"I think you should stop being so mean to me, Zahed."
"Why would I ever do that?"
Aryan grins, a bright, wicked thing.
"Because I kiss you like this."
•
Mira Zahed and Aryan Shankar are at war.
When her best friend and his cousin decide to fall in...
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♥ ♥ ♥
"WHO THE FUCK IS STACY?"
Raf sends the ball toward a now empty goal with a well-timed kick and a single smooth breath. It goes sailing through the air with a fierce purpose, crashes against the net and tumbles back onto the green triumphantly, but he's already directed his stare my way.
Flinty-eyed and broody before lunchtime, Rafael Herrera doesn't hold the look of someone who you'd want to tick off even more. Especially when he just lost five easy goals to yours truly.
With this in mind, I hide a bemused smile, scraping a hand down my jaw, stubble scraping back almost accusingly, as if saying You woke up in the wrong bed this morning, Shankar. I ignore it, dropping my hand and spinning from Raf's glower.
It's a little over an hour since my late arrival, the game wrapped up for the day, the rest of the guys slinked off to flex their sweaty muscles for the trickle of unfortunate students who have Sunday morning lectures on campus— they're either going to make some poor freshman girl's morning or ruin it. The green UCLA field is clear but for Raf and me. No one but the sun against the robin egg blue sky overlooks our exchange as I turn from him and start toward the discarded ball inside the goal without reply.
His annoyance is palpable, a dark, living thing manifested in a scowl piercing my back as he jogs after me.
Sweat dries on my skin with a passing breeze. I rake a hand through my hair, sliding towards the goal and knocking the fallen football between my feet. I try not to think of a certain someone's hands in my hair. Or anywhere, for that matter. But it's getting harder and harder to do that when I could list off every damn shade of nail polish she's worn since I've known her from the top of my head.
This morning, her nails were the same blue as the sky above my head, gripped against the counter's edge.
I let out a breath and turn with the ball.
I face Raf, only to be met with— surprise, surprise— a scowl.
Brow lifted, I kick the ball his way without warning, the sound echoing between us, and, still scowling across at me, he captures it easily, sliding backwards from foot to foot before halting with the ball, balancing it below the studded sole of a shoe.
Raf Herrera has moves, the type of showy yet precise, effortlessly delivered moves on a field that would make any crowd go wild.
Yet, I incline my head at him taunting, "Score a goal and maybe then you can ask me personal questions, Herrera."
Raf's eyes narrow to slits. I watch him fight the urge to just kick the ball straight at my chest as I trace forward within the white line of the goal. But he likes this damn game too much to cheat. And after those five stolen goals, he's itching for payback.
