Humor laces his tone, but the words are serious. “Dividing attention between two things like that… it stops you from being great at either one.”

“Lots of professional athletes are married.”

“Yeah and there’s like an eighty percent divorce rate among them, too.”

I start to laugh but realize he’s completely serious. “What about casual relationships?”

He shrugs. “It’s still a distraction.”

I don’t know why this hurts my feelings, but my face heats with rejection, which doesn’t make any sense. We’re on a date. He asked me to be his date. The man gave me a freaking corsage.

“If you haven’t been on a date in…”

“Four years,” he supplies as he stands and moves toward the basket. “Maybe five.”

“Why tonight? I mean, obviously I’m amazing, but that’s quite a streak to break for a girl you barely know.”

He glances back and the panic in his eyes tells me everything. How did I not put it together before?

“Oh God.” I cover my face with both hands as my emotions spiral. “Blair and Wes put you up to this, didn’t they?” The words come out jumbled through my hands, but when he sighs, I feel confident he heard me. Of course, our best friends orchestrated this whole thing. How humiliating. I have no idea why he’d agree to go along with it.

“I’m sorry. They shouldn’t have done that.” I stand and pick up the basketball. His face is apologetic, the muscles in his neck tighten as he swallows. Full lips part and I wait in the excruciating silence to hear what he has to say. Like maybe tonight wasn’t so awful, but he says nothing.

“Gabby! Z! Open up.” Nathan pounds on the gym door, his smiling face is smashed up against the glass. At least one person is genuinely excited to hang out with me tonight.

Zeke looks conflicted, unmoving, while Nathan keeps yelling for us to let him in.

I hold up my basketball like it represents our time together and toss it toward him. He catches it easily with one big hand, still holding his in the other. “Thank you for being so nice about the whole thing, but I don’t need a pity date.”

Keep Reading The Tip-Off

ALSO BY REBECCA JENSHAK

Campus Wallflowers

Tutoring the Player

Hating the Player

Scoring the Player

Wildcat Hockey Series

Wildcat

Wild About You

Wild Ever After

Campus Nights Series

Secret Puck

Bad Crush

Broken Hearts

Wild Love

Smart Jocks Series

The Assist

The Fadeaway

The Tip-Off

The Fake

The Pass

Standalone Novels

Sweet Spot

Electric Blue Love