Page 84 of Devious Obsession
“If you don’t come with me right now, I will go back there and carry you out,” I threaten.
She stares at me for a long moment, and I wonder if she’s going to actually call me out on my threat. But then her lips quirk into a smile, and she rises. She saunters down the aisle, ignoring the stares, and stops right in front of me. Her head has to tip back to meet my gaze, and I lean over her.
She cranes back farther.
“What are you doing, sweetheart?” I ask her loudly. “You’re supposed to be with me.”
“Is that a rule?”
“When you’re my girlfriend,yes.”
That gets everyone’s attention. Murmurs start up behind us, the noise steadily climbing. And Aspen’s face gets redder and redder, until she finally sucks that gorgeous lower lip between her teeth and nods.
“I’m taking this one,” I tell the driver, perhaps unnecessarily. He doesn’t seem to have much authority beyond driving anyway.
I curl my fingers around Aspen’s hand and tug her off the bus, quickly crossing to mine.
Ours.
Whatever.
Coach waits by the door, his hands on his hips. “What’s this, O’Brien?”
“Sorry, Coach, she’s my pregame good luck charm.” Hockey players are superstitious, and perhaps Coach the worst of us all. If I say she’s what I need to get my head in the game, then she’s what I get.
Besides, I’d rather focus on the feel of her instead of thinking about how I’m going to meet her gold-digging mother after this one.
I don’t release her hand. Not until I’ve sat and tugged her into the seat beside me.
What I really want is her on my lap, but Coach would probably yell about that. So, I’ll wait until he gets absorbed in his book or movie on his phone, whatever he has planned to keep himself occupied this time, and then I’ll have my way with her.
I brought her home after practice on Thursday and left. And then yesterday, it seemed like we were pulled in two opposite directions. I only saw her at lunch, for the briefest of moments.
Not enough.
Coach gives us some spiel about bus safety and how the trip will be four hours. We’ll have time to check into our hotel rooms and grab a ridiculously early team dinner, then we need to report to the stadium.
“Why did you want me with you?” Aspen whispers.
“Because.”
This is our first big away game, and last year, Greyson made this big stink about Violet being on the bus. Until he put her on his lap.Thenhe played the best game of his life.
Well, okay, the best game of his life thus far. He proved to continue to get better after that game, which I attribute to Violet.
Knox, on the other hand, seems to fluctuate. Willow isn’t his good luck charm, that’s for fucking sure. Which is why he’s sitting up front, closer to Greyson and Violet, and Willow is talking to Miles and Finch with one of the other dance girls. Michelle, maybe?
Their names escape me sometimes.
“‘Because’ isn’t a reason,” Aspen argues, drawing my attention back to her.
I shake my head and pull my phone from my pocket, unwinding the earbuds I had already plugged into it. Aspen stares at me as I set it to my pregame playlist and fit the buds in my ears.
With a sigh, she does the same. Hers are the fancy Bluetooth ones, though. I watch her out of the corner of my eye, when I should be focusing on the game ahead of us. She shifts, she flexes her legs. Her fingers tap on her thighs, and it takes me a few minutes to realize she’s not randomly tapping—she’s playing an imaginary piano.
And suddenly, my playlist be damned, I want to know what she’s playing.
I shut off my music and reach for one of her earbuds, plucking it from her ear and putting it in mine. The sweet melody of classical piano fills my head.
