UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
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The body paint oozes thick and gooey against my fingers. Sam stands in front of me, shirtless, and once again I’m struck by how different he looks. Man boobs—gone. Love handles—gone. Abs—present.
“So, what am I painting?” I ask.
“Paint me orange with a navy E.”
“An E?”
“Yeah. I called some guys from the soccer team. We’re gonna spell TIGERS,” he says. “Oh, and if you want to get creative and paint some black tiger stripes on my arms, that’d be cool too.”
I wipe a nickel-sized glob of tangerine-colored paint on Sam’s stomach and start smearing it around. When my fingers reach the contours of his abs, I get that fluttery feeling again. I step away abruptly.
“I’ve got an idea,” I say.
“What?”
“You should get the girl you’re crushing on to do this at the game. That way she’s touching you.”
“You think?”
“Definitely.” I don’t explain to Sam why I’m positive this will work. “Who is she, anyway?”
His eyes are on the floor when he answers. “Amanda Bell.”
“Amanda Bell?! You have a crush on Amanda Bell?”
I repeat these words about fifty-seven times on the way to the game. Amanda Bell has fought to become queen of the B group, and she’s one of those dying-to-be-popular people who act way meaner than the actual popular people. It’s like that with monkeys too. The beta females are always the most aggressive. As soon as I hop out of Sam’s truck, he places a firm hand on each of my shoulders.
“No more talking about it now that we’re at the game, okay?”
“Done.” I pretend to button my lips.
After we get inside, I stop at the concession stand so I can watch Sam in action—I mean, buy cotton candy. Poor guy. Amanda is surrounded by three other girls. He bravely approaches the pack and singles out their snaggletoothed leader. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but the girls are giggling, and not in a good way.
Then Sam plays his trump card: he whips off his T-shirt. Amanda is as stunned as I was. She casts covert glances at her friends, and when she sees they too are smiling carnivorous smiles at Sam’s abs, she nods in agreement. By the time I pass by with my cotton candy, she’s happily rubbing paint all over his stomach. I flash him a hidden thumbs-up, and he grins.
Then I hurry to find a seat before kickoff because, despite how much I make fun of Buck and our football team, I freaking love football. The intensity of the players. The excitement in the stands. Moms clanging cowbells. Old men reliving their glory days as they holler at the boys running around under the stadium lights. It’s intoxicating.
The first quarter is pretty uneventful—it’s our defense against theirs, and they’re both good. But then I see Glenn, our star receiver, tear off down the field. He completely blows past the poor guy who is supposed to be covering him. Buck throws a wobbly rainbow of a pass, and the crowd collectively sucks in their breath. But there’s no way. Buck overthrew. Glenn won’t be able to . . .
He catches it! He jumps into the air like there’s a hidden springboard on the field and, with every muscle in his arm stretching and straining, plucks the ball one-handed and curls it into his gut as he falls back to the ground.
The crowd explodes. I whistle through my fingers and yell, “Yeah, Glenn!” People are screaming for Buck too, which just pisses me off. He threw a crappy pass. He is so lucky he has Glenn to make him look good. Sometimes Buck even throws the ball at the guy on the other team, but Glenn jumps in front of him just in time to intercept it. My dad calls him an offensive cornerback.
The head coach, a skinny, wrinkly, white-haired man who looks exactly like an old rooster (hence his nickname: the Rooster), claps Glenn on the back. The assistant coach, who is fresh out of college and the target of many schoolgirl crushes, stops jumping up and down just long enough to do the same.
We score shortly after Glenn’s magical catch, and the game calms down again. I bounce from clique to clique since my three closest friends are busy with pom-poms and herkies.
herkie (noun)
1: One of those jump thingies cheerleaders do when they’re excited.
2: Kicking one leg out to the side so it’s parallel with the ground, while simultaneously trying to kick your own ass with your other leg, while simultaneously jumping as high as you can. So it’s kind of like a toe touch, except hilarious, and the best part is they have no idea how goofy it looks.
I squeeze past my ex, Tanner Walsh (Kiss #9), as he bangs away on his drums. For a band guy, he is kind of a player. In the next section over I say hey to Sam and the rest of the T-I-G-E-R-S. Amanda Bell and her friends have taken up roost behind him, and Sam is smiling the goofiest smile. I let Seth Wong, who is the T in TIGERS and also Kiss #13 and Tanner’s ex–best friend (not a coincidence), spray my hair with glittery blue hair paint.
A couple minutes later, I get a tap on the shoulder.
“Hey, Claire.” Luke has magically appeared by my elbow.
“Hey! I’m glad you made it.”
I sneak a glance at the sideline where Megan is cheering to see if she’s noticed him yet, but she hasn’t. I try not to think about what it means that he sought me out. Try to keep the bubbly feelings scrunched down inside. I’ve already made up my mind. She can have him. I’ll just ignore his lean, muscular, soccer-player body.
“How’s the game going?” he asks.
“We’re winning! Go Tigers.”
