The Queen B* and the Homecoming King (6 page)

“You’re excited about
doing homework with me?” I teased, savoring the hard planes of his body against mine and wishing we didn’t have homework to do.

“And then some.” He gave me a squeeze that filled me with warmth and let me know he was thinking the same thing I was before he let me go. “I feel like I’ve been so focused on the game, I’ve been neglecting you. I feel like we saw each other more before we started dating.”

“There’s a reason why I have rule number one.” I grabbed some paper plates and napkins from the kitchen. “You have your life, I have mine, and neither of us should give up what we love just so we can spend every moment with each other. Besides, even though I’m still learning about this football thing, I understand how big a rivalry this game is.”

He set a couple of slices of pizza on his plate.
“It’s huge for the team. If we win, we’re pretty much guaranteed a place in the state playoffs.”

“And if you pull off another impressive performance, you’ve pretty much written your ticket to any school you want.”

He looked away with a slightly embarrassed smile. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” I sat down next to him and reached for a slice. “You have coaches from the other side of the country trying to
recruit you, Brett. That’s huge.”

“It is, but nothing’s set in stone. I’m still trying to make up my mind.”

It was the same non-committal response he’d been giving for weeks, much to his dad’s frustration. His dad had briefly played football in the NFL, and Brett had been pressured to follow in his footsteps from an early age. Thankfully, he still loved the game, but the constant pressure to
get a scholarship to a top school had worn away at Brett, forcing him to finally have a serious talk with his dad about backing off. “Are you leaning toward one school or another?”

He downed a slice of pizza before responding. “I’m probably going to go with a PAC-12 program. I don’t want to be too far from my family.”

“So the U-Dub?” I asked, referring to the University of Washington, which
was a mere twenty minutes from our Eastside suburb.

He nearly choked on the second slice. “Not that close.”

“So you’re not interested in them?” I nibbled on my pizza, cursing my curiosity for not letting me let the subject go. I knew it bothered him to talk about his college plans, and yet there was a part of me that was dying to know where he’d be next year.

And then it hit me. I wanted to
know where he would be because I wondered if there would be a way to keep our relationship going after high school. Damn, I was in trouble. We hadn’t even been officially dating for a week, and I was already in stalker mode.

“I didn’t say that. Just that it might be a little too close to home.” Brett wiped his mouth with a napkin and grabbed a third slice of pizza. “What about you? Have you thought
about where you’d like to end up next year?”

I listed the colleges where I’d already applied and realized none of them were even on the West Coast. Maybe it was time to consider some of the PAC-12 schools. Berkeley was one, right? And Stanford or USC or UCLA? “But I’m still looking at other schools,” I added.

“If anyone could write a ticket to the school of their choice, it’s you, Lexi.” He
delivered his compliment in a way that told me he found my intelligence beautiful.

“So can you.” I slid my chair closer to him until our knees touched. “After all, weren’t you the one who was bragging a couple of weeks ago about how you always got what you wanted?”

“I almost didn’t.” He ran his fingers along the side of my face before threading them through my hair. “You had me scared there
for a moment.”

I looked into his warm brown eyes, still amazed at the admiration I saw shining from them. Brett could have any girl he wanted, and yet, he wanted me. “But you still won me over.”

“Thank God,” he murmured before pressing his lips to mine.

I had loved kissing Brett from the first moment his lips touched my fingers in that janitor closet weeks ago. He still managed to take my breath
away and fill me with this insane giddiness every time our lips touched. It was like a head rush on steroids that always left me craving more.

I made no effort to end the kiss. Instead, I pressed on, encouraging him to take the kiss deeper. We were safe inside my home, where none of his friends could see us or walk in on us. All my reservations vanished, leaving me free to enjoy every second
of being in his arms.

He reached behind me and pulled me onto his lap. The kiss escalated, our mouths open, our hands exploring each other. The stubble on his cheeks prickled my face, yet the sensation was oddly sensual—a contrast with the smooth way his lips moved against mine.

I boldly reached under his shirt to touch the warm skin and hard muscles of his back and shoulders. He followed my
lead, his hands massaging wherever they roamed. I no longer felt geeky or awkward when I was in his arms. I felt sexy, treasured, revered.

Brett broke away, his breaths coming as hard and swift as mine. “Damn it, Lexi, you have no idea how I lose my head when I’m around you.”

“I have a pretty good idea.” After all, I could easily lose my shirt when he kissed me. It had happened before, and
it could surely happen again, even though he’d made no effort to unhook my bra or tug my shirt off while he’d been rubbing my back.

And then it hit me. I was starting to feel more than the usual teenage hormones when he kissed me. Don’t get me wrong—they were still there, and part of me wanted to drag him to my bedroom and find out if sex was as fun as Morgan claimed it was, especially with
the way my body responded to Brett’s touch. But I was more worried about the way my heart seemed to swell to the bursting point when he held my hand or the way I was pausing long enough to think about how my actions would affect him. But when he held me in his arms like this, all my thoughts faded into this semiconscious state where all I knew was him.

I caught my breath and was in the process
of leaning into him for the next round of kisses, hoping the physical action would distract me from the emotions that threatened to consume me, when the distinctive purr of a Mercedes engine caused me to freeze. Taylor didn’t have a driver’s license, so that left only one person.

My mom.

Panic stiffened my body and chased away all those warm, happy sensations that had flooded my mind and body
while I was in Brett’s arms. A wordless conversation passed between us in a matter of a few seconds, and I could’ve sworn he nodded in understanding right before I jumped from his lap. We’d had a couple of close calls in his bedroom, so he knew the drill. By the time the door opened, I’d managed to push my chair back to its normal place at the table, ninety degrees away from him, and Brett had
a calculus book open next to his plate of half-eaten pizza.

