Page 51 of Those Summer Nights (Sweet Cravings 2)

I started to pull my hair up into a ponytail. It was time to get serious.

"Hey, are you any good?"

I turned my head toward Reggie. He was looking right at me. I turned around to see if there was some big strong man behind me who Reggie was actually staring at. Nope. I looked back at him.

"Who, me?" I asked.

"Yeah, you." He smiled at me.

"I'm...okay." I was standing next to two tall, muscular lifeguards. He couldn’t seriously be about to pick me. It didn’t make any sense. From a competitive standpoint, I should be one of the last picks just because I was so much shorter than everyone else. Smaller legs meant slower.

"Come be on my team,” Reggie said.

I definitely didn't expect to be picked first for someone's team. I looked over my shoulder at my lifeguard as I walked toward Reggie. He looked kind of pissed. Maybe this was just what I needed. If I could make him jealous, then maybe he'd admit that he wanted to be more than friends too. Besides, now the tackling strategy was a go. We were about to take a sexy roll in the sand.

Reggie leaned down and whispered in my ear. "I haven't seen you around. What's your name?"

"Mila." I put my hand out for him.

He shook it. "It's nice to meet you, Mila. Are you just here for the summer?" He was completely ignoring the fact that it was his turn to pick someone again.

"Um, I think it's your turn to choose someone."

"Right. Alex!" he said and turned back to me. "Are you going to the 4th of July beach party?"

"I actually didn't know about it. Is it just on the beach somewhere near here?" Rehoboth beach wasn’t that big, but if it was on the other end of it, I might miss it. How had I not even heard of it?

"Yeah, and it's going to be a lot of fun. They set off fireworks and there's tons of food and drinks. You should definitely come." He called out another name.

"That sounds great. I'll think about it." I looked over at my lifeguard. His hands were in his pockets and he was scowling slightly. This is working.

"I'll give you my number after we're done so that I can tell you where it is," Reggie said.

I wanted to say, "Can’t you just tell me now?” But I knew he was probably just flirting with me. It made me realize that I didn't even have my lifeguard’s number yet. Why didn't I? Wasn't exchanging numbers one of the first things that people who liked each other did? This is so frustrating.

After both teams were selected, my team got in a circle and listened to Reggie. Apparently they did this all the time. And they had terminology that I had never heard of before. All I understood was that Reggie was the quarterback. Embarrassing J.J. wasn’t what I wanted to accomplish today…but it was looking like that was what was about to happen. I shouldn’t have told him I knew how to play. Tossing a football around with my dad didn’t exactly make me an all-star.

"Sorry, what do you want me to do?" I asked.

"Just try to get open," he said.

"Okay." I stood next to Reggie when we got into formation. We were running something called a slant route. Fortunately it had nothing to do with me.

My lifeguard positioned himself directly across from me.

"You're going down," he said.

"In your dreams."

"I have dreamt of you going down on me."

What? "Shit," I mumbled. The play had started and I was still standing there staring at him. "Stop distracting me," I hissed and tried to run past him. My heart was racing from his comment. Was he serious? Had he really dreamt of that? Focus on the game!

He kept moving in front of me so that I couldn't get past him. I put my hands on his abs and tried to push him out of the way. He just laughed and kept blocking me. Someone else caught the ball and was stopped a quarter of the way toward the line in the sand that signaled the end zone.

"Shouldn't you be paired up with someone your own size?" I asked and playfully shoved J.J.’s arm.

"I'll go easy on you the next play. Show me what you got."

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