Hooped #2 (The Hooped Interracial Romance Series #2) Read Free Page A

but…” I put the last of my pizza
aside. I was so full I was starting to get uncomfortable. I sipped at my Coke.
“Besides which, people would just figure I was some kind of crazy disgruntled
groupie.” The last thing I wanted was for anyone else to know that I had slept with
Devon.
    “Well, as to how much energy you should put into it,
what went down?” I looked away. I was wrong; the last thing I wanted was to
have to think about how good it had been,
how hopeful I had been. But I told Kelly everything I could remember about what
Devon and I had talked about; both before and after having sex. I told her
about how sweet he’d been, about how he’d pulled me close and cuddled up to me.
    I told her about waking up before Devon did, and the
small talk we’d exchanged, as best as I could remember it. I didn’t even know
how accurate my memories were. “I feel like… I know I wasn’t drunk.”
    “Are you sure? I mean if you were drunk, you could
totally accuse him of taking advantage of you. And he did get you drinks while
you were talking before. Maybe he slipped something into yours — or had one of his brothers do that. There were
some accusations like that about one of the Phi Kappa boys a few years ago.” I
shook my head.
    “Accuse him of rape? That’s—that’s really , really dark, Kelly. I couldn’t do that
to him. He was shitty just to use me and
move on, but that’s…” I exhaled slowly. “That’s not just something that would
ruin his life; it’d make it harder for
girls who really did get raped to come forward because once everyone found out it was fake…”
    “Okay, so bad idea. I get where you’re coming from.”
Kelly sighed. “Did he actually say that it was special between you two?” I
racked my mind.
    “He said something like that, that it was really
special… I think.” I chewed on my bottom lip. “But it wasn’t like he said that
he wanted to take me out or anything.”
    “Not even before he got you in bed?” I shook my head.
    “He suggested I could come over and watch the game
with the rest of the guys, but that’s not a date.” Kelly shrugged.
    “If he didn’t really promise you anything, then I
guess it doesn’t make sense to do anything extreme to get back at him.” I sighed and nodded.
    “Yeah, I’d feel—I’d feel like I was a worse person
than him, even. Or some kind of crazy person. I’ll just… I’ll just avoid him
and pretend like nothing happened. That seems like the best option.” I sighed
again. “Now if only I could make myself think that nothing happened. That would
be great.”

 
    Chapter
Three
    I woke up the next day, and somehow I felt both better
and worse. In a certain respect, the fact that I had lost my virginity was less
and less important, but the fact of how Devon had seemingly gone right onto the
next girl without even thinking, apparently, was even more painful. I lay in
bed for a while, trying to decide what I was going to do. The weekend was
halfway over, and I hadn’t done any studying at all. I had been too wrapped up
in the party, in the game—and in the bullshit involving Devon—to actually do
any of the things that I had been planning to do on Friday when I got back to
the dorms from class.
    In addition to the fact that I needed to get a good
bit of studying done, I was less than interested in anything that could
possibly result in me running into Devon. I didn’t even want to see anyone at
all. I thought in my paranoid way that somehow, even though I had only told
Kelly about what had happened, if anyone
saw me, they would immediately know about it.
    I still felt weepy, but I couldn’t quite bring myself
to cry about the situation. I was torn between being angry and Devon and
wanting simply to never see him again in
my life—so that I could start pretending that I had never met him. There goes my perfect attendance at every
basketball game, I thought wryly. I
couldn’t imagine going and watching the team play