Dean (Face-Off 6)

She bites her bottom lip. “I was thinking about hanging out with my teammates. A few of the girls were talking about going over to O’Shea’s later.”

She removes the helmet cov

ering her long, blonde hair and pushes the sweat-matted strands from her forehead. My heart rate speeds up from this simple act. Despite my feelings for Kat, I’ve never even tried to kiss her. I value our friendship too much to make a move that could cost us everything.

“You should come to the party at Delta Sig tonight,” I say. “I’m going with your brothers. Theo’s meeting some girl there.”

Biting her cheek, she considers my proposal. “Okay, I guess. I should make sure Theo doesn’t get in trouble again.”

“He doesn’t need you to watch over him.”

She rolls her eyes. “This is Theo we’re talking about. Theo and Travis are worse than the Weasley twins. Someone has to make sure they don’t do something stupid.”

“You don’t have to mother them. Just come with us. We’ll have fun. We don’t have a lot of time left before we graduate.”

She sighs. “Okay, but I have to shower and eat first. I’ll meet you guys there.”

I wink. “Sounds good.”

“Where are they?” She scans the arena for her brothers. “I thought they came to the game with you?”

I point in the twins’ direction.

She follows my line of sight and sighs. “Hey, Fred and George,” she yells. “Get your butts over here.”

Kat always compares her brothers to the Weasley twins from the Harry Potter books because of how much trouble they get into all the time. Theo gets up first. Travis is right behind him, tripping his brother to get down the center aisle to see Kat.

These two live in their own world. I have no idea how Kat lived with them for so many years without losing her mind. I sleep one bedroom over from them in our on-campus house, and I have regretted my choice ever since. They keep me up most nights with either loud fights over dumb shit, video games, or the girls they bring home.

“What’s up, Kit-Kat?” Theo says, beating Travis down the aisle. He clamps his big hand down on her padded shoulder.

Travis pushes him out of the way. “Yeah, what’s up, sis? We were kinda busy.” He wiggles his eyebrows. “Or trying to get busy… if you know what I mean.”

She shakes her head and sighs. “I’m coming to the party later. Don’t act like assholes, please.”

Travis slides his arm across the back of her neck, and Theo takes the other side, crushing her into hug.

“Would you have fun for once, Kit-Kat?” Theo says. “You’re such a buzzkill.”

“That’s because Dad yells at me every time you guys get in trouble. I don’t want to get reamed out by him for something I didn’t do.”

“I’m a grown ass man,” Travis shoots back.

“So am I,” Theo says.

Kat rolls her eyes and laughs. “Any man that has to say in his defense ’I’m a grown ass man’ is usually not acting like one.”

Theo snickers. Travis yawns, as if this conversation is too boring for him to tolerate.

Kat smacks each of them on their muscular biceps. “I mean it. Don’t do any stupid shit tonight.”

“We’ll be on our best behavior.” Travis holds up three fingers. “Scouts honor.”

“Yeah,” Theo chimes. “We’ll behave ourselves.”

They both look at each other and wink. Kat doesn’t notice that they’re both crossing their index and middle fingers. If she were paying attention, she would know they’re lying. The twins are so immature. I guess it has something to do with how they were raised. Austin and Duke, who are over five years older than Kat, babied her, and in turn, she did the same with the twins.

After we discuss our arrangements for later, Kat walks away, glancing over her shoulder at me one last time before she heads toward the locker room. I watch Kat leave the rink, my heart pounding in my chest. I come to all of her games like some fanboy—because I am her biggest fan.