Page 58 of The Assist
“So, listen about my text—”
She waves her hands in front of her. “No explanation needed. Your iPad was displaying the text notifications from your mom. I put it together that you meant it for her.”
I glance down at the desk where my iPad is docked. Well, that was easy. Way too easy. “Right. Okay then.”
I force a smile. Her notebook lays open to where she’s been taking notes. With a head nod in its direction, I ask, “What were you working on?”
She hesitates and nips at the bottom of her lip before responding. “It’s nothing. I was just listening to a podcast on goal setting.”
I’m intrigued. What college girl spends a night before a holiday listening to podcasts and taking notes?
“May I?” I reach for the notebook, eyes on her. I won’t tease or taunt her, and I won’t look if she doesn’t want me to, but I really hope she lets me. It’s a rush when she finally nods and my fingers brush against the paper she’s scribbled onto. I read through what she’s written, keenly aware of her discomfort. Her hands clasp in front of her stomach, and she studies her cuticles with an intensity that they don’t warrant.
“This what you’re always listening to between classes? Business podcasts?” I’m not sure if she can hear the pride in my voice, but I am proud. She’s hella smart, and this makes her more attractive to me in some way like I’ve discovered her weird matches my own. Numbers and ball are my poison, looks like hers is business.
“Notallthe time. Sometimes I listen to music.”
“It’s really cool.” I hand her back the notebook. “You really are going to take over the business world.”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I listen to them more hoping it’ll spark some inspiration on a career path than anything else.”
“I thought you were decided on being a boss lady and all that.”
“I have, but I don’t want to spend my life climbing the ladder at some fortune 500 company. I think I might like the idea of a career as a business woman more than the life of actually being one. I can’t figure out where my skills will be best utilized.”
“You’ll figure it out.”
“I guess so. It feels like everyone else already knows exactly what they want, and I don’t. And I desperately want to feel that kind of passion for something.”
“You want passion, huh?”
I’m rewarded with a smile and playful glint to her eyes. “Doesn’t everyone?”
After sliding my hands around her waist and down the curve of her ass until I reach smooth legs, I glide my fingers around the hem of her shorts.
“You look good wearing my jersey.” I want to buy her one for every day of the week so she’ll walk around with my name and number like a brand. She belongs to me not because I want to own her body and mind—although, I’m a dude with a pulse so of course I want that—but because she wants to belong to me. I can see it in her eyes and in the way she studies me. I don’t need her to say she loves me. She’s mine, and that’s enough. Still, I press her. I want to hear the words come from her mouth.
“Does this mean you’re mine? I can brag to all my buddies that I got the hottest girl at school?”
She snorts as if to blow off the compliment, but I don’t let her get away with it that easy. I slide my hand up inside the leg of her cutoff shorts until the tips of my finger brush against lace. She stills, and her eyes flutter closed for an instant. My lips find the corner of her mouth and stop before making contact. I can feel her breath, warm and shallow, on my face. “You are hot. Gorgeous, smart, sexy as fuck. Own it, Blair. Thinking you’re anything less than that is an insult to me. You think my girl is ugly?”
Her lips part and pull into a smile. “No, your girl is fine.”
“Fine as fuck,” I mutter and capture her mouth.
22
Blair
Is beingsomeone’s girl the same as being their girlfriend? I’m contemplating the differences as we drive to Succulent Hill. Wes is driving, and I’m sitting in the passenger seat exhausted and satiated. He made good on the sex stats last night and this morning, not resting until my limbs were weak and my mind mush.
I could just ask him, but I’m a little afraid of the answer. I know helikesme. Suddenly that doesn’t feel like enough. And if being his girl is really his way of calling me his girlfriend, then why is the word so hard for him to say? What we’re doing doesn’t feel any different from what I’ve done with otherboyfriends. Except, it kind of does.
I push back my disappointment, the niggling voice that wishes he would have stormed through the door last night and told me, accident or not, he does love me. Stupid, I know.
If Wes hasn’t been clear on labeling what we mean to each other, he has been loud and clear on basketball being number one in his life. His life revolves around the sport, and even with as much time as we spend together, I know that I’m the other woman, so to speak. The mistress when he’s away from his true love. And even as I allow myself to think this, I know how dumb it sounds.
Wes is who he is because of his passion. Taking ball away from him would take a piece of him that I love. I admire his dedication, but I can’t help but wonder what it would feel like to have that kind of passion directed at me. Is there any room for him to love anything else the way he loves basketball?
