“Just a little bit further, baby,” he whispered to Blanchard and they both laughed. I was going to join them, wondered what had them giggling like two twelve-year-olds at their first slumber party, but when I followed their low-lidded gazes and spotted Aly’s round, perfect ass right in front of those two knuckle heads, I curled my fists hard, stepping in front of them to block their view.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

They kept smiling, grinning like jackasses and Richard shrugged. “Come on, man, look at her. She’s hot.”

“And?” I said, moving right in his face, glancing once at Blanchard so he’d back off when he patted my shoulder. “That gives you a right to stare at her ass?”

“Ransom, man, seriously?”

“Seriously, asshole. You don’t get to stare at her like that.” My knuckles ached, had turned fainter than my complexion as I held my hand tight. It was Richard’s expression though, a little humbled, more than shocked by my reaction I guessed, that had me stepping away from them.

“Man, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were hooked up with her.”

“Hooked up?” What is wrong with you? That nipping at the back of my mind shook me, and I glanced over my shoulder, watched as Aly nodded to Kona when he spoke to her before I looked back at my two teammates. They weren’t looking at her. Instead they both frowned at me like my reaction was way out of character. It was and I scratched my chin, forcing my eyes to move away from Aly and her retreat into the kitchen. “I, I’m not with her,” I told them, rolling my eyes when I caught the doubt on their matching expressions. “I’m not.”

“Well, shit, Ransom you’ve got that whole jealous boyfriend shit down.”

“You…you know what? Fuck you both,” I told those two smug-smiling dumb asses, walking away from them to chug the warm beer in my hand.

The night progressed much the same way with me acting like a dick anytime I caught Richard and Blanchard with their heads together, nodding toward Aly as she moved around the lake house. I knew what kept their attention. She looked beautiful with her hair down her back, just brushing her waist and her strong, toned arms and legs on modest display in that fitted patterned sundress. That still didn’t mean they needed to ogle her and it didn’t explain why I kept doing a little ogling myself.

She moved around the room like she owned the world, not intimidated by all the boosters and their damn money or their shitty attitudes. Aly didn’t smile, but still had a friendly, soft grin on her face, one that drew the attention of others around her. She moved like no one could touch her, like just her swaying hips and the strong, confident gait told the world she knew who she was and no one could mess with that. Confidence goes a long way, and Aly was catching attention with hers. Me? I could not figure out why it made me mad that people were taking notice of her.

The lake house emptied a couple of hours later and when the head coach and his wife finally left and just my parents, Leann, Aly and I were left, we all seemed to breathe a little easier. At least, we could get out of our church clothes.

“Hope those bastards enjoyed that,” Dad said, coming behind my mother to rub her shoulders. “You should go sit down, Wildcat. We can take care of the cleanup.”

“I’d say to leave it but Aly’s head would explode,” she said, smiling at Aly when she took a handful of plates into the kitchen.

“Nope, we’ll get it.” Leann nodded for Mom to sit on the sofa. “Ransom will help, won’t you, little cousin?”

“You know,” I said, rolling up the sleeves of my dress shirt, “I liked you better when Tristian was around for you to bully.”

“Hush, I’m not that bad.” Leann turned my shoulders and gave me a push towards the kitchen, pointing to a stack of dirty dishes.

We cleaned the mess as my mother dictated from the sofa, rubbing her belly with her feet propped against the coffee table. She paused in her supervising to laugh at Leann dancing in the middle of the room after she turned the music up to something that would have had the boosters covering their ears and closing their wallets.

“Aren’t you almost forty, lady?” Mom asked Leann. “You shouldn’t be able to move like that.”

“Please, you don’t outgrow moves like these.”

That insane woman danced around the living room with a bag in her hand, shimming and shaking as she cleaned away the party mess and I rolled my eyes, heading back into the kitchen to deposit a stack of plates on the counter.

“I can do that, Aly, you don’t have to,” I said when I caught her unloading the dishwasher.

“It’s no big deal.” She moved to the music and I smiled. Leann had always done that too, most dancers did. It was something written into the genetic make-up, some weird instinctual coding that made them break out into a move, a twist, whatever compulsion it was that called to them. Aly did the same thing, I’d noticed, with or without music playing.

She did that just then in the kitchen with her hands on forks and knives, and her feet freed from the heels she had been wearing. I laughed at her when she twirled around that kitchen and laughed harder when I stepped back into the living for more plates, catching Leann doing some sort of weird twist with her hips that made me think she’d completely lost it.

“Work it!” Mom called, falling back against the sofa when Leann started twerking, moving faster the louder my mother laughed.

“Some things never change,” Dad said, stuffing trash into a bag when I headed back toward the kitchen.

“They were like this in college?”

He glanced at me, shaking his head. “They weren’t this bad in college.”

“Age gives you confidence, Hale,” Leann shouted.

My father loved bickering with Leann, said it was some residual throw back to their CPU days when Leann thought he wasn’t good enough for her sweet little cousin and Dad said and did shit just to piss her off. That certainly hadn’t changed in the years since then.

His laughter followed me into the kitchen, my arms weighed down with dirty champagne flutes, but then I caught sight of Aly and my mind went blank. She reached to the topmost cabinet with a cup in her hand, stretching, trying to get it onto the shelf. As she twisted up and lifted on the tip of her toes, that dress she wore caught on the countertop and rode up further than it should have, giving me a clear view of the curve of her naked ass.

It was firm, perfectly round and I tightened my grip on one of the flutes, hearing it splinter as Aly cursed low under her breath. Then it became apparent that my mind wasn’t the only thing I had no control over as my dick got twitchy the longer I stared at her.

Behind me, my father’s voice drifted, then completely stopped, but I didn’t hear him, was too caught by the sight of Aly’s bare, beautiful skin. My head moved forward and I nearly dropped the flutes when my father popped me in the back of the head, catching me in my creepy gawk and scaring the shit out of me.

Dad’s glare was enough to deflate my twitchy dick and I deposited the flutes in the sink, barely hearing my father offer to give Aly a hand.

Later Leann pulled Aly from the kitchen to dance with her, my parents laughing at them from the sofa and me staring from the open bar near the den. It made the memory of her bare ass and my knotted up emotions worse. I laughed right along with them at first as Leann moved her hips, tried like hell to match what we’d all seen in the Shakira video when she sang about her hips not lying, but she couldn’t quite manage that twist and shimmy. Aly could and set about showing my cousin how to move her hips in impossible angles.

“No, bend your knees more, cheri. Straighten one leg, then, boom…shimmy.”

Jesus did she. That short little dress moved, flashed against her thighs, perfect, smooth tawny skin teasing with every shake, but my eyes were transfixed, unmovable as Aly turned in a circle and her hips went up and down, up and down. Boom indeed. Boom went my heart as she moved, boom went that thud in my stomach, the one that told me I needed to get myself together and stop acting like a little punk about this girl.