End Game (Bellevue Bullies 4)

Her voice drops. “Is the boys freaking you out thing the reason anytime a guy talks to you, you basically hermit up?”

I want to argue, but I know I do it. “Maybe,” I say. “But it doesn’t matter.”

But by the look in her eyes, I can see it does. “Sofia.”

I swallow hard. “Yes?”

“Have you had a boyfriend?”

I scoff. “Of course—” I pause when I realize I’m about to lie to her again. I can’t do that. It’s not how she handles friendships, and damn it, I don’t want to be that friend. Especially when I wouldn’t want her to do it to me. She’s my person. Don’t ask me how or when it happened, but it did. I love this girl, and lying hurts her. “No.”

She moves in close. “So it’s safe to say you’re a virgin?”

I bite my lip. My foot is knocking into the chair, and I don’t want to answer that. “I am.”

She nods slowly as our eyes meet. Her eyes are filled with such compassion, and I know she’d never tell my secret. “I won’t tell a soul.” She didn’t need to say it, but her words put my fears at ease and I know her promise is ironclad.

“I appreciate that.”

She leans back, crossing her legs as her toe bounces. “You never had any chance to lose it?”

“No, I was training elite. You know how it is.”

Even though she didn’t train elite, every gymnast knows what that entails. Eat, sleep, gym, repeat. No time for anything else. She nods. “Yeah.” She then taps her jaw as she looks over to me. “Ryan would be good for you.”

My face fills with terror. “Amelia, be real.”

“No, really. He isn’t looking for anything serious, and you’re looking to move out of that ‘guys freak me out stage’ into adulthood where you have sex and enjoy it.”

Fucking hell. “Please stop.”

She smiles. “I really think you should give Ryan a chance.”

“So you can get with Moon?”

“My brother won’t ever hook me up with Moon. No matter what. He’s already put me on the off-limits list. I’m fucked. Though very much not literally.”

I’m incredulous. “Seriously?”

“Yes, those guys all have that brotherhood shit. I’m basically going to have to seduce Moon and give him no option but to defy my brother.”

My eyes widen. “Do you think he will?”

She grins. “They may be small, but I have a great set of tits.”

“You’re so dirty,” I say, shaking my head. “So bold. Teach me your ways, Miyagi.”

“No way. You need a nice guy to show you how to be treated. So then, when you’re more experienced and come across a shitty guy, you’ll know you deserve better ’cause you’ll think of the first guy who took care of you. Drew was that for me, which is why we ended on good terms and still flirt endlessly. I thought you’d done all this, but since you haven’t, I unanimously elect my brother to show you how to be treated.”

I just blink at her. “Shouldn’t I want the shitty guy first to get it over with?”

“No, ’cause then you’ll think it’s okay to be fucked and left. No one wants that.”

I shrug. “I was kind of okay just hanging out with my V-card.”

“That’s dumb,” she says, shaking her head. “You’ll always be weird with guys until it’s gone. I’m not saying guys are everything, but do you really want to be, like, a forty-year-old virgin?”

“Hey, that guy did okay,” I answer, and she laughs.

“I want better for you, and I honestly think Ryan would be awesome.”

I feel wrong about this. “You know it sounds like you’re pimping your brother out. It’s sort of troublesome.”

She snorts with laughter as she leans into me. “No, that’s not what I’m doing. He’s totally into you. If anything, I’m helping him get what he wants. Also, it gives you a great guy to base every other guy off of. Let’s be honest, my brother can say he wants a relationship, but his main goal is the NHL right now.”

“Which I respect.”

“Yeah, we all do. I’m just saying, what’s wrong with getting to know him, seeing if he’s the guy for you, and then handing that card over?”

Biting my lip so hard I taste blood, I look away. I get what she’s saying, and if I’m honest with myself, I’ve wanted the same thing. I always put myself and what I want socially on the back burner. I didn’t go to school like regular kids; I was homeschooled at my gym. I didn’t go to football games or dances. I never even went to prom or homecoming. I was a gymnast twenty-four seven. The only guys I talked to were my coaches. Even when I would go to a camp with other gymnasts, they never let us be by the boys. They kept the girls in one gym and the boys in another.

Because boys are a distraction.

It was seared into my brain.

Honestly, I was told that all the time. Focus on what you want, and I wanted to get into the Olympics to bring the gold home for my mom. That’s all I ever wanted. I didn’t care about boys or anything like that. I had a goal, and even when that goal was taken away because of my stupid body, another one was born. It wasn’t to lose my virginity. No, it was to get into a great college so I could get a top-notch education and open my own gym. So I can support my mom.

That goal is still there, but even I can’t ignore that boys are everywhere at this damn college. I went from hardly seeing any of them to seeing them all the time, and boy, are they hot. Amelia is right. I hermit up whenever I’m around one, and soon people will probably start calling me a freak. However, I don’t hermit around Ryan.