Ryan Hunter

probably made it.”
    She disappeared on a happy skip, and I could finally tell Susan the last few scores to enter into her list. I walked up behind her, braced my palms on the wooden top on either side of her, and leaned over her shoulder. Susan gave a short gasp, probably at the unexpected nearness. If I judged her right, she’d never had a boy touch her, let alone kiss one. Dating might not be spelled in caps in her books. That was a shame. She was cool and she smelled like vanilla milk. She had a pretty face, even with her glasses. The only thing missing on this one was boobs, but she was only sixteen. They might come soon.
    I pointed to the bottom of the list. “Fifty-three and four get three points each for the run and kick, and they did seven and ten at the juggling. There’s no need in writing anything down for numbers fifty-six, seven, and eight. They won’t make it.”
    “Okay, so we have all. Well…all but one.” She tilted her head a little and studied me from the corner of her eye. “You didn’t give me the scores for Liza Matthews.”
    “Didn’t I?” It was a suggestive drawl, and it made Susan chuckle.
    “Let me guess, five points for the run and kick, and at juggling she probably did imaginary… twelve ?”
    “Fifteen.”
    She pointed the tip of her pen at me. “Right.” Then she wrote the numbers into the list without further discussion, but she wore a knowing smile all the time.
    I leaned lower to speak into her ear. “You know, as my assistant, you’re bound to secrecy.”
    “Absolutely,” she confirmed with the same sneer that I wore, and for some reason I knew I could trust her with that. When she was done writing, I took her hand and pulled her off the bench. “Okay, it’s your turn now, book lover. Let’s see what you can do with a ball.” As my unofficial secretary, she hadn’t had much time to take part in the tryouts, so I ran her personally through the events. She probably wasn’t going to be a professional soccer player, not now or ever. But she was better than Liza in most things, and even though her scores sucked, I put Susan’s name on the new members list.
    Her shadow moved over the paper when she leaned forward to take a look at what I wrote. Then she straightened with that quirky grin again. “You know, some people say you’re an ass, Hunter. I can’t see why that is.”
    “That’s because they don’t know me.” I winked at her, which made her flash her teeth in a wide smile. Then I headed onto the middle of the field and welcomed the new members. When Liza realized she’d made it, her sweet mouth hung open like she was trying to catch fish with it. Apparently, it took Mitchell a minute to assure her that she hadn’t heard wrong. Happy like a kitten, she hurried to the bench and fished for her backpack.
    I followed her. Step one of courting my dream girl was a success. She was in my team now. Step two: come to my party.
    I wanted to say hi when I stood right behind her, but at the same moment, she whirled around so fast that she bumped straight into my chest, throwing me a step back. Cupping her elbows, I prevented her from tripping. And once again, I couldn’t resist taking a deep breath of the beautiful scent that clung to her hair and body. “Congrats, Matthews,” I said. “You handled the tryouts quite well.”
    She only gave me a mean growl. “Yeah, whatever.” I was so stunned that I didn’t even hold her back when she strode past me, with a piss glare on her face. But then she stopped and spun on her heel, folding her arms defiantly over her chest. “What does Tony owe you for putting me on the team?”
    Whoa. That I sure didn’t expect. Hell, what to do now? Lie to her? Give her the truth? Grab her by her neck and just haul her into me for a distracting kiss? I would so go for the latter, but it didn’t seem like something that would work to my advantage. So I did what I felt like and laughed, deciding for the almost-truth. “You don’t want to know.”
    Obviously, she did, and damn, by the look on her face she was ready to beat it right out of me if necessary. I might tell her why I decided to take her on the team…one day. For now it was better to pull my head out of the noose. I turned around and started walking away, but then I remembered the one thing that had brought me over to her in the first place. I cast her a look over my shoulder that suggested she’d better not say no. “See you at my house, Matthews.”
    She