I couldn't find Tristan in the cafeteria or out in the courtyard, which made me wonder whether freshmen really were invisible. As the day wore on, I got more and more anxious about tracking him down. The guy needed to be clued in to his grand love for me.
After last bell, figuring Heartless owed me at least one favor, I poked my head into her office and announced I'd be a few minutes late for practice. I ducked out before she had a chance to answer. What was she going to do—throw me off the team?
Traveling through the corridors and then outside. I scanned the various groups for a tall freshman. And after several frustrating and fruitless minutes, I all but gave up. Then, as I was turning back toward the building, he was suddenly right across from me, sitting on a low wall with some buddies. His slightly averted eyes told me he'd seen me, too, but was playing by our rules—okay, my rules.
My mind raced. Should I call him away? Go act all friendly, as if I talked to people like him every day? Or … hmmm. Since thinking before acting hadn't been winning me any awards, why not do something spontaneous?
“There you are.” I waited until I had his attention, stepped closer, then slid in close to him.
Tristan smiled brightly as his eyes widened in surprise, accenting his dark, long lashes. After a long moment, his gaze moved from mine to his circle of friends, then back to my gaze again.
“Parker …,” he said in an urgent half whisper, like there might still be time for me to untangle myself and preserve my rep.
I looped my arms around his neck, which was wider and firmer than I remembered, and a little sweaty, too. “It's okay, babe,” I said with a big play- along- with- me smile. “We've been outed. Everyone knows we're together, and it's cool.”
“Cool?”
“Yes—cool.” To drive my point home, I leaned in and kissed him. Smack on the lips. Not with the skill he'd shown me recently, but still not half bad, if I said so myself. Pulling back, I saw the question marks in his eyes.
I totally had explaining to do, but for now, job done. “Listen, I'm late for practice. Talk to you tonight?”
Tristan stood and took a step toward me, as if to f ol-low. “Without a doubt.”
I turned and, as naturally as possible, walked away, chuckling, but not walking so fast or chuckling so loud that I missed the whoops and cheers from the guys in his crowd. Suffice it to say, I'd paid my debt. In spades.
•
Coach Hartley, on the other hand, was not so agreeable. After calling me into her office, she did a head- shaking, sighing thing certainly intended to make me feel guilty.
“I understand you're not happy with me right now, Parker,” she said, clearly not happy herself. “But we have team rules, and they start with being prompt and ready to play, remember?”
I pressed my lips together so that I didn't let out what I really wanted to say: how I'd always shown up on time, always been ready to play, and a fat lot of good that had done me.
“Remember?” she repeated.
It was my turn to sigh. “Yes, I remember.”
Heartless moved to the door and called Lyric Wolensky in. I'd known Lyric since our first year here, and, while she was a decent goalie, her personality off the field was as dull as her mousy brown hair. She often got lost or forgotten in the chaotic chatter of the locker room, and when she did speak up, her top lip barely moved.
Coach settled back behind her desk after Lyric took the hard plastic chair beside me. “Girls, I know you both expected to make varsity. I had every intention of moving the whole team up. But it became a numbers game.” She shrugged. “Please know it was tough for me to make those decisions and post that list.”
I hugged myself so my heart didn't bleed all over her carpet.
“And know I've got big things planned for you this season. Leadership roles and inclusion in pivotal decisions. Next year, when you're seniors on varsity, if things have gone well, I'll see if I can extend those same privileges. So try not to look at this year as being held back as much as preparing you for great things next year.”
I followed Lyric's lead of a weak smile, when all I could think was Nice try, Heartless.
“And of course, you are the first choices if a position should open this fall on varsity. So stay at the top of your game, set the right example for the younger players and be ready to lead the team to a championship.”
Lyric thanked her, while I just nodded.
“At the end of practice today,” Hartley went on, “I'll be naming you JV captain, Parker, and you,” she said, looking at Lyric, “cocaptain. Start preparing a few words now, because after the applause, I know you'll want to speak.” She grinned, like this public recognition and acknowledgment of our JV- ness was an honor.
Since my parents did raise me to have manners, I mumbled something to her that sounded grateful. Then I wandered out of her office, my mind all over Chrissandra's reaction, which I wagered would fall somewhere between an “I told you so” and a nose- in-the- air snub. I knew better than to expect sympathy and an invitation back into the fold.
In other words, Heartless had just given me the one kiss I was betting Tristan could never teach me: the kiss of death.
Lyric caught up to me. “So, captain and cocaptain,” she said, her tone so flat, her face so frozen, that I didn't know if she was near tears or happier than she'd ever been in her life.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “ Whoop- de- do.”
“Hey, at least you're top dog.”
Sunlight smacked me when I pulled open the gym door. I waited until she'd joined me on the concrete, then turned back to her. “You want it, Lyric? It's yours.”
Her brown hair bobbed with her head shake. “No thanks. I figure, as cocaptain, if there is an opening on varsity, she'll pick me first. I mean, why promote the captain and shake up both teams?”
I opened my mouth to laugh, to tell her she was absolutely right, but for some reason, no sound came out.
All I could think of was how hard I'd worked that morning to get up my nerve to come to school, how I'd convinced myself that effort and a good attitude would pay off. And while most people had basically accepted or ignored me, the few who'd paid me real attention had tromped soccer cleats on what was left of my life.
