Page 97 of Faking Forever
Who the hell had taken that shot? Fucking Ronaldo? No teen should have that much power behind their kick.
“Shit, man! You okay?” Harris’s face popped into his field of vision. Grey’s identical, not-quite-as-concerned face appeared next to his brother’s. The other men and the kids all gradually came to huddle around his prone body as well, some faces concerned, others clearly fighting back laughter.
“You should’ve been paying attention, really,” Grey said without any real inflection in his voice. But his eyes, sparking with amusement, gave his feelings away.
“Shut up, Greyson. I’d love to see you do better.”
“Okay,” Greyson said with a shrug before unceremoniously bending down to tug Smith’s gloves from his hands. “I’ll stand in as your substitute. You need to ice”—he waved an airy hand at Smith’s face—“that.”
“Is it bad?” Smith asked, still trying to assess the damage, even though his face was mostly numb now.
“Let me have a look,” a familiar voice proposed frombehind Spencer Carlisle’s bulk. The man moved aside and allowed Kenna to step into the circle of gathered players.
Smith made a soft protestation and struggled to sit up, but Harris got to his haunches and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“Stay down, Smith. Let the doc take a look.”
Kenna graced Harris with one of the beautiful smiles that she’d been so lavishly dishing out all evening and sank to her knees on the damp grass beside Smith.
Well, this was fucking humiliating. And yet, Smith was so goddamned happy just to have her within touching distance again.
He met her eyes mutely, hoping that she had a smile to spare for him as well. But her face had closed up again. There clearly would be no smiles for him.
Her brows knit and her lips pursed as she did a swift visual assessment of his face.
“Is my nose broken?” he asked, still not able to feel much, but worried that it was worse than he’d initially thought.
She prodded delicately at the bridge of his nose and shook her head.
“It doesn’t appear to be, but you’re going to have a nasty bruise around your left eye.” Her fingers carefully pushed at the skin around his eye. “I don’t think you have a facial fracture though. Just a few broken blood vessels in and around your eye. Do you know what day it is?”
“Saturday.”
“Who scored last?”
“My face.” There were a few scattered chuckles from the surrounding group.
Kenna’s face remained stony.
“What’s your name?”
“Smith Jenson.”
“Follow my finger.”
She waved her right index finger from left to right and back again.
“I don’t think you’re concussed. But you do need to sit out the rest of the game.”
“Why? Is it because I’m so terrible at it?”
More chuckles, but not even the ghost of a smile from the only person he’d hoped to amuse.
She shifted her gaze from his face to Harris’s and nodded. Harris immediately released his hold on Smith’s shoulder, and grabbed one of Smith’s elbows to help him sit upright.
“I can manage,” Smith protested mildly, and Harris’s hand fell away.
Kenna pushed to her feet and joined Tina who’d been hovering anxiously a little off to one side. She didn’t spare Smith a backward glance.
