Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Although she gave Reynolds a run for his money, she called defeat on all things sports related when she could barely lift her pencil at our study session the following morning.
“Oh, they are.” McKayla plucks a ball off the rack, then spins to face me, her smile uncontained. “But this isn’t for me. It’s for you.”
“Me.” I gesture my hand to myself. My lips purse when she bobs her chin, but she doesn’t hand over the ball. “I’m fucking good, but I’m not at Einstein’s level just yet. If you want me to take a shot, you need to hand me the ball.”
“I will.” Her plan is unearthed when she mutters, “When you get my question right.” She moseys to stand next to me, her tiny hips seductively swinging. “But if you get it wrong, you should be warned.” With the hand not clutching the ball, she rolls up her sleeve to show her nonexistent guns. “I have a pretty mean right hook.”
Although I am loving the banter we’ve been tossing around nonstop the past week and a half, I’m too shocked not to seek clarification for her plan. “You’re going to punch me if I don’t get your answer right?”
“No.” McKayla’s long enunciation of a short word makes it seem as if she says so much more. “The ball is.” When I stare at her, lost and confused but somehow sexually aroused, she adds, “If you get the answer right, you take a shot. If you get it wrong—”
The light finally turns on. “You’ll peg the ball at my head?”
“Bingo.” She looks pleased while tossing me the ball, which I dunk even with us being at almost halfcourt. “Now onto the hard stuff.” It dawns on me that my comment last week about her mouth being designed to be devoured wasn’t a lie when she taps on her puckered lips while thinking of a question. “Did you score seventy-six or higher in elementary algebra?”
“What?”
I duck too late. The ball smacks me right in the chops before McKayla’s next question stuns me further. “Were you hoping I would hit the net last week?”
Fuck yes!
But since that isn’t the game we’re playing, I go with a well-rehearsed line. “What?”
Since I’m prepared for her response, I dodge her throw this time around—by an inch—if my calculations are as precise as the disappointment on McKayla’s face.
Does she want me to teach her how to kiss?
McKayla ensures she can’t miss the second time by stunting me so much I freeze. “Which number is the sum of its multiples when you add the single digits together?”
“What the fuck are you talking about—”
Smack.
A ball to the head is painful, but it clicks my brain on.
“A sum of its multiples when you add the single digits together…” McKayla has another ball at the ready and her arm cranked back, but before she can smack it in my face, I discover the answer in the bottom of the sludge in my head. “Nine. The answer is nine.”
“Correct.” She looks more pleased than annoyed while tossing the ball into my chest instead of my face, and for some reason, it has me paying more attention to her next question than the ease of my shot when it bounces off the backboard and slips through the net.
Chapter 9
Cash
Disappointment slams into me hard and fast when our entrance into the gymnasium has my ears bleeding from shouted cheer chants. With our first tutor session at the court being a raving success, McKayla has conducted every session here the past week, but I forgot about cheerleading practice today.
The disappointment marring my face jumps onto McKayla’s when I question, “Your dorm?”
“Eden…” She breathes out slowly, her minty breath fanning my lips. “She’d have a coronary.”
I jerk up my chin, mindful her roommate is as stiff as a dead person when it comes to following the rules. I’m not a part of her dormitory, so according to Eden, I’m not allowed within two feet of McKayla’s room.
I hate to wonder what her stipulations would have been if I had done more than tuck McKayla in that night two and a half weeks ago.
“What about the library?”
Locks of the glossy hair she left down today fall in front of her pretty eyes when she shakes her head. “The study nooks book out months in advance, and although I have the regular midday spot we’ve been using lately locked in, we can’t rock up five hours late and expect it to be waiting for us. You’re popular, Cash, but you’re not that popular.”
She giggles like a schoolgirl when I say, “Wanna bet?” while fake dragging her in the direction of the library. “I’ll have the librarian eating out of my hand in under a second.”
Hesitation slackens my strides when McKayla barks out, “The Librarian is eighty-seven.”
Her laughter I strive to hear every tutor session doubles when I mutter, “And?”