Dating: For the Assist

by Stephanie Street

That girl.

  For the millionth time since it happened, I remembered that kiss with that girl. Without having to even think about it, I knew Abby would claw Danni’s eyes out if she knew just how much I enjoyed that kiss, so much more than any kiss I’d shared with anyone else. Including Abby.

  I shook my head to clear it. It didn’t matter. Abby was my girl. Not Danni. It was just a kiss. An amazing mind-blowing kiss, but still, just a kiss. Abby was the one I wanted.

  But for just a moment, I let myself follow that train of thought. The one I’d been avoiding since last night standing in Drew’s coat closet with his cast off snow boots and my sister’s best friend’s body pressed against mine. Her lips pressed to mine. My hands grasping every part of her that wouldn’t get my face slapped.

  I’d wanted her.

  Dannika.

  Not Abby.

  Abby hadn’t even enter my thoughts once. It wasn’t until she walked up, her hand firmly in Aiden’s, that I’d even remembered she existed.

  But what if she didn’t exist? At least, not for me. What if the only girl for me was the one I’d wanted to devour the night before?

  My initial instinct was to push those thoughts immediately away. This was Dannika! I’d known her since third grade. And she’d been a thorn in my side from day one. Never once had I been attracted to her. Never. It hadn’t occurred to me to be attracted to her. Mostly, all I wanted was to avoid her. Or tease her. Ignore her. Convince her to go away.

  But now?

  I’ll be honest, a part of me wanted to kiss her again. Okay, it was more than a part of me. It was all of me. My entire being wanted to get out of my car and run over to her house and see what she thought about making out with me for a few hours. Or longer. But that was insane. Wasn’t it?

  Wasn’t it?

  My brain was going down roads it had never been down before. I knew Dannika. I knew what kind of movies she liked. Super heroes and true stories. She’d watch Rudy and The Avengers over a rom-com any day and how many girls were like that?

  I didn’t know, but Abby wasn’t like that.

  Dannika loved pizza. It was my favorite food. She even liked the kind I did with pepperoni and sausage and black olives. Who liked black olives? I did. And so did she. There were other things. Little things. Like the fact that Dannika was already such a part of my family. Piper obviously loved her, but so did my mom. She even knew our extended family, not that there was much to it. Maybe that was why I never wanted to look at her as anything more than an annoyance. If anything happened between us, who was I kidding? Something already had happened between us. But if it did and things got serious and then didn’t work out…well, that would just suck, right? Piper and Danni were never not going to be friends. The way they talked, I fully expected them to live next door to each other all their lives. As for me and Piper? She wasn’t just my sister. She was my twin. We’d been together from the beginning. We shared a womb, for goodness sake. We were Luke and Piper. Piper and Luke. There was never one without the other.

  Dannika would be a part of my life forever.

  I couldn’t screw this up. So, even if this prom thing didn’t end up making Abby jealous and I never got her back, I still couldn’t go down that extremely appealing and tempting road that led to Danni. I just couldn’t.

  “Dude, what’s going on with you and Danni?” Jared cornered me as soon as I got to the basketball court.

  It wouldn’t have been so bad, but everyone else heard him. I shoved his shoulder.

  “Would you shut up!” It was bad enough questioning myself, I didn’t need Jared mouthing off.

  “What?” he asked trying to sound all innocent, but then he pumped his eyebrows up and down and grinned.

  I glared at him.

  “Oh, come on,” he scoffed. “I know what I saw when I opened that door. They don’t call it Seven Minutes in Heaven for nothing, you know.”

  “It was just a kiss.” I shouldn’t have even said that, but felt a need to defend myself.

  “That’s not what I heard,” Adam Whitaker teased, spinning a basketball on his finger.

  I reached out to knock it down. It bounced a couple of times before rolling to the edge of the court. “Yeah? Who’d you hear it from? This joker?” I asked, jabbing my thumb at Jared. “Because he’s such a reliable source.”

  Jared frowned as he squared his shoulders. “Hey-” but that was all he got out before Zeke piped in.

  “I heard it from Leah,” he said. “She said you guys were going at it, hot and heavy.”

