Out of Bounds | Book 3 in USC series

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎.

This time would be different. No tears. No yelling. No fights every other day. No more broken promises.I would make her happy and treat her how she deserved to be treated in the first place. I couldn't lose her again. I couldn't go through the pain of losing her again.

I may not have acted like it in the months that we were apart, but it killed me wondering if she had moved on. Wondering if someone else was making her laugh and smile. Wondering if someone else had touched her the way that I did, kissed her the way that I did, It killed me and that pain, that pain was the worst that I had ever felt.

But I knew that it was nothing compared to how I made her feel.

My pain wasn't even an inch on a scale compared to hers.

" So why basketball?" She asked, breaking my admiration.

I chew on my bottom lip, my gaze drifts away from her observant stare to the cloth underneath my cutlery. " Fun fact, I wanted to play football before I ever wanted to play basketball. Turns out that turf and cleats weren't for me. That and I continued to grow so I turned to basketball."

" The squeaking of my shoes against the hardwood floors, the bouncing of the ball, watching the ball bounce off the backboard and into the net, it put everything into perspective for me," I smiled as I remembered the first time feeling the leather of the basketball against my palms.

Unlike holding a football, it felt right. And that was my sign, basketball was my sport.

" I was always a team player and playing along with others came easy to me. Unlike football, I was actually pretty damn good at basketball."

" Clearly," her eyes twinkle.

" Clearly," I laugh softly. " Basketball was an escape. Believe it not, Skylar and I are the black sheep of the family. We wanted to get as far away from the clutches of our grandfather as possible."

" What better way to do that than to move all the way across the country," she says, nodding in understanding.

" Exactly." Sometimes family could be the one thing that holds you back from doing what you truly loved. Skylar and I, we didn't want that to happen. We didn't want to be groomed to take over the family business. We wanted to choose for ourselves.

Everytime that Skylar switched her major, I wondered if she knew what she wanted. Was she so indecisive, or was she trying to put her choice to choose her path in life to find what she truly wanted to do.

I'd learned from an early age not to wonder too much about my twin. If I thought too hard about her choices, I'd give myself a migraine and just observe her from afar. Her oddball personality didn't help her case either.

" Why business?" I partially knew the answer. But deep inside, I had an inkling that she wanted more than just her father's business. She was bigger than her running one of his businesses.

Picturing her in a corporate office and pantsuit didn't feel right. I saw her wearing bold colors, mixing and matching patterns to her heart's content. Sure she could do that in the space of her own corporate office, but that wasn't Jora. Paperwork and finances weren't her.

Jora was all about fashion. Her face lit up like the Christmas tree at Rockefeller when she saw the latest and freshest ideas that designers introduced to the world during New York Fashion week. I even recalled a conversation between her and Rhegan about hoping to be invited to attend one somewhere down the line.

" I guess I want to make my father proud."

My mouth twisted to the side, waiting for her to elaborate.