Page 8 of #Awestruck

But my fear turned to dread when I realized I recognized that voice. It had been a long time since I’d heard it, but there was no mistaking it.

I turned slowly, hoping it was all my imagination. Or that someone had spiked my drink. Or that I was lying in a coma somewhere, and this wasn’t actually happening.

But it was happening. In reality, and vivid Technicolor.

It was Evan Dawson.

CHAPTER THREE

He stood there in a charcoal-gray suit tailored to fit him perfectly, showing off his broad shoulders and strong arms. He didn’t wear a tie and had left his collar open. His blue eyes sparkled, and the light in the room gleamed on both his soft hair and perfect teeth. Although I knew what he looked like, I had forgotten how much more breathtaking he was in person. Like the camera couldn’t capture all the pretty.

And I hated the fact that even though he was my mortal enemy, I was still attracted to him. I figured that said something not great about me.

I’d known going into this evening that running into him was a possibility; I’d just hoped that fate would be kind and not force me to talk to him.

Apparently not.

“Sorry if I startled you.”

I got to my feet, not liking how his standing gave him a height advantage over me. Even then he still had a good four inches on me. I wondered how badly I’d just embarrassed myself.

“How long have you been lurking?”Creep,I mentally added but refrained from saying out loud. It probably wouldn’t help my cause if I verbally abused him right off the bat. Even if he deserved it. I needed this group to accept me, not to have its most powerful member ban me from all of its extracurricular events.

He gave me a self-deprecating smile, and I told my knees to hold freaking still. “It wasn’t lurking. Just observing. And it was however long doesn’t make it weird.”

Too late,I mentally retorted. Sometimes I worried that I thought things so hard and so loudly that my thoughts would turn into speech bubbles like in a comic book. I refrained from looking around to see if it had finally happened.

“You look like you’re thinking mean things about me.”

Maybe the speech-bubble worry was legitimate, and he really could see them. “You’re a psychic? A mind reader?”

“What’s with all the hostility? You’re that upset over one failed pass? One mistake?”

Not just one mistake. A series of them. But he meant the Browns game. It was then that it dawned on me he didn’t know who I was. He didn’t recognize me.

Which was like him just tossing handfuls of salt and dumping pitchers of lemon juice into my wounds.

He’d practically ruined my teenage life, but I hadn’t been significant enough to merit even a single memory.

“You seem familiar,” he said, still behaving like he could practically read my mind. He scanned me, tapping his forefinger against his mouth, as if thinking deeply. “I saw you earlier today on Instagram.”

What was it Nia had said about Instagram? That athletes used it as a dating app? Why had Evan Dawson been scrolling through his feed looking at chicks if he was still so pure and untouched? And of the thousands of pictures he must have had access to, given all his connections, was I really supposed to believe he saw my recently uploaded pics and actually remembered them? Maybe it was just a line.

Then he added, “You’re friends with Nia Owens, right?”

So, the Instagram thing wasn’t just a line? He knew Nia followed me there?

Or else he’d seen me arrive with her.

One of his abilities that had rendered him so “Awesome” was his keen observational skills on the field—the way he could take in everything around him and make the right play, taking his time to get everything just right before he passed the ball.

Apparently it applied to his regular life, too.

“Instagram?” I finally managed, keeping some of my anger in check. “Trolling for possible hookups?”

That charming, teasing grin I remembered so well popped up on his stupid, handsome face. “Haven’t you heard? I don’t do that.”

“I have heard it but don’t much believe it.”

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