Swish

.17

Alcohol sloshing over the rims of countless solo cups, sloppy drunk kissing and mindless groping coupled with the lung burning acrid smoke coming from vapes, blunts and cigarettes in a combined cloud of pasty whiteness, I could just barely make out my own scrambled thoughts in my head due to the muffled bass that had dropped off since leaving the packed inside of the frat house and out into the mildly packed backyard.

A backyard that held Eli Shepherd, sitting across from me with an agitated look on his gorgeous features, but I wasn't the reason he was so annoyed.

Soft brown hair pushed back on his head and dressed in light denim jeans and his white sneakers with a tight fitting graphic t-shirt which emphasized his muscles that I doubted I could even wrap my entire hands around (I don't know how I kept from fainting at my first sight of them), Eli was in his element around all of his basketball players and former frat members.

According to green faced asshole, he used to be apart of this frat, surprise, surprise.

Ignoring my thoughts of the previous action, I focused in on the newcomers, Maddie and her friend, Mia. The one she'd warned me that Eli was still involved with while talking to me at the same time...

Gorgeous ebony curls framed her face, dark mocha skin decorating her body and complimenting the pale pink skirt that hung to her frame delicately, and just of course. Of course she had to be that gorgeous, because that was my luck. There was no way I could compete with that.

I half expected this to turn into a 'what do you think you're doing with my man?!' type of situation, but then Eli did something to completely diffuse every anxious notion I had thought up.

"Hey, me and V were actually having a conversation.  Do you guys mind?"

Maddie's face fell, but Mia threw Eli a surprised smirk. What the hell was that about?

"Of course, we'll come back later," Mia said, throwing a wink at me that completely threw me off guard, my eyes widening in surprise at her bluntness. Was she really that unfazed that I was talking to Eli? Or maybe she was playing mind games with me, like she knew that I was no threat to her, so she had no problem that I was talking to him?

Sometimes, I hated being a girl.

A guy belched across the yard, and then threw off his shirt and did a belly bump with another shirtless guy beside him and then completely withdrew my previous thought. I desperately loved being a woman.

"Sorry about that. Look, I know that I had- have a certain reputation about girls, but reputations almost always reflect people in a bad light that isn't really fair to who that person is. I don't know why you stopped talking to me out of the blue, and I'll admit I probably spent way too much time wondering why, but if you're worried that I'm with someone else or something like that, I can promise you that's not the case. I even...shit," he stopped himself halfway, pulling his own chair closer to mine, close enough that our knees were touching and I almost pulled back.

Almost.

I flinched at the contact, but mostly because the warmth that seeped from his jeans into my own was delectable and addictive, and I wanted him to touch me more, all over, anywhere he could put his hands...

Running a hand haphazardly through his hair, Eli shook his head and gave a little self deprecating chuckle, like he knew what he was going to say next might be embarrassing.

"What?" I asked him, desperate to know what he was going to say, desperate for him to finish his thought.

I spied Maddie and Mia staring at us from the other side of the yard, but I didn't look their way once. My attention was solely on Eli as our eyes locked and that intense emotion sucked me out of the party and threw me right there to the pool of his green eyes that matched the verdant grass under our feet.