At the Buzzer: A High School Bully Romance (The Ballers of Rockport High Book 3)

by E. M. Moore

  She nearly choked on her own anger when I told her what actually happened with Lake. Then, she cried with me over the phone, but when I saw her after I finally got back, she was her little spitfire self again, touting revenge on Lake like she’s an Italian mob boss with a score to settle. I’m right there with her though. No one has inspired my ire more than him.

  More and more basketball players show up to sit with us. None of them ask about Lake. All of them ask about my wrist. It’s weird suddenly being thrust into the center when the majority of them didn’t so much as look my way when I was riding the bench next to them last year. I answer their questions stiffly at first, but then Sloan tells me to relax. “They aren’t going to do anything to you,” he says. “I promise.”

  One of our basketball teammates sits next to Ryan and even then, I don’t take my hand away from his neck where I trace his skin with my thumb. He doesn’t pull away from me either, which makes me thinks he’s fine with me showing people this in public. Suddenly, though, he goes rigid. He’s turned toward the entrance, so my stomach immediately drops. My hand falls from his back as I try to shelter myself from who I’m about to see.

  A squeal splits the air. “You’re back!”

  What?

  I glance beyond Ryan toward the area by the dugout. Just as I do, I see Rhonda Kyle waving frantically at Ryan and pulling a friend behind her as she bounces up the stands.

  I feel sick.

  Lake was my only worry when I got back home and started thinking about the upcoming school year. For a brief few days, I’d forgotten about the Baller Bitches. My stomach tightens even further as I wait for them to notice me or for the guys’ reaction to her. Maybe I’ve been deluding myself. How can I keep four guys occupied with bitches like this around?

  Rhonda’s hair seems to float behind her as she prepares to launch herself at Ryan. “I missed you!” she says, beaming up at him.

  He stands up, halting her progress.

  Sloan starts to laugh. I turn toward him, my face disbelieving as I take him in. What could he possibly find funny about all this? The girl who tormented me the most, stole my panties from his house, is about to cozy back up to Ryan. Hayes pulls me closer to him, sheltering me, his arm around my shoulders. Whether it’s coincidental or not, my wrist starts to ache. I pull it close to me, protecting it against my chest as I try to look away from the scene.

  “What are you laughing at, Sloan?” another sickly-sweet voice sounds.

  I can’t bear it. I have to look. When I twist my head, I see Sloan peeling Rhonda’s friend’s fingers off his shoulder. He’s stopped laughing now. His profile looks stiff as he glares at the girl. “Don’t ever touch me without my permission.”

  She blinks rapidly at him, then he shifts closer to me, dropping his hand on my leg, squeezing it once. She glares at the spot our bodies touch. She tries to get her friend’s attention, but Rhonda is pouting, all caught up in her own problems. “What’s wrong, Ryan?” she asks.

  She looks from him to Sloan. She’s already moving her gaze back to Ryan when I must catch her attention somehow. Her stare lifts, staring me straight in the face. I see a sparkle come to life in her eyes like she thrives on being a miserable bitch.

  Her lips snarl, a cold, menacing smirk. “Whatever you guys have in store for Tessa, I want in on it.” The gleam in her eyes tells me all I need to know. She thinks I’m here because they’re torturing me. She thinks they’ve gone right back to eating me alive as their prey.

  Sloan chuckles and leans over to whisper in my ear, “I don’t want her anywhere near what I have in store for you.”

  It makes me smile. Then, little by little, what’s happening makes its way through her thick skull. She notices Hayes’s arm around my shoulders, Sloan’s hand on my leg, and even Ryan’s protective stance in front of me. Her face pinches. “What the hell’s going on here?”

  Even from my point of view, I see the devilish smirk making its way across Ryan’s face. I think he enjoys being evil sometimes. It’s such a contrast between the guy I know and the guy he acts like, but I’m almost convinced he takes some sort of pleasure in this. Before he can say anything, I stand. My hand that’s currently trapped inside the purple cast lands awkwardly at my side. “You should leave, Rhonda. Basketball players only.”

