9. BROOKLYN

CHAPTER 9

brOOKLYN

T he buzzer goes off. The arena is bathed in St. Cloud blue lights, the crowd roars in celebration of the biggest goal in my career.

Or at least that's how it feels like in my mind as I watch Liv reach for her phone on the desk, slowly tapping and scrolling until she unblocks me. And I know it's done by how she lifts her chin at me, with the same air of challenge from Friday night.

Stubborn little Olive.

Good thing I've always been persistent and I never gave up on her. I just had a feeling that after that incident, insistence would be the same as disrespecting her boundaries. Deep down, I always knew we'd eventually get over this and pick right up where we left off, though.

Ish. I couldn't have guessed that making out with her would be the ticket.

Pulling out my phone from my pocket, I fire a text over to her.

Me

Testing testing 1 2 3 1 2 3

*Olive emoji*

Seriously, let's talk later

Like half of the class is over already

Good enough. I'll hold her to that promise because she's never slipping away again.

I'm going to have to beg someone for notes after class. I've been paying even less attention than her and I actually don't want to flunk, even if I took the elective entirely for Liv.

Thank goodness that I accidentally saw her schedule. I was originally planning to remove the two electives I'd signed up for—and I did. Then I signed up for this one instead. Just this session alone has made spending extra time in future coursework worth it. Especially if Liv and I study together at the library like we used to.

See? Right where we left off. I can totally pretend like I didn't basically make love to her mouth.

I cover the lower half of my face with my hand and face forward. My lips tingle at the memory. Unfortunately, the rest of my body tingles too.

You're delicious . I nearly punched myself in the nose right after sending that email.

Liv was so cool after the kiss. In fact, the rest of the night she hung out with her friends at O'Malley's without even glancing my way once.

Me? I could barely tear my eyes off her. I especially fixated on the back of her neck, where my right hand parked itself the entire time we made out. It took all my self control to not tear through the place, pull her up against me, and kiss her neck like I had any right to.

It's like I've opened Pandora's box and I'm desperately trying to jam everything back in, meanwhile pretending like I haven't just unleashed the catastrophe all on my own.

Because I've always known this isn't a game I should play with Liv. I would one hundred percent lose. There's no way a girl who calls her guy friend Body Odor has any interest in him. And if I make that play, she'd check my heart against the boards so hard I'd never recover.

I have to make sure she knows I'm only after the title of best friend, not the other type of BF. I can't risk losing her again.

Drumming my fingers on the table, I try to focus on the lecturer for once. But from the corner of my eye I can see Liv's fingers as she types on her laptop. The same fingers that clung to my T-shirt while we made out.

Back to the front my eyes go. And then the lecturer says something in English. "The assignments will be done in groups of four people so you can practice together and give feedback to each other." I look at Liv. She pretends like I'm not even here. The lecturer continues. "Go ahead and find your partners now. Just email me with the final groups after class."

"Liv, do you want to?—"

"No." She glares at me.

"Well." I glance around. "Do you know anyone else in this classroom that you'd like to group with?"

The stubborn set of her lips falters and I get momentarily distracted by them. She opens them to say something when a different voice interrupts.

"Hi. You're Brooklyn Tatum, right? Captain of the Bolts?"

I catch as Olivia mouths captain? before turning to the speaker. Three girls sitting in the same row as us watch me. When the hell did they sit there?

"Um, yeah?"

The one nearest to me tucks her hair behind her ear. "We just need one more person in our group. Would you like to join us?"

I feel a shift on my left and turn to find Liv standing, looking around like a meerkat trying to find other meerkats. I curl my hand around her arm and pull her down to sit flush against me. Circling my arm around her shoulders and ignoring her outrage, I turn back to the other girls and say, "Sorry, but we just need two more people. Thanks, though."

Rather than being daunted, the girl in the middle says, "Rock, paper, scissors?"

And as if this was par for the course, they do three rounds until it turns out the one in the middle loses. There's some shuffling until she, and the girl farthest from us, trade seats so she can find a different group.

