Page 40 of Play For Me

“Show me?”

He nods, like it’s no big deal. “Yeah.”

“You can’t just tell me?”

His lips curve at my snarky tone. “Nope. Too complicated to tell you, and it wouldn’t do any good. This is the kind of thing I need to show you.”

I study him for a long moment. I should be annoyed by this whole thing. He clearly orchestrated this entire evening—seemingly with help from one of my cousins—in order to psychoanalyze me. And then he springs whatever this supposed grand solution is and refuses to just explain it.

I should be pissed. I should get into my car and be done with this.

But there’s something in those dark eyes that stops me. Understanding. Kindness. Something I know deep inside I can trust.

It kept you from doing the thing you love most in the world for a long time,he’d said about my injury.

I think about the way it felt to freeze on the field a little while ago. The way that has happened more times than I can count during practice, and how I haven’t told a single soul. I think about the national team and ticking clocks and how much I hate being afraid.

I blow out a long breath. “Fine. You can show me.”

His expression remains steady, not triumphant or smug like I might have expected. Like mine usually is when I get my way. “Great. Meet me here on Saturday morning. Nine a.m.” His eyes flick down over my bare legs. “Wear jeans.”

“Why jeans?”

He doesn’t answer but he gives me a gentle smile. “See you Saturday, Cecelia.”

TWELVE

SOLOMON

“This is not what I want to be doing at the ass-crack of dawn on a Saturday morning, Solomon. You get that, right?”

I ignore Jay. He’s bitching because he’s tired, but he would have been pissed if he found out where I’d gone and I hadn’t told him.

“Seriously, man. I should be warm in my bed right now.”

“It’s nine o’clock,” I point out. “Hardly dawn.”

He gives a long-suffering sigh from the passenger seat. “Just don’t say I never did anything for you.”

I roll my eyes as I come to a stop at a red light. “I bought you a coffee,” I tell him. “And I edited your paper last week. And let you borrow my Trig notes. And drove you to?—”

“Fine, fine,” he says, grumbling. “Didn’t realize our friendship was a competition.”

I’m relieved when he quits his bitching for a while to drink his coffee. I’m already feeling on edge enough as it is without trying to soothe Jay when he’s being a baby.

I’ve changed my mind about this idea at least a dozen times. What in the hell had I been thinking, requesting to spend an entire day with Cecelia Ransome?

It’s not that I’m dreading her company. The opposite, actually. I’d been shocked by how easy it felt to eat dinner with her on the intramural field the other night. And playing soccer with her was probably the most fun I’ve had in months. I knew that she was good, but fuck, she kicked my ass. And it was so satisfying to watch her do her thing that I didn’t even mind losing.

But spending several hours roundtrip in a car with her? Without sports to distract me from the way her hair smells? That feels like a much more difficult prospect.

“Wait,” Jay says when I turn into campus, apparently awake enough now to pay attention to his surroundings. “This doesn’t look like the way to the highway.”

“It’s not,” I tell him, stomach clenching with nerves. “We’re stopping at the athletic complex first.”

“Why?”

I didn’t tell Jay about the addition to our party. I probably should have. But I knew he’d give me an endless amount of shit about it, and I was already feeling conflicted enough.