  She scoffs. She reaches her hand down to try to thread it through Ryan’s, but he pulls away. Saving face, she crosses her arms over her chest. “Skank.”

  I laugh at that. Her pitiful attempt to try to bring me down is carried by the fact that they all think I’m a skank. Whatever. “Careful. Your bitch is showing.”

  Sloan snickers. He pulls me down next to him, replacing his hand on my thigh. Ryan sits down now, too, completely ignoring the two girls who would’ve been draped all over them last year. Flipping her hair over her shoulder, Rhonda goes to sit next to Ryan, but he puts a hand on the seat next to him that the other teammate vacated in her presence. “Do as Tessa says, Rhonda. You’re not a Baller, you don’t belong here.”

  An angry laugh whiplashes out of her. “You can’t be serious.”

  I reach up to play with the tiny hairs on the back of Ryan’s neck. A vein pops out of her forehead as she watches me touch him so casually. He actually leans back into my touch, solidifying the deal. There will be no more Rhonda and Ryan. Hell, there’ll be no more Rhonda and gang with any of my Ballers. They’re mine.

  She practically stomps the bleachers beneath her and glares at Ryan. “You pig.”

  He lifts his shoulders in an easy way. “Run along, Rhonda,” he says, dismissing her.

  She moves her eyes to me. They’re glassy, and her entire face is scrunched up. “You’ll pay for this.”

  I already did. I cast a weary look at my cast. Literally nothing else could hurt me more than what’s already been done. I’m not worried about the Baller Bitches. They’ll find other guys to fawn over and forget about me eventually.

  Hayes reaches over and tangles his fingertips with the very ends of my own that stick out from my cast. Ryan leans back even further, my knees propping his shoulders up. He’s too close for me to caress his neck anymore, so I wrap my good arm around him and dangle it over his chest. Underneath my palm, I can feel the steady rhythm of his heartbeat.

  The rest of the game goes by without incident. The Ballers talk to the other teammates while still staying close to me. Alec had a great game. Now that I’m not blinded by just seeing him as a basketball player, I see how he really excels at baseball. He has a very intuitive game, a knack for reading the pitcher and other players that serves him well while he’s at bat and running the bases. He hits one homerun, but scores three runs throughout the game.

  After the final out, everyone else funnels into the walkway on the stands while we stay seated. We watch as Alec heads into the locker room and wait for him to come back out so we can walk to the ice cream stand. With everyone else leaving, the baseball field grows quiet. Birds descend on it, staying close to the dugout where the team discarded sunflower seeds and popcorn. Ryan turns abruptly, pulling his feet up so he can fully face us. “We need to talk about school.”

  He’s eyeing me and me only. “Okay…”

  “You’re ours. We’re claiming you again, but for real this time. Bitches like Rhonda will try to go after you once more, but you’ll be safer this way. They’re just threatened by you.”

  I shrug. Whatever. Rhonda isn’t who I’m really worried about. I squelch the sudden surge to vomit before I ask, “Lake?”

  “Leave Lake to us,” Ryan says simply. He looks away, his face softening momentarily.

  A flare ignites in my belly. “Nope. Not happening,” I tell them. I look all three of them in the eye. “I want to know everything that’s going on. If it pertains to me, I get to hear it.”

  “You need to focus on getting better,” Ryan says, glancing briefly toward my bright purple cast.

  He isn’t wrong, but I’m not backing down from this. “Ryan…” I start. “I need to
know everything that’s going on. You can start by telling me why Lake didn’t show up at the game today. Then you can tell me if you’ve talked to him since that day at camp. Then you can tell me if you ever do plan on talking to him again.”

  Ryan reaches out and wraps his hand around my calf. He looks up into my eyes. I see him wrestling with his own emotions there. I don’t think it’s a Lake vs. Tessa thing for him anymore. Whatever it is, though, I don’t quite get it. He licks his lips. “He didn’t come because I told him not to. I’ve only texted with him—briefly. What he did to you was unacceptable. Until he realizes that, there’s no room for him in our group anymore.” He lets go of me. “That’ll be your decision anyway. If you can ever trust him again, I mean.”

