Page 43 of The Perfect Steal

“Go!” Kate called out, and the rest of the guys bent over, digging their faces into the pies and eating as much as possible.The crowd roared with cheering and laughter.

I’d never done one of these, but there was one thing I hated: getting my face sticky and messy. I couldn’t let Garrett win, not when he’d suddenly thrown down a gauntlet about Brynn.

I dove in, keeping my hands behind my back, and started eating the apple pie piled high with the whipped cream I’d had to buy. What a great way to use me to get the supplies I would be tortured with.

I was basically slurping up the pie and swallowing it, knowing I’d be hurting later on. But the competitive side of me wasn’t going to back down from this one.

I glanced up, seeing I was neck and neck with Garrett, and continued, doing my best to take bigger bites of the pie and hoping it wouldn’t all come back up later.

“We have a winner!” Kate said, the sound through the microphone echoing off the walls.

I glanced up, whipped cream covering one of my eyes, making it difficult to see.

Dax stood back, raising his hand with a bright smile.

Ugh, of course I lost to my own teammate. I turned to look at Garrett’s pie, happy he’d only finished a third of the pie when I’d demolished about three-fourths of it.

“Let’s give a hand to our contestants,” Kate said, waving at us like she was the gal onWheel of Fortune, the one that turned the letters.

The crowd clapped and cheered, the laughter floating down to us. Serena came down the table with towels, and I took mine, grateful to be able to clean it off.

“Wait, wait, wait!” Kate said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. “Say cheese!”

I’m not sure what the picture looked like, but I still couldn’t see out of one eye, and the apple-and-whipped-cream mixture was sliding down my face and near my mouth.She probably took it with my tongue sticking out, trying to get the rest of it so I didn’t have to clean it off the floor.

“Good try, Everton. Good luck with your project,” Garrett said, wagging his eyebrows as if he’d won. He turned and walked out of the gym, leaving me more confused than before.

Was he with Brynn or not?

27

Brynn

Nothing could have beat walking out of the locker room after an intense conversation with Coach than to see all the guys lined up with whipped cream and pie covering their faces.

I watched as Garrett Park leaned over and said something to Nate, who scowled. I was surprised Nate had even done the challenge since it seemed he didn’t like to get his hands and face dirty. That was one of the things I’d noticed from our few food outings. He always had a napkin handy.

They started carrying off the table as we came onto the court, and I smiled at Nate. “I’ve never seen you so…white.” I grinned, running away and catching the ball from one of my teammates.

He just shook his head and helped pull up the large tarp that had been set up underneath the table. That was a relief. At least Kate had thought of that, or we’d be walking and running through a sticky mess the rest of the game.

I glanced up at the scoreboard. We were down by two, which was good considering who we were playing, but we had to come out and give it our all.

Seaton started with the ball, driving down and scoring easily as our defense collapsed. This was not a good start to the second half.

With a minute left,we’d managed to come back from a fifteen-point deficit, now down only three.

Stephanie passed me the ball inside, and I made an easy layup before turning around and setting up for the full-court press. We needed the ball back.

The opponent passed the ball to the girl I was guarding, and I watched her dribble a couple of times, getting a type of rhythm going. I lunged forward, swatting at the ball. It was a clean sweep, but I heard the whistle blow.

“Foul, number eighteen. One-and-one.”

“Come on, ref,” I said, walking next to him as he stepped into position for the foul shots at the other end of the court. “I didn’t even touch her. That was all ball.”

“Miller,” my coach warned, and I backed off, not wanting to get thrown out of the game. We’d already battled the unfair calls for most of it, and I figured they were rooting for Seaton, even though they were supposed to be impartial.

The girl made the first shot and went for the second one, sinking it with ease. We were back to three behind.

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