"Are you sure you wanna do this, blondie? You might lose some fans this way."

Liv's husky voice so close to my ear is torture.

I turn to face her and have to use my considerable willpower to not stare at her mouth. Blinking slowly buys me some time until my brain manages to scramble words that make a coherent sentence together.

"What do you mean?"

Liv pushes against my side and since I don't budge, she ends up sliding away back to her previous seat instead. "Don't give people the wrong idea," she responds before shifting her attention to the other girls. "Hi, I'm Olivia Rodriguez and?—"

"Oh my gosh, like the singer?"

"No." Liv's brow plummets and I almost laugh. The murderous look on her face keeps me serious. "Anyway, what are your names?"

"I'm Emily Garcia and this is my friend Alyssa Tuft," says the one nearest to me, while the other girl leans forward to twirl her fingers in a little greeting. "And we're such big fans. Could we have your autograph, by the way?"

I tuck my tongue against my cheek and shift to give Liv a look. She rolls her eyes and pulls up the email tab, probably to follow through on the lecturer's request. During class. How edgy of her .

"Sure," I return to the other girls.

It's always bizarre when this happens because it's not like I'm some professional superstar. I wasn't even the first round's first pick in the draft. I was second, which for casual fans—or my father—means shit. If people requesting my autograph knew half of what Liv knows about me, they'd think I'm the biggest loser in the world.

No wonder she calls me Body Odor.

"Thank you," farthest girl says. Elisa?

"Also," her friend—Amelia—adds, "I guess we should all exchange phone numbers. To plan the meetups and such."

"Right." I grab my phone and click around to punch in the first name, before giving the nearest girl my phone to add her number.

Her smile falters. "It's Emily. Not Elisa."

"Oh, sorry." I lean forward to look at the other girl. "What was yours again?"

"Erm, Alyssa."

"Emily. Alyssa—What?" I turn. Liv's expression is impassive, but I'm pretty sure I heard a muffled chuckle.

"Nothing."

Nothing my ass. She was laughing at me. It's the most glorious sound I've heard in a long time. This is why Liam Roberts used to give me so much shit about her, because I always turn into a clown in front of her to make her laugh. Or smile. Her happiness has always made me happy.

Phone numbers exchanged, correct names stored, and when the class finishes up the new girls try to strike a conversation. The problem is that Olivia is faster than a mouse, and I basically have to trip on myself to catch her before she vanishes.

I grab her by the elbow. "Hey, you said we'd talk later."

Her lips pinch in annoyance but she doesn't shrug off my hold right away. And now that I've caught up, she slows her pace down.

"Later could mean tonight. Or tomorrow. Or in ten years."

"As if." I snort. "Especially not after you've unblocked my number."

"I can just as easily block it again." She gives me a sweet smile that lasts all of one second. "You should've stayed behind to do some more fan service instead."

"Jealous?"

Liv scoffs. "In your dreams."

Yeah. Definitely in my dreams as of this weekend.

Changing gears, I shrug on my backpack. Her eyes set on the strap by my shoulder for some reason. "So, you didn't know I'm the team captain now?"

"No, I'm not your groupie."

"But friends should know what their friends are up to."

She stops. "For the last time, we're not?—"

"Nope, we're past this." I raise a hand, palm facing her. "We're back to being friends. And we're never going back to not being friends. You hear me?"

She blinks those big, brown eyes up at me. "Friendship isn't a switch you can just turn on and off."

"It was never off for me," I whisper. And that makes her look down at the floor, a casual admission that it had been off for her. I grab her arm again, making her meet my eyes. "I've missed you, Liv."

Air filters through her lips. "No. Not the puppy eyes."

"Are they working?" I smile a little.

"Kinda." She mumbles, shaking her arm free of my hand.

"So, friends again. But this time forever, am I right?" I nudge her side with my elbow and yep, she's still ticklish going by how she all but jumps away.

Liv cuts a quick side eye to me. "Yeah, friends forever , I guess."