Page 27 of The Perfect Deal

“And hot boys in swim trunks,” Tessa added, waggling her eyebrows. That made all of us giggle, except for Karrie, who cleared her throat to get Tessa’s attention and then shook her head. Tessa turned back to me and pressed her lips together, and I shrugged. They were teenagers. Of course, they were going to be checking each other out.

The winning teams had a chance to rest for a few minutes. I made sure my girls all had enough water and brought them anything they needed. By the time the last game started, they seemed pumped and ready to go.

The game started off as expected with the boys quickly jumping out to a big lead. However, my girls didn’t give up, and before long, they’d cut that lead in half. Robby and Axel were getting a little cocky, trying to do trick passes, but Rhiannon was fast, as was Tessa, and those two girls managed to steal the ball a few times. I thought Coach Sam was going to blow a gasket as he reminded his team from the sideline that they had to protect the ball.

In the final quarter, Tessa stole the ball from Axel and sprinted down the court. Robby managed to catch up to her, getting in front of her. Tessa threw a no-look pass over her shoulder to Monique at the three-point line, and she sank it from the top of the key. The entire camp exploded in cheers. Even the boys sitting on the bench for Fox House began to cheer. The boys were still ahead by five with less than two minutes to go, but the girls weren’t ready to give up.

The boys inbounded the ball, and Rhiannon appeared out of nowhere, stealing the ball from one of the boys whose name I didn’t know. Again, she was off to the races. Robby reached in to try to knock it away from her, but he fouled her, and Rhiannon hit the floor hard. The crowd went quiet as we all held our breath, waiting to see if she was okay.

Joshua was the first one to get to the girl who was lying on the floor, holding her knee. “Nurse!” he shouted.

I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth, praying Rhiannon was okay. The nurse ran over, carrying her black bag. I caught Joshua’s eyes, and he nodded, trying to tell me Rhiannon was going to be okay. A few moments later, he helped her to her feet. She had a large bandage on her shin, and some tears glistened in her eyes, but she was okay.

The ref determined Rhiannon had been in the process of raising the ball for a layup when she was fouled, so the girl took her place at the free-throw line. She sank the first shot, bringing the boys’ lead to four. She sank the second shot as well, and now they were only losing by three.

Again, the boys threw the ball in, and the girls did everything they could to try to get it back. The boys seemed content to just run out the clock, passing the ball around, not giving the girls a chance to get it. But one of the boys threw the ball just a bit off, and Monique flew in and cut him off, grabbing it out of the air and heading down the court as fast as she could.

With two seconds left on the clock, Monique fired a shot from the half-court line. There was no way she could make it from there—could she?

The ball hit the rim, bounced three times, and went in.

It was a tie—the game was tied. Everyone began to cheer, and I realized then that there would be no overtime. We had co-champions.

I rushed in along with everyone else to hug the girls and congratulate them. They might not have won, but they hadn’t lost either, and I was so very proud of all of them.

Later that afternoon, I found myself with my feet in the pool, watching the girls swim around, chatting to one another and the occasional boy. Rhiannon was sitting on a pool chair when Robby came over and handed her an ice cream cone. He sat down on the chair next to her, and a smile crept onto my face just watching them.

“I think he feels bad for taking her out,” Joshua said, sitting down next to me.

My heart skipped a beat as I caught sight of him in his swimming trunks. “I think they like one another,” I told him.

“Really?” His eyebrows arched as he looked at the pair. “Well, yeah, maybe.” He cleared his throat and shrugged. “By the way, you look really cute in that bathing suit.”

I felt my face heating up. “Thank you so much,” I told him. “You look pretty nice yourself.” He shrugged but grinned at me. “It was so much fun watching the tournament.”

“Yeah, I love watching the kids compete. They’re such good sports about everything, always cheering, even for the competition.”

“You’ve done a great job of teaching them that,” I said. “You and your team.”

“Thanks. It’s a huge priority for us. You know—”

Before Joshua could finish, Karrie plopped herself down on his other side. “What are you two chatting about?” she asked. “Did you see Rhiannon and Robby? Do you think I should go break them up?”

“They’re just talking,” Joshua said. “It’s cute.”

“Oh, yeah. It’s so cute.” Karrie’s tone completely changed as soon as Joshua gave the conversation a thumbs-up.

I sucked in a deep breath and held it, knowing now that my suspicions from yesterday were definitely true.

Karrie liked Joshua.

17

JOSHUA

Why the hell had Karrie come over and plunked herself down next to me as soon as Liberty and I had started talking? This always seemed to be my luck. The moment I had the opportunity to talk to her, someone came over and interfered. Whether it was Landon or Karrie or some rando I didn’t even know, I hardly ever got a chance to talk to her alone.

Now, here we were out in the middle of the woods away from everyone we both knew and we were still being interrupted.