I heard the hurried click of my mom’s heels before I actually saw her. She halted at the edge of the dining room, sniffed the air, paled, and covered her mouth as though she was trying not to puke. It was only after she gulped down a few breaths that she noticed Brett.

“You have company, Alexis?”

At least it wasn’t as awkward an introduction
as when I met her boyfriend a few weeks ago. Unlike my mom and Pete, Brett and I still had our clothes on. “Mom, this is my boyfriend, Brett.”

My boyfriend
. No matter how embarrassed I might have been a second before, I couldn’t suppress the joy that rose inside me when I called him that.

Mom studied him for a moment before saying in an overly calm and proper tone, “Nice to officially meet you,
Brett. I would shake your hand, but I’m a little under the weather and don’t want to make you sick.”

She turned and hurried up the stairs without another word.

The worry gnawing in my gut grew too strong to ignore. I followed her, getting halfway up the stairs before I heard the retching that confirmed my mom still wasn’t over her bug.

By the time I got back to the table, Brett had already
cleaned up after our lunch. “She okay?”

“I hope so. My mom’s not the type to miss work, and this is the second day this week she’s come home sick. Stomach flu.”

“She looks like my mom when she was pregnant with the twins.”

Brett maybe didn’t get the implications of what he’d just said, but his observations sent a shiver of fear coursing down my spine. “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said more to myself
than him. “My mom’s too old to be pregnant.”

“How old is she?”

I had to pause to do the math. “Forty-four.”

“My mom was forty-two when she had the twins.” He pulled out an e-reader. “I guess we should get to studying for real now?”

His gaze flickered up the stairs, and my cheeks burned. The last thing I wanted was my mom walking in on us.

“What are you going to work on?” I asked casually
in an attempt to keep my mind from replaying how nice it had felt in his arms moments before.

“I have to read
The Awakening
for English. Care to offer some feminist insights?” he teased.

“Yeah, but I’m not doing your homework for you, Football Boy.” I grabbed my laptop and wandered over to the couch.

He laughed at our running joke. When we were paired up for our project in Hum-Ex, I’d assumed
I would have to do all the work. I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was determined to earn his grades and somehow managed to keep his GPA up, even with all the demands football placed upon him and despite his horrible essay writing skills.

“I would never ask you to do that.” He plopped down on the couch and placed his head in my lap, his feet dangling over the other end. “I just wondered what
you thought about it since you’ve probably already read it, and I have absolutely no idea what women are thinking.”

“Says the guy who has three sisters.” I shifted my laptop to the arm of the couch to make more room for his head in my lap, which—I had to admit—was far more intriguing than the essay I was supposed to write.

“Yeah, it’s brutal.” But as much as he protested, he adored his sisters,
especially the four-year-old twins. I’d witnessed him playing the part of doting big brother often enough to know Bitsy and Evie had him wrapped around their tiny fingers.

“If you ever need a place to hide out, my house is usually deserted.” As soon as I said it, I inwardly cringed. Brett’s house was warm and chaotic and full of energy. My house was pristine and empty, a side effect from the
fact my family was rarely in it. We were always too busy with our activities that we’d never really been a family. But if the last couple of weeks were any indication, maybe we were working on fixing that.

“I know. I like it here.” He reached for my left arm and draped it across his chest before adding, “With you.”

Between the thudding of his heart under my hand and the glow in his eyes as he
looked up at me, I couldn’t help but agree. I smiled and said, “Same here.”

He grinned and turned on his e-reader, not needing to say anything more.

I tried typing with my right hand, unwilling to unwind my left arm from his. I’d barely finished the second paragraph when a soft snore interrupted my thoughts.

Brett had fallen asleep.

I closed my laptop and watched him for what could’ve been
a few minutes or an hour. Time didn’t really exist as far as I was concerned. Everything seemed so perfect with him lying beside me, his head in my lap and our arms entwined in a sweet half-embrace. A smile played on his lips, and his thick lashes cast shadows on his stubble-dusted cheeks. He was so handsome I couldn’t look away.

How on earth did I catch the attention of someone like him?

I pushed the question out of my head as soon as it popped up. I refused to wonder about those things. Brett had his reasons for falling for me, just as I had for him. We both pushed each other to be better people, but I also enjoyed the quiet times like these where his presence simply calmed me. I didn’t have to be cruel and hard around him. I could just be me.

“What time does football practice
start?” my mom whispered from the doorway. She was still in her work clothes, but she’d pulled her hair back in another messy bun and scrubbed her face clean of any makeup.

I looked up at the clock over the fireplace. “Maybe in half an hour.”

Which meant I should probably wake him up so he could get back to school in time.

I gave his chest a gentle shake and murmured his name.

His lips twitched
into a dreamy smile, and my heart melted a little more for him. I would’ve been content to let him sleep like that all afternoon, but between my mom’s watchful eye and the big game in two days, I knew I had to end his nap.

I shook him a little harder. “Brett, you’re going to be late for practice.”

He opened his eyes, and his smile widened as he looked up at my face. “Hey, beautiful.”

He reached
up as though he wanted to pull me down into a kiss, but I flicked my gaze over to my mom in silent warning. He bolted from my lap when he spotted her. “Dr. Wyndham, um, hi.”

A giggle escaped me at his awkwardness. Brett always seemed so cool and confident that I never dreamed he’d stumble over his words in front of my mom.

I stood and handed him his e-reader. “I’ll send you a few notes later
tonight.”