Free False Start (Eastshore Tigers Book 2) by Alison Hendricks Page B

“We’ll see.”

    * * *
    T en minutes later , I’m watching Erickson showboat with the damn 8 ball.
    He has a clear shot, no bullshit required. But he seems to really like bullshit at the moment. He sizes up the angle, tries to calculate it, moves around the table and stops just shy of actually hitting the cue ball.
    “If you don’t hit that thing, I’m going to throw it at the jukebox and tell Ben you launched it.”
    Two birds with one cue ball, really, since the jukebox is playing a really corny country song. Erickson just laughs, gives a showy bow, and then sinks the ball with a smooth shot, the cue sliding seamlessly through his fingers.
    “That’s game,” he says, and he’s smiling like a kid who’s just come downstairs for Christmas.
    “Yeah, yeah. Nice shooting, Thor.”
    He winks at me, and I roll my eyes. Even as another flush of heat spreads through my gut.
    “Lucky for you, I’m a benevolent god. You don’t have to pay up right away.”
    I scoff at him. “No shit, you haven’t even told me what move you want me to teach you yet.”
    “All in good time,” he says with a mischievous grin.
    We fish the balls out of the pockets and get them back into a perfect triangle for the next players. While we’re finishing up, I can see the crowd in the main bar has died down. I pull out my phone, and suddenly understand why. It’s a quarter ‘til closing time.
    Shit. It didn’t seem like we’d spent that long playing.
    I can’t help but smile. The last time I really had a night to just forget about all the shit in my life was back when Hawk was still QB at Eastshore.
    Of course, I know it can’t last. The dorm fucked up my assignments this year, and they told me it’d be another week before they were able to assign me a room. That was three weeks ago, but I guess since I’m local they figure they can keep screwing me.
    Sometimes, I just crash at a teammate’s house. But I haven’t made arrangements for that yet, and the guys that are left are fall-down drunk.
    As if he’s able to read my mind, Erickson speaks up. “I’ve got a car, if you need a ride to your dorm or something.”
    I should just tell him I’ll walk. My neighborhood isn’t that far from here, and nobody messes with a 6’3’’ black guy walking down the street at 2 AM. But something in me shrinks away from the idea. If I go home, my mom’s going to want to make a fuss over me. She’s going to spend money she doesn’t have on feeding me and spoiling me, and when I leave again, things are just going to get worse for her.
    So instead, I find myself telling him the truth. “My RA fucked up the room list, so I’m out a dorm for a little while longer.”
    “Shit, are you serious?”
    “Nah, I’m totally fucking with you about being homeless,” I say, though there’s no malice in my voice.
    Even still, Erickson starts to look a little… I don’t know how to describe it. Off-center. Even though we’ve racked the balls, he focuses on them again, making sure they’re perfectly lined up and just touching. He doesn’t look at me for a long time, and I almost consider just leaving without him and accepting my fate.
    “I’ve got a place that’s only about a 10-minute drive from here. It’s pretty small, but there’s a couch for you if you want it. Or a bed. I mean, I’ll sleep on the couch and you can sleep on the bed. I didn’t mean—”
    I laugh softly. Seeing a guy like this get flustered is a treat, but my exhaustion is catching up with me and I can’t really gather the mental energy to tease him about it. Not when I’m trying to summon all my good sense and tell him thanks, but no thanks.
    Crashing with Erickson is just a bad idea. Sure, he seems like a cool guy. Cooler than I thought he was when we first met. The fact that he still wants to hang with me even after my shit is proof of that. But the guy did get drinks for everybody like it was nothing. Even if I paid off my own tab, I don’t really want to owe