Page 2 of Teach’s Hayride with the Baller

The kitchen door banged shut, leaving me outside the bakery, bereft of both coffee and delicious scents. I stood with my hands outstretched, wondering for a moment how I got here, then shook my head. One teacher, a distracting crowd of customers and a brewing Halloween fantasy, apparently.

Besides, I didn't want to upset my sister. I liked my constant supply of coffee—that currently stood on the other side of the door—and when I wasn't training for basketball, I enjoyed helping her out. She’d nailed a short sheer short list of chores to the back of the door, starting with trash which was underlined in heavy black marker. A short laugh escaped me. Okay. Menial stuff, I could do if that was what she needed. And on the other front… I had this. There was the match I still had to play against varsity. Maybe the new teacher would be in attendance. That meant I had plenty of time to wrangle myself an invitation into her life. Take her for a tour around Broomcorn Hollow as we ramped up for the touristy season. Maybe do some of the foodie stuff. Hopefully she liked coffee. Flavors always ramped up at the end of September.

Now I just had to work out the when and the where of finding our town’s newest resident without becoming the local stalker instead of Broomcorn’s jock…

And earn myself a different sort of label.

"Eye on the ball. Mind off the girl. What the hell is that?" I reached out but missed grabbing the ball by inches.

Not my best practice. Framing the lost opportunity as a fake, I posed in action but Coach wasn't buying it.

"If you keep that up, you'll be benched on Friday night," he snapped.

Well, that wouldn’t do. I dropped the pose and fell in next to Jordan, keeping up with his pace, and the relative peace.

We were a few steps into setting up the next play before I spoke up. "Your sister studies at the university, right?"

Jordan never took his eyes off the ball he dribbled. "Yeah. But she won't date a joker like you."

I shook my head, not letting his barb land. "Not interested." I realized how that sounded. "Ah, I'm sure she's wonderful.” Someone nearby winced. I ignored that, too. “What does she study?"

"Education. She wants to be an elementary teacher."

“Perfect,” I murmured to myself. That was exactly what our new teacher, Hazel Templeton, taught on the same campus.

It didn’t take much to learn about her. Broomcorn wasn’t just famous for our love of all things spooky season.

We also loved to talk. Preferably about whatever was newest in town. Or who.

Jordan glanced sideways at me. "Are we playing ball or what?" he snarked.

I took a hard pass to the chest for my efforts. Pretending not to be winded as fuck, I worked my way up the court, dodging my own team as I played against the reserve squad for practice. The player who marked me, Bison – because the boy was as big as one – raised his arms and snarled in my face as though it was game day.

"You're not getting through…"

I stared him straight in the eyes, not letting a single flicker of emotion through to the younger, fierce man. "No intention of that," I said softly.

I raised my arms and shot straight over his head. I didn't need to check to know the shot went in. It felt good coming out of my hands and Coach’s soft grumble as the ball bounced for the first time saved my ass.

Jordan's slap on my shoulder gave me hope.

“All right. You’ve redeemed yourself. But you don't touch my sister," he added, his eyes wary.

"No intention of that either."

“Uh huh.” He dribbled the ball around me, his gaze still cautious.

Okay, so I might have had a rep. But I wasn’t that sort of a baller. The string of broken hearts littering my wake were mine, not theirs. My score card for picking out which girl was interested in the person and not the player ran in the negatives column, at least on my side.

“I'm planning on–" I shut my mouth as Jordan sent me another look, and shrugged. Airing my scheme to give the new teacher town tour suddenly seemed like a bad idea.

“He’s sweet on the new international ship in.” Feldsman bounded past us, a shit eating grin on his face.

Jordan rocked back on his heels. "Looks like I don't have to worry about my sister after all."

Well, that was unfortunate. I rumbled with Feldsman good-naturedly as Jordan passed the ball. A good thing as it was the distraction I needed from the stinging tension that arced across my chest at the thought of another date that headed nowhere.

I forced a smile. "I'm gonna shoot my shot."