Fake Skating(65)

No. No. No. No. No. NO.

“How is that a punishment?” Alec said casually, as if he really were my boyfriend and didn’t understand the stupid request. “I actually like kissing her, and though I appreciate you thinking of me, I don’t understand why you’d choose this as my punishment.”

He was so cool that I almost believed his act.

But gahhhhhhh what the hell what the hell??

I’d barely recovered from the driveway kiss, and that had only lasted for a heartbeat.

I wasn’t sure my heart could take a real kiss.

Also, I was notabout PDA.

No, thank you.

Richie said, “I dare you to kiss her right here—”

“Yes, I got that part,” Alec interrupted.

“—where you are directly in a certain someone’s line of sight.”

The entire group turned their heads in unison and saw my grandpa sitting at the table just behind ours, his chair directly facing us.

“Where Mick Boche can see you,” Richie said, smiling like he was supremely proud of himself.

“No way,” Alec said definitively, looking offended by the suggestion. “I don’t have a death wish.”

“But you lost,” Richie said. “Rules are rules.”

“I don’t care, I’m not doing it,” Alec insisted, which I understood, but it also made me feel a little rejected for no intelligent reason whatsoever.

“Come on, you wimp,” Kyle said quietly. “What do you think is going to happen—he’s going to punch you in the face? You played your ass off tonight, and we need you for the postseason. He won’t do dick.”

“So why do you want me to do it, then, Kyle?” Alec asked. “Why do you care?”

I expected Kyle to say to show you have big balls or something stupidly macho, but he said with the utmost sincerity, “Because you’ve never reneged on a game challenge before. Can’t start now. Not sure why you’re even questioning it, to be honest.”

Kyle’s eyebrow rose, and Alec’s mouth closed as if what Kyle said was worthy of consideration.

“Zeus doesn’t back out on anything. Hasn’t ever. Period. Aren’t you worried about messing up the team’s mojo?” Richie pressed on.

As if that reaction weren’t weird enough, the rest of the group all nodded as if this was something important that needed to be factored in.

And they collectively said, “Ooh.”

“Wait. What does that mean?” I asked.

“Zeus here, our captain, hasn’t reneged on a game challenge the entire time we’ve been undefeated,” Kyle explained. “He can’t start now when we’re looking at the tournament. When we have a legitimate shot at finally going all the way.”

“It’s true,” Cassie added. “We’ve made the state tournament more than any other team in the state. For years. And now the odds are in our favor.”

Why is it suddenly getting so heavy in here? I looked at the group around me—their faces were as serious as ever.

“You aren’t kidding, are you?” I said, glancing back and forth between Alec, who wouldn’t meet my eyes, and his friends, who were staring me down as if my decision was of the utmost importance.

“She doesn’t have to do it,” Alec said to his friends, but he wasn’t smiling. He looked… uncomfortable as he threw me a lifeline.“Seriously.”

I wanted to laugh, because it was ridiculous the way they were all behaving as if this were a logical concern. But I couldn’t, because Alec’s face was all tension as he watched me, and also my stomach was filling with raucous butterflies at the thought of what the punishment entailed.

Kissing Alec.

For thirty seconds.

Here and now.

I must’ve waited too long to answer, because he glanced at me, swallowed, then said, “We’re not doing it.”

My mind was racing, my heart beating fast. Alec’s eyes were pleading, and my whole face felt like it was on fire. And before my brain could stop my lips from moving, I heard the words “I think we have to” escape from my mouth.

Ohhhhh, holy shit, we were doing it.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Alec




Holy shit.

If there was one thing I knew, it was Dani Collins’s facial expressions.

Or at least I used to.

And as she looked up at me with her eyebrows raised, I recognized the challenge. She was daring me, wondering what I was waiting for.

Shit, shit, shit.

It felt like my head was spinning, because how was this happening? I still hadn’t been able to brain-scrub away last night’s driveway situation, the way her mouth felt underneath mine and the way she’d grabbed my jacket, yet now—here we were again?

I swallowed and tried to be cool.

“Fine,” I said, glancing at Richie, “but not here.”

“What? That’s part of the challenge,” he said, sounding outraged. “The challenge is for you to be within Mick’s line of sight.”

“I get that,” I said. “But I want her to have a little cover. You might be a weirdo voyeur who wants her grandpa to see that we’re kissing, but we don’t need everyone in the PNA to watch, do we? This way you’re getting what you want and I’m terrified that Mick is going to murder me, but Dani doesn’t pay the price.”