What Are The Odds?: Chapter 29

Levi.

Grace was out the front of our lecture building, pacing back and forth. I snuck up on her, whipping her around to kiss her. The kiss probably bordered on too much for public, but I made no effort to tone it down. Grace melted against me, leaving it up to me to support her bodyweight. Easy. If we weren’t about to go into a lecture, I’d carry her to the building wall and press her against it. Hell, maybe I could talk her into skipping the lecture and let me pin her against my car door. Then my front door. Then my bedroom door. Someone clearing their throat interrupted my heated imagination. Frowning, I looked around, expecting Ryker to be waiting for us. But there was no one nearby. Grace blushed as she held up her phone. It took me a moment to realise why. She’d been mid-FaceTime with her brothers. Well. Shit.

“Is there someone you’d like to introduce us to, Gracie?” one of them drawled in an accent matching to Grace’s.

The two guys on the other side of the camera also had the same blonde hair and blue eyes as Grace. The younger looking of the two was smirking, whereas the older one had a firm expression. Grace and I definitely hadn’t reached the meet the family point, but I guess we didn’t really have a choice.

“Yeah. Um. This is–”

She looked to me for confirmation. I shrugged. I was just at a loss as her.

“A friend,” she finally finished with.

I nodded. That seemed like the safest thing to say.

“I, um, should go,” Grace said. “We have a class. Don’t forget to send me the video.”

“Got it, Gracie. Miss you,” one said.

“Love you, Gracie. Stay safe,” the other added.

Her brothers had been sitting outside in what looked like the warm sun. Grace on the other hand was dressed in baggy grey slacks, a thick black knitted turtleneck, an equally oversized camel coat and baseball cap. I was wearing a baseball cap too. We were matching.

“You’ve just made tomorrow’s phone call a nightmare,” she told me.

She rolled her eyes while smiling simultaneously. Good. She wasn’t mad. She peered down at her phone, which had just lit up with a notification. She opened the video that had been sent through. It was of a guy surfing. The wave was huge, yet the surfer smoothly sailed over it, all the while whipping the board back and forth in ways that would guarantee most people to eat shit. Grace typed out a text.

Nice, Dyl. Can’t wait to be back in the water with you guys.

“You surf?” I asked.

Grace nodded.

“That’s hot.”

It really was. I visualised Grace at the beach in a bikini. It was a really good image. Though with the reminder we were about to go into class, I forced myself to think about something else.

“Show me a video.”

“No way.”

“You’ve seen me play hockey,” I countered.

“You’ve seen me swim.”

“Barely.”

I’d always caught her at the end of her practices and hadn’t been to one of her swimming meets, and the hungover swim session didn’t count. I put that on my list of things to do. Watch Grace swim. That could come soon. But right now, I wanted a snapshot of Grace’s life back home.

“Come on, Hughesy,” I whined. “What’s there to be embarrassed about? I literally had you for breakfast yesterday. There are no lines we don’t cross anymore.”

Her jaw gaped in surprise before she nervously glanced around, checking for anyone who could’ve overheard. There was nothing to be embarrassed about. Grace was the best meal I’d ever had. She scrolled through her camera roll. There was a lot. I’d got to know the Grace who was living in Philadelphia well. But I didn’t know a whole lot about her life back home.

“I’m not anywhere near as good as my brothers,” she prefaced.

She passed me her phone, which was loaded on a video. Grace paddled onto a wave that looked daunting as hell to me. The black bikini she was wearing had ridden up, giving an amazing view of her ass. Smoothly, she pushed up, riding the wave in. Once the wave levelled, she walked back and forth on the board, as though it was on solid ground and not moving with the water.

“That looks pretty good to me,” I told her. I pressed my lips to her ear. “What are the odds you brought that bikini to Philadelphia?”

She playfully pushed me away. With my arm around her shoulder, we walked into class. It didn’t go unnoticed the way people cast us secondary glances. Girls that had once winked at me or slipped into my DMs studied Grace as I took the seat beside her. Just friends Grace had told her brothers. Lucky they were on the opposite side of the world, because it wouldn’t look that way on the Phil-U rumour-mill.

“Looks like Richardson is a no-show,” I whispered to Grace as the professor walked in.

“He text saying he has an away game and asked me to take notes.”

I arched an eyebrow. “He texts you?”

“Yeah.” Grace looked at me quizzically. “What’s the big deal? You text me.”

“I get to text you because you’ve climaxed on my tongue.”

Grace’s blush was so adorable, but it also stirred something worrying in my stomach.

“Wait. He hasn’t done that too, has he?”

Heat rushed to my cheeks. But not from embarrassment.

“You’re an idiot,” she said in response. “He’s my friend. Friends text.”

Fuck. He’d switched to the friend approach and I was the one actively seeking her out. But at least the action I’d had with Grace wasn’t because a kiss cam was pointed in our direction. I’d had her in my bed. And Grace wouldn’t have done the things we had unless she liked me too.

“He actually suggested we meet up to watch an AFL game. He still hasn’t seen one.”

I froze. “Just the two of you?”

Grace nodded.

“Are you going to go?” I pressed, hoping I sounded casual even though I didn’t feel it.

She nodded again. I didn’t like that response.

“Stella. Hey.”

Grace moved her bag off the seat beside her so Stella could sit down. I did my best to focus on the professor’s lecture, but it was near impossible. For each note Grace took, I simmered, thinking of her going over them with Richardson later. I couldn’t exactly tell Grace not to watch a game with him, and I couldn’t ask her not to go either. What would I say? Ryker and I made a bet and if you go, he’s more than likely going to try and make a move. I’d dug myself the biggest, most stupid hole known to man.

“Where did he suggest you watch it?” I whispered.

Grace slowly drew her focus from the professor.

“Huh?” she whispered back.

“The game,” I filled in.

With her pen wedged between her lips, she frowned at me.

“Oh, he, um, suggested I go to his place.”

“When?”

“Thursday.”

Of course he did. I had an away game then. I spent the rest of the lecture thinking of ways to stop Grace from spending one-on-one time with Richardson at his house. By the time the professor was wrapping things up, I had the perfect cover. I leaned over Grace, resting my elbow on the arm of her chair.

“Are you free tomorrow night, Stella?”

Stella tilted her head to the side. “Before I answer, what are you suggesting?”

“A night at Lastlings.”

“Lastlings?” Grace asked, stuffing her book with Ryker’s stupid notes into her bag.

“The sports bar near campus,” I answered. “It’s where I unofficially met you.”

“Oh,” Grace said, recognition dawning. “I remember.”

“Can you get Ryker to meet us there? One of the guys on the team works on Wednesday nights. I’ll get him to fire up an AFL game. We can make a night of it.”

“Huh,” Stella mused. “Sounds fun.”

I beamed, triumphantly. Crisis averted.