickly, he squats to wipe the droplets of rain still dripping toward my shoes. “I have some clothes you can change into,” he says.

“Anything you give her would be falling off her,” Sloan says. He’s eyeing us from the corner of the room. He tilts his head. “Then again…”

Alec pushes off the side of the door and goes to his own bed. He pulls out a couple of the things he’d just stuffed under his bed and hands them to me. I take them from him and go into the small bathroom. It’s about as big as mine even though there are three of them and only one of me. I change quickly, throwing my now drenched tank top and shorts over the shower door to dry.

When I step out in Alec’s too big clothes, I feel like a little kid invited to the cool kid party. Alec catches me first. He holds his hand out to me and then sits on his bed. I follow after him. It’s a minute before anyone says anything. It’s Sloan, of course, who talks first. “Tessa and I really love to play this game, a truth for a truth. We should play.”

I laugh. “You like to play that game. I just humor you.”

He raises his eyebrow in defiance. “Not true, Dale. I think you learned a lot of interesting information last time we played.”

Alec shrugs. “It actually sounds like fun. I’d love to get into your head, Tessa.”

That’s exactly what I don’t want. When I say as much, they all laugh. Even Hayes.

“This won’t be interesting for any of you. I thought you guys told each other everything?”

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