  Trust him again? I never trusted him in the first place.

  “Once he apologizes, you can decide whether you want him in the group or not.”

  “No.”

  Ryan meets my gaze, his gray eyes hardening.

  “My decision is no,” I say again.

  “He’s tried to contact all of us,” Sloan says after a beat. He says it with zero empathy though. It’s just a statement of fact on his part. I know this has to be difficult for them. Lake was such a big part of their lives, but damn, if they stayed with him, he was only going to drag them down.

  “Maybe he’ll feel what it’s like to be on the outside,” I say smoothly. I’m done feeling bad for Lake. He tried to ruin me. It wasn’t an accident. It was on purpose. His hatred is that extreme. “There’s got to be a reason why he hates me so much,” I say to Ryan, watching for any flicker of acknowledgment. “It can’t be just because of basketball.”

  Ryan rubs the side of his face. “I’ve asked him. He doesn’t say. I don’t know what to tell you there, but I think you’re right. When we go back to RHS, I want you to be on the lookout for him. I don’t trust him now more than ever.”

  I nod slowly. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Alec coming up the path toward us. I rise to my feet, sidestep Ryan, and practically run down the stands to greet him. He kisses me just as I expected, like a man high on life. When he pulls away, after dangling me inches away from the ground while he ravaged my mouth, he says, “Hi, Beautiful.”

  I catch my breath. “Good game.”

  He swings an arm around my shoulders as we move back toward the stands. Ryan, Sloan, and Hayes are already waiting for us, so we cluster together as we walk toward the ice cream shop. “I don’t think Christopoulos is hungry anymore. He just about ate your face off,” Sloan deadpans.

  “Aww, don’t be like that, Ivy,” I tease. “Next time you hit a homerun, I’ll let you eat my face off.”

  “I won’t be eating your face, Daddy’s Girl.” He turns his head to the side and winks.

  My body flushes with embarrassment…and an overwhelming want. I’ve felt him on my center before, and I’d gladly feel it again.

  At this point, I’m going to need two ice cream cones to quench the fire inside me.

  4

  Eating an ice cream cone with only one good hand is extremely difficult. Especially when it’s hot enough outside that the chocolate soft serve starts to melt, and my left hand—not my good ice cream eating hand—has a hard time twisting the cone to lick all the way around. If I’d thought ahead, I would’ve gotten it in a dish. But then again, using a utensil with my left hand isn’t all that comfortable either.

  Hashtag broken wrist problems.

  Just add that to the list of things I hate about what Lake did to me when he fucked my wrist up.

  We’re lounging in Sloan’s Jeep on the way back up the mountain where Ryan and I now both live. It feels weird to be driving up here with all of them in tow. My phone pings. Before I can even pull it out of my pocket, Ryan’s already turned around in the front passenger seat to look at me. “It’s a group message between my mom, your dad, me and you.”

  I still, my hand grasping the phone that’s still in my pocket. We’re group messaging now? Oh God.

  Alec pushes me slightly, so I lean over more, and he helps me free my cell phone. It’s in front of me now, and sure enough, he’s right. Ryan’s mom initiated a group message. The first thought to go through my head is how in the hell she got my number, but then I realize my dad or Ryan must have given it to her. My head starts to pound, but I look up at Ryan anyway, trying to stifle everything I’m feeling.

  “They’re going out to dinner. Mom went to the store and filled the cupboards. She’s saying we’re all welcome to head over and hang out as long as our friends don’t mind the mess.”

  Our? A sleazy shiver runs through me. I don’t want to be just friends with Ryan Linc—or any of them for that matter—and I definitely don’t want the insinuation that we’re an “our” in that sense. Like we’re step siblings or something.

  “So, we’ll head there then?” Sloan asks. He looks in the rearview mirror to catch my gaze. When he does, he smiles. “I’ll text your mom when we get there to tell her where we’re at, so she doesn’t worry.”

