Page 2 of Love All
“Ah,” he says, “So you’re in my orbit.”
“Like a black hole.” I hitch my bag onto my shoulder. “I tripped over your massive ego and got sucked in.”
He grins. Wide. Heenjoysit landing — that’s the defect in him. Insult Benedict Prescott-Hawthorne and he receives it like a gift you wrapped yourself. Behind him, Julian Vega — the captain, all calm — says, “She’s got you, Ben,” fond as a best friend enjoying a public execution.
“She does not have me. We’re flirting. This is flirting.”
“This is not flirting.”
“It’s the most flirting I’ve done all week.”
“And that,” I say, “is the saddest thing I’ve tripped over all week.”
And here is where I should leave. The line is mine, the room is mine, the exit is twenty feet away, and a good closer walks on the applause. Instead, Benedict tilts his head and looks at me like this is the best thing his afternoon could possibly produce— and I have never once left the last word lying on the ground. It’s my worst quality. Top three, certainly.
So I turn and give him my full attention. The thing he’s always angling for. The thing he’s never earned.
“Hawthorne. Be honest.” Sweetly. On me, sweetly is a siren. “Do you think I’m pretty?”
Surprise crosses his face, then the specific joy of a player who’s been handed a real rally. He doesn’t hesitate. “Very.”
“Do you think I’m smart?”
“Lethally so.”
“Do I seem desperate to you?”
“Definitely not.”
“Then why thefuck,” I say, “are you hitting on me?”
The boys detonate.
I know it’s an ace before it clears the box. Cole has to sit down on the bench. A freshman makes a sound like a punctured ball. Julian looks at the sky like God owes him an explanation. And Benedict, cracked open in front of his whole team, stands in the wreckage and grins at me. Bright. Delighted.Hopeful.Like he set me a test and I just wrecked the curve.
Being looked at like that by a person you’ve committed to despising is a specific, unwelcome feeling. I don’t have a word for it. I’ve stopped shopping for one. Nothing fits.
“See, this is why,” he announces, to nobody, to everybody.
“Why what?”
“Why it’s you. Nobody else on this campus makes me work for anything.”
“You don’t work for anything.” It comes out flat. Flatter than I had intended. There was a distinct difference between banter and a barb. The whole court hears the difference and drops a register. “I give you nothing, Hawthorne, because you’ve earned nothing. It’s not personal. It’s fact.”
That’s the sentence that does it. I watch it go in. Something behind his eyes sharpens, a player who stops clowning between points because the match just went live. The grin stays. The underneath changes. He drags a hand through his hair, that lazy golden-boy gesture that has definitely ended relationships, and says, slower, tasting it:
“Earned nothing. Okay. Let’s fix that.”
“You can’t fix it. That’s whatnothingmeans.”
“A bet.”
The semicircle goes quiet. A new kind of quiet. The pack can smell it.
“I don’t bet. Betting is for people who’ve made peace with losing, and I haven’t.”
“Which is exactly why you’ll win, so what’s the problem?” Then he does the rarest thing in his repertoire. He visibly thinks. “Founders’ Drive. Eight weeks out. The athletic department’s big charity push — the money builds the children’s wing downtown. Every athlete is supposed to fundraise, and nobody tries. So let’s try. You and me. Most raised by the gala wins.”
