Game On by Michelle Smith Read Free Book Online Page A

three miles when it’s nearly dark, but not on my watch.
    Right as Bri starts toward the road, I call her name. She turns, her eyes widening as if she genuinely didn’t know I was out here. “You need a ride home?” I ask, striding across the lot.
    Matt’s shoulders drop as he says, “Mind your business, Perry. I’m handlin’ it.”
    I stop in front of him. “One, you don’t need to handle anyone but yourself, and two, maybe if you stopped callin’ girls ‘stupid,’ they’d be more willing to talk to you.” I smirk. “Just a guess.”
    He takes a step forward. “So you’re handing out advice?” Another step. Another, until he’s standing so close I could easily just shove him out of my face. But I don’t because, you know,
low profile
.
    Low profiles suck.
    I hold his glare with a solid one of my own. “Not advice,” I tell him. “More like common sense.”
    â€œWait.” He flashes a grin. “I know what’s crawled up your ass: that article from this morning. What was it? ‘Mildly impressive’?” He shrugs. “Honestly, I thought they were being generous. Don’t know why you’re taking it out on me.”
    The bag in the crook of my arm crackles as I squeeze it instead of the guy in front of me. “How about I show you what a mildly impressive arm can do, you son of a—”
    Bri clears her throat from behind Matt. “You know what? I think I will take a ride.”
    Matt whirls around. “Like hell you are. We’re not done here.”
    My arm twitches.
So easy.
It’d be so freakin’ easy to make him swallow those words.
    Instead, I swallow my own and head to my truck. I open the passenger door, offering Bri my free hand to help her inside. But she stays put in the middle of the lot, facing Matt. “We are so, so done,” she finally says. “We’re done here, and we’re just—we’re
done
.” She shakes her head, backing toward me. “Leave me alone, Matt.”
    I’m slack-jawed when her hand does slide into mine, which is still outstretched. My pulse slows the slightest bit. It’s not perfect, but it’s better. Which feels really, really weird. Good. But weird.
    I climb into my own seat, my brain whirling with what I just saw. That’s not something I thought I’d get to witness
.
Hell, that’s like seeing Derek Jeter smack a home run up close. It’s a freakin’
privilege.
    Clearing my throat, I hold the bag out for Bri. “Could you—?”
    Sighing, she pulls it into her lap and fixes her eyes on the windshield.
    I mean, she
is
sitting where the bag’s supposed to go.
    I let the windows down, the cool evening air pouring into the cab. Bri closes her eyes and relaxes back against the headrest, which I take as my cue to get the heck out of here.
    Bri’s silent for the entire ride. It isn’t until I turn onto our road that she says, so quietly I can barely hear, “Thanks.”
    I pull into my driveway, parking behind Momma’s van. Bri still won’t look at me—she just stares out her window at her own driveway, which is empty except for her car. With her dad being a truck driver and on the road for half the year, her driveway is almost always empty.
    â€œDon’t mention it,” I say, repeating her words from this morning. “You okay?”
    Her face scrunches. She bites her lip, something my sister does when she’s trying not to cry. “No.” She looks at me out the corner of her eye. “I will be. But not right now.”
    Before I can second-guess myself, I tell her, “You did the right thing,” and it’s the truth. Because if I’d heard him call her stupid or anything like it one more time, she wouldn’t have had the chance to break up with him—I would’ve broken him myself.
    Never in my life have I heard