  “You’ll what?” Ryan snaps, twisting his head to stare at his friend from the passenger seat.

  Hayes chuckles, but continues to look out the window to my right.

  “Text Tessa’s mom,” Sloan answers casually. A smile is growing on his face, and it’s evident he’s taking a lot of pleasure in pissing Ryan off. “You know, Mrs. D.?”

  I lean forward. “Oh yeah, Sloan and my mom are cell phone buddies now. Isn’t that wonderful?” I ask sarcastically.

  Ryan just blinks at Sloan. I know in some ways he feels like my mom won’t ever like him because of what happened between his mother and my dad. He’s shocked my mom can even stand to be in the same room with him, but that was before my mother came to camp to try to get back together with my dad. Now, Sloan doing this just might push Ryan over the edge.

  Sloan shrugs. “I figured she should trust one of us. She happens to think I’m sweet.”

  I narrow my gaze at him and shove his right shoulder from the backseat. “If she only knew.”

  “Well, we’re not going to tell her otherwise, are we?”

  I lean back and find his hazel eyes in the rearview mirror. One of his brows is piqued, as if challenging me in some way. I’m most definitely not going to tell my mother the extent of what’s happened between Sloan and me. I’m just happy she was able to be convinced that my Ballers weren’t behind everything that happened to me last year. Who knows, that was probably Sloan’s doing too. Hell, he might have been the one to actually convince her to let me come back to RHS instead of going to Springs. I wouldn’t put it past him. He has that conniving yet affable personality people like. I bet he could get away with most anything. I know he does at school where he uses his charm most.

  A little while later, we’re pulling up to Ryan’s new house. When it’s just us and my dad’s car isn’t in the driveway, I can convince myself that this is Ryan’s house. Me or my dad don’t have anything to do with it. Dawn had to practically swallow her tongue at the ice cream shop when one of us mentioned that we’d been there. She mouthed, “Text me later.” Oh, she’ll be getting a text alright. She knew I was apprehensive about going there again.

  When I get inside the house this time, everything’s fine for a little while until I see some of my dad’s things lying around. His weight belt, a box of his things yet unpacked that he got from my mom’s house, and the black and white picture of his retired jersey hanging up in his old home team’s court. It’s currently propped against the wall, probably just waiting for the best place to put it. It doesn’t go unnoticed by anybody, so we all move toward it. “Your dad’s so cool,” Alec says. He squeezes my shoulder.

  I’m still grappling with the idea of the cool Dad in my head and the things he’s done lately. I still think my dad’s great. He’s done wonderful things. He’s helped out so many people, some of them in this room who all just won freaking scholarships—except for Alec—from the Timothy Dale Scholarship Fund. Ryan did win overall MVP, by t
he way. They waited to tell me after I had my cast put on and without the threat of seeing my own career flushed down the toilet because of one angry bastard, and honestly, I’m not surprised. Ryan is good. He’s great. He has everything an MVP should have. Leadership is the main thing he excels at that I could be better in. He has a way of handling situations that makes me happy I’m on the same side with him again. He’s like the sharp edge of a razor. He can be extremely useful, or extremely hurtful.

  We move into the living room, and Ryan finds the TV remote right next to the TV sitting on a brand new stand. He turns it on and then passes it to Hayes as he moves away. “Find a game or something, would you?” On his way through the room as everyone else gets settled, he grabs my good hand. “Let’s go find some snacks.”

  I follow him warily into the kitchen. This is the only room that has everything unpacked and put away. This room actually looks like people live here. His fingers tighten around mine when we’re out of sight of the others.

  He turns toward me, his gray eyes concerned as he stares at me. I’m not used to Ryan looking at me like that, and it makes me feel uneasy. Ryan Linc has looked at me a lot of ways over the years and concerned hasn’t been one yet. He moves his hand up my cast and over my arm. “Are you okay?”

  My eyebrows raise. “Y-yeah. Why?”

  “Being here,” he says. “I know it has to be weird for you. And then that shit with Rhonda.”