  That was just what I needed. Jared and Leah blabbing all over school. While it might help my situation making Abby jealous, it wasn’t going to help me forget it ever happened. Which was what I needed to do.

  I shrugged, going for casual. Like with anything, if these guys smelled weakness they’d be all over it. All over me.

  “Whatever. We kissed. That’s it. I was just trying to make Abby jealous.” The words tasted bitter as I said them. That wasn’t why I kissed Dannika. Even at first. At first, I kissed her because she practically dared me to. And then I was curious. What would it be like to kiss Dannika? Boy, did I find out.

  Jared shook his head. “Uh-uh. No way. You wouldn’t kiss Danni, of all people, just to make Abby jealous. Your sister would cut off your nuts. Or make him do it.” He pointed at Drew who’d been quiet during the whole exchange. I was sure he and Piper had talked about all this. It was entirely likely he’d been privy to the conversation between the two girls when they talked about the kiss. And there was no way they didn’t talk about it. Right?

  Either way, my nuts didn’t like being threatened, even hypothetically. “It was a mutual decision. And it worked.” I held out my phone which still displayed the unopened message from Abby.

  Each of them leaned forward to get a look at the screen.

  “Wait a second. You’re going to prom with Dannika?” Zeke asked, his eyes wide.

  “You must be smarter than you look, Hines,” a female voice said from behind us.

  We all turned to see Mia Tillman, daughter of our high school coach and girlfriend of our friend Grayson Levitt. Mia and Grayson graduated last year, but they still came around sometimes and Grayson could always be counted on to play ball if he was in town.

  “Hey, Mia,” I greeted her and held out my fist to Grayson who touched his to it with more force than was needed. The jerk.

  “Are we gonna play ball or gossip like a bunch of women?” Grayson asked, swiping the ball from Adam. Grayson dribbled down the court, Adam hot on his heels, but it was no use. Grayson squared up and shot a jumper. We all watched as it sailed through the rim.

  Grayson threw his hands in the air. “Woohoo! Who’s still got it? That’s right. I do. What are the teams?”

  Mia rolled her eyes and made her way to a picnic table near the court. She sat on the table’s surface, resting her feet on the bench, and pulled out her phone. The girlfriends were pretty used to entertaining themselves while we played.

  “Who else is coming?” I asked. It really sucked after last year’s seniors graduated. None of us were very good friends with this year’s juniors and sophomores. It was mostly just the core group of starters that hung out these days. Me, Jared, Drew, Adam, and Zeke. We usually ended up playing a lot of three on three, pulling Piper in as our sixth. She never seemed to mind and she was better than all of us, except for Drew, so we didn’t mind, either.

  “Noah and Will are on their way. We’ll play four on four.” Drew dribbled a ball between his legs. Everything the guy did with a basketball was effortless. Without trying to sound creepy, I could watch him play all day long. When he first moved here, I was determined not to like him. Mostly because he was such a better basketball player, but also because he had the hots for my sister. What brother was friends with his sister’s boyfriend?

  But that was before everything that happened with Jack Fawcett and the other guys from the football team. What brother could hate the man who’d helped him sav
e his sister from that? Not this one. I would be forever in Drew’s debt. If it hadn’t been for his quick thinking and taking action, things could have been a lot worse for Piper. As it was, she wasn’t the same girl she’d been before. Just thinking about it I could sic Drew on Jack and let him beat the living daylights out of the jerk again. But that wasn’t going to happen.

  Yeah, Drew was the man.

  It wasn’t long before Noah and Will showed up. Noah’s girlfriend, Tierney Hiatt, came with them. She immediately made her way to Mia’s side. I watched for a second as the two girls hugged and then settled in for an afternoon of watching their guys play some ball.

  And because my life was complete and utter crap right then, Piper and Dannika came strolling over to the court once we’d chosen teams. We hadn’t started yet, though, and Drew went straight to Piper, wrapping her in his arms and kissing her right on the lips.