•
I guess it only stood to reason that my father chose that night to freak out over my “friendship” with Tristan.
Apparently he had seen the two of us drive off on Friday night. My mother told me she'd calmed him down by telling him that I was helping Tristan adjust to high school (which she believed to be true). While my father was decent enough to think it neighborly of me, he had definite lines where his niceness ended and his psychotic behavior began. And as far as he was concerned, I was fraternizing with the enemy.
After dinner, with Mom chatting away on the phone to Clayton, I made a general announcement into the air that I was going for a walk—and apparently crossed my dad's invisible line.
“With the Murphy boy again?” he asked, moving into the doorway in what could have been perceived as a block.
I shrugged. “Yeah. Does it matter? We're just, you know, talking about teachers and stuff.” Stuff like Eskimo Kisses and lean- ins and how we're supposedly in love.
My dad's heavy brow (which seemed to get heavier with the mention of anything Murphy) lowered. “That's it?”
“That's it,” I said, crossing my fingers at my side and wondering if eventually I'd have to—God forbid—spread the lie about our “romance” to my family, too.
“He doesn't ask you questions about … me, about the house?”
A laugh snaked its way up and out of me (probably not a good move, but you can't always control your reactions). “No. What, you think Tristan is working for his dad to get the goods on you so he can launch preemptive attacks?”
He glared at me.
“You think they're going to subpoena me in small-claims court,” I went on, “to testify against you?”
“That is not funny, Parker.”
Since my mother was still chatting away, I ignored the implied don't-stress-your-father-out rule and said exactly what I thought. “You're right, Dad. It's not funny. This whole thing between you and his father is so not funny it's embarrassing.”
Tension clenched his jaw, telling me he was not saying way more than he was saying. “Well, if he does ask you anything suspicious, don't answer right away. Give me a chance to decide what to tell him.”
Omigod, were we like that Spy Kids family now, all working together to bring down the enemy?
He glowered, then stepped away from the door. “And just don't you forget whose roof you live under.”
How could I? It was the one with the gutters so meticulously painted that Mr. Murphy couldn't report us if he wanted to.
•
Spotting Tristan shooting baskets in the street moments later made my legs pick up speed. Finally—someone with no agenda, no rules, no hidden knives to slip into my back. I practically skipped down the driveway and across the street.
“Hey, stranger.”
He bit back a smile, dribbling the ball. “Well, well, if it isn't the love of my life.”
“Yeah. About time you realized the effect I have on you.”
He rolled his midnight blue eyes, but a smile hung around his mouth. “I assume this all has to do with soccer and Chrissandra?”
“Don't all my roads lead there?” I let out a big breath and recounted what had happened by my locker and how I'd come to announce that we were victims of star-crossed love.
“Risky,” he said when I was done. He rested the ball on the pavement and stopped it from rolling with the tip of his sneaker. “But good going.”
“Well, I figured I had two things working for us. Agewise, you really should be a sophomore, which still isn't great, but better than a freshman.”
“There's that.”
“And you're …,” I said, and shrugged, “you know … okay-looking.”
“ Okay- looking?” he repeated, probably because he liked how it sounded.
“Sure,” I said, then caught myself gazing past him. Funny, I couldn't begin to pinpoint when I'd stopped seeing a slightly annoying neighbor and started seeing someone worth looking at. “Well,” I tried to clarify, “not Luke Anderson, prom king, okay- looking. But, you know, as okay- looking as a guy in your grade can be.”
“Thanks. I guess.” He took a step closer. I could feel the warm puffs of his breath on my forehead.
“The way I figure it,” I told him, “about the time I go off to college—when you're a junior—you'll totally be worth dating.”
“Again, not sure if I should say thanks or not.” His mouth pursed into a smile, not so easy to see at this close proximity—more something I could feel. “And until then, Parker, you'll, what, put up with me?”
I pulled back and looked dead into his face. I knew this was all in fun, but if I'd given him any indication that we had a future, well, I'd screwed up. “Yeah, Sparky, but not for long. The sports fair is a week from tomorrow, and I can't have people feeling sorry for you, thinking I'm cheating on you, when I'm doing a major make- out with Luke.”
Something flickered and died in his eyes, like the last embers of a campfire. “So we'd better schedule a big breakup for this weekend, huh? Like at the Dairy Queen, where I storm off, leaving you sobbing in your Oreo Blizzard?”
“Sobbing,” I grumbled. I reached out to playfully smack his formidable chest, but he caught my hand inside his two. And held it.
For a crazy moment, I thought he was going to pull all of me toward him and kiss me. And while I figured I'd like it (maybe even a lot), it just wouldn't be cool. Our kisses were either educational or to be used for show at school. And imagine if my dad peeked out the window and saw?
Speaking of Dad …
“Look, I really better go,” I said, tugging my hand free.
“Yeah, me too.” He took a step back. “So listen, now that we're a so- called couple, if I see you in the halls or whatever, I can come up to you and everything?”
“And everything,” I said, and lifted my brow.
“Kiss you like the guy in Titanic?”
“Or like the guy in Gone with the Wind.”
His eyes went dull.
“An old movie. Never mind. You have to be like, my age to have seen it.”
He shook his head. Then he reached for his basketball. But instead of tucking it under an arm and heading home, he raised the ball over his head, lined up a shot and launched it. Into a perfect arc and swish.
Glad some people's lives are charmed.