Before Brock started on his drills, his eyes scoured the stands, landing on me. A roguish grin formed on those damn sensual lips.
After that, my eyes never left him.
Chapter Twenty-Three
When practice was over, I clattered down the bleacher steps to the field. Grayson waited for me, glaring at Ava from the corner of his eye while the rest of the team went to shower and change. “Brock will be out in a minute,” he informed.
“Were you sent to guard me from the big bad wolf?” I asked, my gaze shifting to Ava and her band of bitches.
His football helmet dangled from his finger, beads of sweat gathered along the edges of his dark hairline. Just looking at him made me want to shower. “Something like that,” he mumbled. He kept a close watch on Ava as she and her friends got up to leave.
Grayson’s abhorrence for Ava was written in every line on his face. It was clear he didn’t like her, but the Queen B herself seemed oblivious to the loathing emitting from Grayson. She grinned saucily in a way that made me want to cut off her lips—not in jealousy, because my feelings for Grayson weren’t stemmed from attraction, but more a protective sister, which was weird considering he barely tolerated me.
Ava ran the tip of her blazing red nail over Grayson’s shoulder. “I’m having an intimate get-together at my place. You should come,” she told him, her eyes devouring Grayson. “The others too.” Then her eyes slashed to me. “But not you. I can’t have my place stinking like trash.” She and her friends giggled like Ava was the wittiest person on Earth.
It was like a light switch of pent-up anger flipped inside of me. I lunged straight for her, fists clenched and ready to throw down. I would have too if Grayson hadn’t grabbed me around the waist and lifted me just off my feet, making it harder for me struggle against him.
“She’s not worth it,” he murmured near my ear.
My breath came out in sharp pants like a raging bull’s while Ava blinked and started to laugh. “You’re insane.”
Grayson’s gaze whirled. “Get the fuck out of here, Ava, before I let Josie tear you apart.” His voice came out clipped and cold.
She flipped her siren red hair and huffed, eyes narrowed to slits. “I don’t see what your guys’ obsession with her is. She’s nothing. A no one.”
Grayson kept his hands around my waist, but put my feet to the ground. “So were you until Brock decided you were good enough for a cheap fuck. Keep this shit up and you won’t even be that anymore,” he told her, his chest rumbling against my back.
Flanked by her two friends, she hissed like a little viper before spinning around and storming off, her little minions close on her heels, mouths gaping.
When she and her friends disappeared behind the bleachers, Grayson finally released me. I turned on him. “You should have let me kick her ass.”
He shook his head, a hint of a smirk pulling at his lips. “I believe you could. Ava has a sharp bite, but she doesn’t have the claws you do.”
Brock appeared beside me. I hadn’t even seen him coming. “What did she want?” he asked Grayson.
Grayson’s mouth thinned. “Nothing. Just stirring up trouble. Josie handled it.”
Brock’s heat seeped into me, and I felt a bulk of my anger leave my body. My lips twitched at Grayson.
“See you later,” he said to Brock before those chocolate eyes flipped to me. “Try not to kill anyone tonight,” he told me with a shred of a smirk.
“What just happened between you two?” Brock asked, noticing Grayson was a little less intense around me. Brock’s perceptive nature missed little.
“Nothing.” I shrugged, but he didn’t believe me, so I resorted to poking fun at him, regardless that it bordered heavily on flirting. “How do you feel about sex in the guys’ shower, because man, could you use one.” I wrinkled my nose.
He had changed out of his uniform into gray sweats and a cotton tee. He stepped closer. “I thought the scent of a guy’s pheromones drove girls crazy.”
“There is a difference between good guy sweat and…” I plucked at his white T-shirt. “This.”
He chuckled, tossing an arm around my neck and pulling me in close for a suffocating bear hug, but to my chagrin, his fucking sweat caused a bolt of instant lust.
“Where is this promise of food? I’m starving,” I grumbled.
A knowing smile glinted in his gaze. “I just bet you are, Firefly.”
I rolled my eyes, shoving at his chest. “Please. You don’t stand a chance next to a pizza extravaganza.”
“Is that so? I might just have to put that to the test.” Brock did like a challenge.