  I should have been disgusted, and on most levels I was, of course. But a part of me was jealous. I wanted what Drew and Piper had. And Noah and Tierney. Even Grayson and Mia were so happy it was sickening. Had Abby and I ever been like that? She didn’t even care enough to come hang out with the other girls and watch us play.

  Without my permission, my eyes strayed to Dannika. She was sitting with Mia and Tierney while Piper was getting her kiss. The three of them were laughing. They were all such good friends. I knew instinctively Abby would never fit in with them. We’d gone on a few double dates with Piper and Drew and my sister couldn’t stand Abby.

  What would it be like if Dannika was there to see me play and not just because she was friends with the other girls? I could already see in my head what it would be like if she was my girlfriend and we went out with Piper and Drew. It would be fun. There would be no worrying about my girlfriend and my sister not getting along. They would be friends. They were already friends. And at the end of the night, when we went our separate ways, Piper and Drew to do whatever they did, Danni and I would stand on her front porch and I’d kiss her.

  Shivers raced down my spine.

  “Dude, pull your head out!” Jared yelled, throwing the ball hard in my direction. I wasn’t paying attention and it hit my arm, pissing me off.

  Glaring through narrowed eyes, I grabbed the ball and moved into position. Jared was on the other team and I was going to enjoy schooling him.

  Maybe that would help me get my mind off Dannika.

  Maybe.

  But I doubted it.

  8

  Dannika

  It was no secret Luke was an amazing basketball player. Piper liked to yank his chain and give him a hard time, but the truth was he was good. He wasn’t Drew, not many were, but he could hold his own on the court. And he looked gorgeous doing it.

  The last couple of years had been good to his body. He’d filled out. Bulked up. Watching him play, I couldn’t help but remember the feel of those muscles under my fingertips. In fact, I was having a hard time remembering anything else. I could watch them move and ripple as he guarded Jared all day long.

  “Here let me help you with that.” Tierney reached out and wiped my chin with her hand. “You were drooling a little.”

  Smacking her away with one hand, I used the other to wipe at my chin myself. Of course there was nothing there and Tierney was just teasing me. “Stop it.”

  She laughed. “It’s okay. I have a hard time keeping my eyes off Noah sometimes and we’ve been together for over a year now.”

  I glanced at Noah. He did look good. Not as good as Luke, but Noah was a handsome guy. He’d changed a lot since going to college, filled out, matured. It wasn’t just his looks, either. He was just different. I supposed Tierney was, too.

  “He pop the question yet?” I asked. I figured there was no way Noah would ask Tierney to marry him during their freshman year of college, but stranger things had happened. Either way, pointing my finger at her took some of the pressure off me.

  Tierney pulled back her chin. “No way. Are you crazy? We aren’t even twenty yet.”

  I gave her a look. “Like that matters. You two will be married before this one and Grayson.” I gestured to Mia who’d been talking to Piper.

  My comment had Mia’s head swiveling toward me. Good. I might be in trouble with my friends but at least they weren’t asking me more questions about Luke.

  “Who said anything about marrying Grayson?” Mia looked horrified.

  Mia’s dad and Grayson’s mom had gotten married last year. We all heard the story about how Mia and Grayson dated in an attempt to keep their parents apart, but then they realized how much they loved each other and how much Coach Tillman and Grayson’s mom, Michelle, loved each other and everyone’s been kind of living happily ever after. Grayson and Mia were at school together with Noah and Tierney.

  I had a vision of Drew and Piper and me and Luke all going to school together.

  “Don’t deny it, Mia,” Tierney grinned. “We all know you love that idiot.”

  Mia smiled despite herself. “Well, yeah. But that doesn’t mean we’re getting married, for goodness sake.”

  “You and Noah aren’t getting married,” Piper asked, sounding just a bit heartbroken at the thought. Her eyes were trained on Drew. We were all in love. Tierney with Noah. Mia and Grayson. Even me. I could admit I was totally in love with Luke. But there was something about the connection between Piper and Drew that made my heart ache. I was so happy for my best friend. She deserved the best. And for her, the best was Drew.

  Tierney shook her head, but there was a definite sparkle in her eyes. “Not anytime soon, anyway. Noah’s headed to medical school, remember?”

