Alley-Oops I Think I'm Falling in Love (With the Wrong Guy)

My head snapped up.

Adonis, the god of beauty, wanted to guard me. His voice was low, velvety, and yet there was a natural rasp to it, a rawness, that made the skin on the back of my neck prickle.

I blinked.

Wait. What?

Why the freak would he want to guard me?

All the other guys were whipping their heads between Adonis and I, just as perplexed as me by this demand.

There are unspoken, gentlemanly, rules to pick-up basketball, principle among them being that you don't "sand bag" or put your best player on their worst. Further still, it's good sportsmanship to keep the size match-ups consistent. At six feet tall, I wasn't short. But among male basketball players, particularly that 6'7 Adonis over here, I was no big.

This was such an unnecessary douchebag move. Right out the gate too.

This warranted a look.

I peeked up at him and to my surprise, he was already watching me, the corners of his lips twitching into a smirk.

When he flashed that insufferable cocky grin at me, I knew. I knew immediately who he was — that rat bastard, Roscoe Tate.

"Roscoe?!" I blurted incredulously under my breath.

He flicked his eyes at me, but there was no further acknowledgement of me or the question in my voice.

The last time I'd seen him, he'd very much been a prepubescent boy. His features were softer then, less striking, less commanding. He was a bundle of gangly limbs, nothing more.

Roscoe was a man now — he had an additional hundred pounds of muscle, an extra foot of height, a deep voice, and an aura of dominance that was so compelling, men twice his age straightened their postures when he entered a room.

He was one of god's favorites, of that I was sure. Puberty had been kind to him, too kind.

Whatever spell he had used to bewitch me was broken now though. He wasn't Adonis, he was my sixth grade nemesis. He wasn't enigmatic, he was a dickwad. He might be able to dunk now, but I knew all his moves. I had nothing to be afraid of.

Well...

I was wrong.

Roscoe was an apex predator, he scored at will. When he did pass, it was a perfect assist every time. His ability to predict exactly how and where every person would move was reminiscent of a grandmaster plotting out his take down before the match even began.

Devonte — the tall senior — was undoubtedly skilled, but all he could really do was postpone the inevitable.

Did I mention that I hated Roscoe?

Yeah, well, if I expected him to go easy on me because I was a girl, I was woefully mistaken.

He bodied me up.

He stripped the ball out of my hands three times and ran it down for a fast break. My team lost faith in me after that. Roscoe knew this, so he didn't even bother guarding me. He left me wide open and doubled whoever had the ball. It was insulting.

We lost that game. By a long shot.

I was furious with myself, I couldn't stand that he'd gotten the better of me.

I was first in line to shoot for teams. I needed redemption.

Roscoe was going to rip out all of the ground work I'd laid to ingratiate myself with this crew. I wasn't going to let him ruin high school for me. It was my last chance to prove that I wasn't a loser, that I wasn't a misfit, that I belonged somewhere.