Page 34 of Full Court Love

Lucy nods like this totally tracks. I’m choking down laughter at the ridiculousness of everything she’s saying. Britt notices, and her stink eye shuts me down.

Hopping on one foot as she pulls on her other shoe, she finally makes it out the door. Right before it closes, she pokes her head back in. “I was totally joking, by the way. I’m loving all of this.”

She gestures her hand in a circle toward me and Lucy. “Keep this up. It’s cute as hell. Okay, bye!”

The door slams, and she’s gone. She’s sort of like a hurricane, or a toddler after drinking a vat of sugar–just absolute chaos.

It’s the total opposite of Tyler. He’s reserved and steady regardless of the situation. He looks the same at the end of a close game and studying for a microbiology test–calm, cool, collected. So maybe they’d be a good match. They’d definitely balance each other out.

But as much as I want to play matchmaker for my friends, right now I need to soak in the fact that I have a whole day with Lucy ahead of me. Both of us have a full day off from workouts and any other typical duties required of student athletes. Maybe I’m being presumptuous, but the way she’s now cuddling back into me like a bear preparing for hibernation, I’m going to guess she’d be down to spend it together.

I resume scratching her back.

“Good morning.”

I swear she’s almost purring when she replies. “Mmm. Good morning. That feels so good. Please never stop.”

“Deal. I will stay like this forever. No take backs.”

At long last, she sits up and adjusts the vintage Broncos shirt she’s wearing. I’ll wait until later to tell her I’m a Patriots fan. That usually doesn’t go over super well. Besides, she looks so cute as she fixes her hair in a messy bun on the top of her head, I couldn’t care less about discussing football at the moment.

She stands up and walks to the kitchen, so I’m able to take in exactly what she looks like in the morning. Sporting what appear to be oversized boxer shorts, her long legs suddenly have me feeling warm. You can see her toned muscles flexing with each step, and I find it ridiculously sexy.

Disappearing around the corner for a few brief moments, she returns carrying two steaming mugs of coffee. She hands me one and climbs back onto the couch, draping her legs onto my lap. I can’t help but run my hand up and down her calf, and like clockwork, goose bumps form.

I smirk and meet her eyes. She’s biting her lip again. I have no clue where or why that specific habit of hers started, but I am eternally grateful. My mind goes back to last night, when I was the one biting her lip.

I grab her hand and start kissing her fingers one by one. Sadly, she yanks her hand back with a laugh.

“Hey, not right now. I mean, I would love to, but we’ll have plenty of time for that later, I hope.”

Heat rises in her cheeks as the words leave her mouth. I pretend not to notice. “Oh, we’d better.”

She continues. “Right now, I’ve decided that I’m going to force you to talk about yourself. I didn’t want it to come to this, but you leave me no choice. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you redirect the conversation back to me whenever I ask you questions. And don’t deny it, we both know it’s true.”

Now it’s my turn to look sheepish. Dang, she just rolled out of bed and already isn’t playing around.

She’s definitely not wrong—I do this a lot. I always have.Talking about myself always inevitably leads to talking about my family and my past, and it gets awkward. Even the brief information I provided at our Friendsgiving celebration made everyone look at me like a lost kitten. I hated it. I don’t want pity.

Lucy is giving me a pointed look, and I realize I haven’t given her any sort of response, simply because I don’t know what to say. I’m the king of deflection, and she’s the first person to call me out on it.

“See! You can’t even disagree. So, here’s all I want: I will ask you questions, and you can answer them or you can tell me that it’s not something you want to talk about at the moment. If you say that, I won’t press the issue. I promise.”

I trust her to keep her promise, and I genuinely do trust her with most of this information. There’s just so much I’ve never told anyone that I’m not even sure I know how to talk about it. But for some odd reason, I feel like Lucy will help me figure it out.

Her smile fills me with warmth as she begins. “All right, first question…”

CHAPTER 15

LUCY

These last few weeks, my life has been a movie montage. The type where the couple is falling in love and succeeding at work and just living life together. She’s teaching him how to cook, they’re having paint fights while redoing a house, and there’s a bunch of kissing all over town. It’s like10 Things I Hate About YouandTo All the Boys I’ve Loved Beforeand obviously every Hallmark Christmas movie. So cute and lovey-dovey, you almost can’t watch, but you push through because you secretly wish it was your life.

Or at least, that’s what I used to do. I’d roll my eyes while hiding how much I wanted that.

Now I have it.

Except in our case, it’s studying at the library for finals while holding hands under the table, neither of us staying remotely focused. It’s cuddling on the couch watchingThe Officeor one of the million rom-coms I’ve been forcing Jordan to sit through with me. It’s secretly making eye contact during each of our respective basketball games–Jordan even winked at me after hitting a three and dang, I wanted to declare my love right there in that packed arena.