  “Speaking of Noah. How’s Mr. Jacobs doing?” I asked. Noah’s dad had cancer. None of us knew, but he’d had it before and it went out of remission. Noah found out last year at the beginning of basketball season. Since Noah was graduated and we didn’t see him or Grayson as much, I hadn’t heard anything about Noah’s dad in a long time.

  Tierney smiled. “He’s doing really well. He’s gone back to work and as far as the doctors can tell he’s back in remission.”

  “Oh, that’s such great news,” I said and the other girls all agreed. We all loved Noah. Most of us had grown up together and because the boys had been playing basketball together since elementary, they were a tight group. Piper had an in with basketball, and the fact that Luke was her brother, and I had an in because of Piper. Tierney and Mia were new but readily accepted on their own as well as due to their girlfriend status. Regardless, it was good to hear Noah’s dad was doing so well.

  “It really is. We have dinner over there on Sunday’s. He looks better every week. Noah’s so relieved.” Tierney’s eyes strayed to the basketball court, love shining in them. She might have denied it, but Noah was her guy. I fully expected a wedding invitation from those two sometime in the future. It might not be for awhile, but it was going to happen. I couldn’t imagine a world where there wasn’t a Noah and Tierney in it.

  “Dannika’s going to prom with Luke,” Piper blurted then covered her mouth with her hand like she hadn’t meant to throw me under the bus like that.

  The three of us turned to stare at her.

  Her shoulders fell with apparent relief and she dropped her hand. “Oh, man, I just had to get that off my chest.”

  Heat burned my cheeks. “Piper!”

  Mia grinned. “It’s okay. I already knew. Luke said something about it when we walked up.”

  “I’m sorry! I just had to say something.” Piper widened her eyes and continued. “And she made out with him in a closet at Drew’s party.”

  Exasperated, I pushed her shoulder. “Feel better now? Jeez!”

  Piper nodded. “I really do,” she said and the other two girls laughed.

  “You mean we’ve been sitting here for a half an hour and this is just now coming up? How did we not start off with that information,” Tierney asked and Mia nodded her agreement.

  “Seriously, what the heck? You kissed Luke!” Mia�
�s eyes bulged.

  “Shhh,” I admonished with a quick glance at the guys playing basketball. They were all focused on the game and not paying us any attention. “Yes” I glared at Piper.

  “How in the world did that come about?” Mia asked. Mia and Tierney knew all about my crush on Piper’s brother. We’d all become good friends over the last year and half. Boys were a hot topic during basketball games and sleepovers. Especially these boys.

  I quietly told them about the party and Leah dragging me into a game of spin the bottle which resulted in Luke and I in the closet for seven minutes in heaven.

  “You played spin the bottle?” Tierney reared back aghast, her whole body radiating disgust.

  I shrugged. Who hadn’t played spin the bottle? “Sure.”

  Piper frowned. “Yeah, what’s the big deal?”

  Tierney shook her head. “What if it hadn’t landed on a super hot guy you have a crush on? What if instead, it landed on Mr. Stinky with octopus hands?”

  We all stared at her for a moment.

  “Did you have to kiss Mr. Stinky with octopus hands?” Mia finally asked.

  Tierney’s face turned red. “The bottle landed on him, but I ran away before he could get ahold of me,” she admitted. “I swore I’d never play spin the bottle again. It isn’t always like they make it out to be in books and movies.” She shot me a side eye glance. “Unless you’re Dannika, apparently. And you get to spend seven minutes in heaven with your crush.”

  “Oh, my gosh. I can’t believe you kissed Luke. Was it amazing?” Mia asked.

  I noticed Piper wasn’t participating in this part of the conversation. I could tell she was listening, but her eyes were back on the boys, or Drew, as they played. For once I didn’t care about making her listen to me gush about her brother. She deserved it for telling Mia and Tierney in the first place.

  “Amazing. Mind-blowing. Toe-curling,” I paused to glance at Piper who pursed her lips. Good. “Basically, it was the hottest thing I’ve experienced in my whole life.” And that wasn’t even a lie. My skin tingled just thinking about it.