After club, I linger, pretending to look for something in my backpack. Really I’m watching Matt. Lean muscles under a fitted polo shirt. He dresses nicely, at least compared to most of the guys in school. I wonder if he works out, or what. He’s not super buff, like Patrick, but he has really nice arms and shoulders.
“You want a ride home?” he says.
“Sure.” I jump at the offer. “Oh, but I have to call my mom first.” I cringe, because it makes me sound like a kindergartner. “I mean, to tell her she doesn’t need to come get me.” She’s probably already on her way.
“Okay,” Matt says. He hoists his backpack and shifts his weight to the other foot as I pull out my cell.
“Honey?” Mom’s voice is anxious. “Are you okay?”
“Mom, you don’t have to come get me,” I tell her. “I got a ride home.”
“No,” she says. “I’m coming to get you.”
“I’m saying you don’t have to. Aren’t you still home?”
“No,” Mom declares, her voice shrill. “You do not get in anyone’s car. Do I make myself clear?”
The seismic urgency in her tone shreds all hope to dust. Tipping the phone away from my mouth, I shake my head at Matt. “No-go.”
He frowns.
“I don’t know what you were thinking, missing the bus,” Mom says. “Now I have to come get you.”
I turn away from Matt and lower my voice, as if it’ll stop him from hearing. “I called, remember? You said it was okay to stay after.”
“I’m coming to get you.”
“Okay, Mom.”
“I’m coming now.”
“Okay.”
“You had better be there waiting for me.”
“Mom.”
“Do you want to be grounded until the other side of time?”
“Mom. I said okay.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes.” Which is a total lie. Home is a fifteen-minute drive away.
“Take your time,” I tell her. “It’s no big deal.”
“I love you, sweetie,” she says. “Please be safe.”
“I will.”
“I love you.”
And … now she’s not hanging up the phone. I can’t hang up on her. I know what she’s waiting for, and it’s going to embarrass the shit out of me.
I cover the mouthpiece with my hand. “I love you, too,” I whisper. Then I click off.
Matt’s holding his backpack strap and staring at his shoes. Or mine. I can’t tell.
“Sorry. I guess I don’t need a ride. She’s already on her way.”
He probably knows I’m lying. It’s not like Mom was whispering. No such thing as a soundproof cell phone.
“Next time,” he says. “If she’s cool with it.” Yep, he knows.
“Next time,” I agree. “Hey, when is the next time?”
“We meet when we feel like it.” He shrugs. “Not always at school, though. You’ll get the hang of it.”
We walk outside, taking our time. At the curb by the pickup lane, Matt lingers like he’s going to wait with me.
“You don’t have to wait.”
“Sure?” he says.
“Yeah. She’ll be here any minute.”
We look down the lane. No cars coming yet.
A spiteful, reckless little nugget of my soul speaks up. Without permission. “Actually, who cares? I’ll just go with you anyway.” My feet respond to the same illicit call; they tip toward the parking lot. I step off the curb, and now I’m looking up at him.
Matt grins. “You wanna be some kind of rebel?”
No. I don’t know. Maybe. “Let’s just go,” I beg him. “Anywhere you want.”
“Naw.” Matt lays a hand on my shoulder. It’s the third time he’s touched me there. So much fuel for my fantasies. There’s a warm shower in my immediate future. The minute I get home. Not to wash him off, but to … imagine.
“Please,” I say, and maybe there’s a little crack in my voice. Because maybe I don’t want to see Mom right now. Maybe I don’t want her to light into me about whatever is pissing her off about me. Maybe Matt Rincorn has touched me one too many times now, and with everything so close to the surface, maybe I won’t be able to hide my feelings for the fifteen minutes it takes us to get home.
“Kermit, don’t worry about it. There’s going to be plenty of time for us to get in trouble later.”
There is?
The picture rises in my mind: Matt and me together, whipping down a paved black road, windows down so the air rushes in, holding hands and laughing. It almost could have been today.
“For now, why don’t you cut your mom some slack,” he says. “I mean, considering what just happened. I totally get it.”
From behind Matt Rincorn’s wry smile, an imaginary brick wall comes flying at me. Seventy-five, eighty miles an hour. When the windshield glass shatters, the pieces turn white, like his teeth.
That’s right, little bro, Sheila’s voice whispers in my head. I ruined everything.