The Coward Meets Mr. Perfect (Meeting the Misters Book 1)

(42) Jealousy?

Chapter 42

I made my way towards the gym. It wasn’t that far from the performing arts building, since the building was near the back of the school, so within the minute, I was walking into the gym, where the inside basketball courts were. They also doubled as the volleyball court when there was a game.

Right now, there was a small game of basketball, with eight players. I searched the players for Daniel and spotted him right away. There were a couple of other guys taller than him, but there wasn’t many of them his height and his build.

He had the ball, just dodged someone from the other team and then dribbled closer to the net. He faked a pass and then jumped high, scoring a slam dunk. He hung a fraction of a second from the net’s rim before swinging off and landing on his feel lightly.

I was awestruck. No wonder he was so famous. His movements were as graceful and lithe as a cat’s, held the subtle power of a predator, and he possessed the speed of a rabbit.

From the side of me, screams erupted and I saw quite a few girls watching the game, including the trio I had met a couple days ago ... the first day I started going out with Daniel, right?

I sighed and took a seat away from them, all the way in the corner of the bleachers. My eyes moved from the group of fangirls back to the game. Daniel wiped sweat that had accumulated on his brow with the back of his arm, and from here, I could tell he was out of breath.

Then an idea popped into my head. Maybe he was thirsty.

With a nod of my head, I got up and walked outside where the vending machines were and found the one with waters. Once I got one, I walked back into the gym where I saw the guys walking away from the court. Daniel high-fived three different people, who I guess had been on his team.

The girls from the bleachers were rushing down to the players, but I guessed that it was only one that they wanted to see ... Daniel.

Sure enough, the were crowding around him, handing him things like face towels, food and ... yeah, water.

So maybe my idea wasn’t the brightest.

Disappointed, I turned and decided to go back to wait near the performing arts building before the bell rang.

“Desiree?” I stopped when I heard Daniel call out my name. Slowly, I turned and face him, “Ah ... hi!” I smiled, but it was extremely hard to keep it.

He jogged over to me, despite the wails of the girls. Some of them were even glaring at me from behind his back. “What are you doing here?”

“Ah, I, uh ... you seem busy, so maybe I should go-” I turned to walk away, but his hand on my arm made me pause in step.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes moved from my face to the bottle of water in my hand. I tightened my hand around it in embarrassment. “Is that for me?” He questioned.

“Wh-what!? N-no, I bought it f-for me, when I...” Daniel’s eyebrow went up in bafflement. My shoulders drooped in defeat as I hung my head in mortification. “I bought it for you,” I admitted under my breath.

Daniel reached for it, and my hand automatically withdrew.

I looked up at him to see he was looking at me in bewilderment. “I thought you said it was for me.” He stated.

“That was before I saw that you have others who are willing to give you anything you need.” Surprise. That’s all I could say. I was surprised at my own frankness ... where had that come from anyways.

A startled laugh flew out of Daniel’s mouth. “Are you jealous?”

My face heated up. “N-No!”

Daniel swung on of his sweaty arms around my shoulder. “I think you are.”

“I’m not!” With his body so close to me, I was getting a nice, heady scent of...just plain him. Not
the cologne he used, or the shampoo he used, but his natural smell...and my body heated to two hundred degrees. “G-get your sweaty body away from m-me!” I said quickly.

“Oh, sorry.” He quickly drew away from me. “I forgot how sweaty I was.” He sniffed under his arms. “I probably stink, huh?”

I turned away and lowered my head so he wouldn’t see the blush that I was sure was covering my face. “Here.” I pushed the water to him without looking at him, and I admitted that I was happy that he took it. I looked up at him and watched as he took a long drink from it. His adam’s apple bobbed up and down with every swallow.

“Ohhh, look who came to visit her boyfriend! It’s Little Mouse!” I turned to see one of Daniel’s friends, the one I met on the first day. The one who nicknamed me “mouse”.

I looked over to see Daniel, not staring at his friend, but at me. When our eyes connected he looked away quickly and cleared his throat. “What do you want?”

“What? I can’t say hi to your girlfriend?” He asked, looking around Daniel to wave a few fingers at me.

“A womanizer like you? I’m scared you might get her pregnant with just your stare!” Daniel joked.

“Aw, how cruel man! Hey, Little Mouse, do you remember me?” He pointed one of his long fingers at his own chest. My attention was riveted to his perfectly manicured hand. Not all painted, but well-taken care of. The second thing that I thought was, did all basketball players have long fingers?

“You’re ... Tom?” I questioned.

A look of pure joy took over his face. “She remembers me! Hm ... but you don’t seem as jumpy as before.” He looked at Daniel from the side of his eye and shot him a sly smile while elbowing him. “I bet it was him, huh?”

Daniel blushed. “What the hell are you implying, you sick man?”

Tom laughed. “You know what I’m applying.” He dodged Daniel’s soft punch to the shoulder before he waltzed away back to where the group of girls were at. “Hey ladies. Anyone have some water? I’m awfully parched.” Lazily, he slung an arm around one of the closest girls and shot her a smile that I personally thought was cheesy.

Daniel’s sigh brought me back to just us. “Just ignore him.”

“Did you used to be like that?” I questioned.

“Eh?” He appeared to be thrown off by my sudden question that popped up out of nowhere. “Ah...” he looked over at the group where Tom was now joking with another girl who was feeding him a granola bar. “To tell the truth ... I was.”

“Oh? Why’d you change?”

His eyes whipped from Tom back to me, and his stare was intensely laid upon me. After what seemed like a long time, he looked away. “I guess I got bored of it.”

Just then, the bell rang.

“Come on,” he said, “I’ll walk you to class.”

“C-can I walk you instead?” The inquiry popped out of my mouth.

“Huh?” He stopped and shot me a look of confusion.

“Can we go to your classroom first?” I asked.  

He gave me one of those smoldering looks again before he said, “sure.”

When we reached his classroom, I was surprised that he told me to wait. He ran in and returned with a small bag in hand. “I was going to give you these after first hour, but since you’re here...” He pulled , a pair of flat slip-on shoes from the bag.

My eyebrows drew low over my eyes. “Where did you get these?” I questioned.

“Oh, I had someone bring them over.” He pulled the tag that hung off the side of one shoe as he led me over to one of the school benches where he switched my uncomfortable high heels with the much more comfy slip-ons.

I smiled. “Thank you.”

He stuffed the heels in the bag and handed it to me. “No problemo,” He said with a smile, “Now, get to class before you’re late.”