He leans close so I can hear him over the noise of the game. “This place is packed. I had to elbow people to get to you in the front row.” His deep voice rumbles in my ear, sending a small shiver down my right side. This is going to be harder than I thought.
“Yeah, this town pretty much closes down for football.”
I try to concentrate on the game instead of on Luke, filling him in on what he missed so far. We’re half watching the game and half making small talk, when Glenn catches a short pass and darts down the field with it. The boy is fast. He sprints past the forty, the thirty. He thinks he’s beaten everyone on the other team, but then a defender the size of a wildebeest bulldozes into him. It’s one of those hits you can hear from the stands. Everyone cringes and gasps as Glenn goes down and one of his feet bends in a funny direction.
He doesn’t get up.
The Rooster and a medic run onto the field. The crowd waits in tense silence. Glenn clutches at his ankle, his face contorting in pain when they prod him. He’s able to stand and limp off the field with help, though. The crowd gives him a standing ovation. Everyone remains pretty subdued for the rest of the half, which means Luke and I can actually hear ourselves talk.
“I can’t believe I’m finally a senior,” he says.
“I know. I can’t wait to get away from this place.” I notice Buck on the sideline, putting a finger to the side of his nose and blowing a snot rocket onto the ground. “And these people. Well, maybe not everyone. I love my friends. But a lot of people in this town suck.”
“I have noticed that some of the people here are . . . different. I’m excited to be done with high school too, though.”
“Do you know what you’re going to do next year?” I ask. I word the question carefully, because in my family the question isn’t “Are you going to college?” it’s “Which college are you going to?”—but not everyone is like that.
A dark cloud passes over his face. “I know what my parents want me to do.”
“What’s that?”
“My dad’s been in the military his whole life. He started out as a grunt and worked his way up. With my grades, he’s always, ‘You have to go to the Academy. Do you know how many advantages you have that I didn’t have? Do you know how far ahead that would have put me?’ But I don’t want to go.”
“What do you want to do?”
“That’s the thing. I don’t know,” he says. “Which makes it really hard to argue.”
I nod sympathetically.
“I know I don’t want to be just like him. I guess I want to go to a school with a lot of different options so I can figure it out.”
“I know how that goes,” I say.
He looks relieved. “Really?”
“Yeah. I want to do something big to help people medically, like find an early biomarker for cancer or design a prosthetic retina or something. Which means majoring in biomedical engineering. Which means going to Georgia Tech.”
“Those all sound like great things. Why would your parents care?”
“Because everyone in my family goes to the University of Georgia. As in the archnemesis of Georgia Tech. If you’re not from here, it’s hard to explain how big a deal it is.”
“No, I get it,” he says.
“I still haven’t told my family I’m applying.” I think about how little my parents seem to notice these days. “Maybe they wouldn’t care as much as I think. Things with my family are complicated. My parents—well, my mom—” I’m interrupted by a roar from the stands.
Whoa. I can’t believe how close I just came to spilling my family secrets to him. I never talk about my family anymore. When I used to, people would always give me these looks that clearly meant Don’t you know you’re supposed to pretend that never happened to you? so I learned not to.
But he doesn’t notice, and we keep up the conversation easily, moving on to much happier subjects. Megan spots us talking mid–toe touch and nearly suffers a cheer-related injury as a result. For the rest of the half, she alternates between shooting Luke sexy looks and me suspicious ones. The result is she looks like one of those women who has been over-Botoxed.
I shake my head at her and shrug my shoulders, trying to get her to understand that I didn’t plan for him to come over here. I’m completely innocent in all this. But then a buzzer signals the end of the half, and Luke asks if I want to go to the concession stand. I check the sideline.
Megan is watching.
But he’s looking at me with question marks in his eyes, and it seems so silly to say no, so I find myself nodding my head and following him up the stairs. Megan’s mouth falls open.
I’m dead.
I mean, I am seriously going to catch hell for this later. I sneak a sideways glance at Luke’s dimples. It’s worth it.
The line for the concession stand is long because it’s half-time. “What was it like living in Germany?” I ask while we wait.
His eyes light up. “One of the best experiences of my life. I got to see all these things I’d read about in books. And I learned how to speak German.” He brushes his coppery hair away from his face. “But the best part of living in Europe was we got to visit all the other countries on weekends and holidays because they’re all right there. Russia is a train ride away. France is right next door.”
I contemplate how wonderful it would be to have France next door instead of Alabama. “That sounds amazing. I would kill to travel to Europe.” Or anywhere that’s not here, really.
“Then we should go.”
“Yeah?” Ohmygosh, he said “we.” Wait. Didn’t he?
“Yeah. We could do a backpacking trip. This summer or something. I know how to plan one pretty cheap.”
That’s an affirmative. He is definitely talking about doing this together, and it isn’t just my over-romantic imagination.
“Okay, let’s pretend we live in the kind of world where my parents would agree to that. What would we do on this backpacking trip?”
“We’ll start off in Germany because I know every place to go there. And in Capri, we’ll charter a motorboat so we can go swimming in the Blue Grotto, even though you’re not supposed to. And then we’ll go to the southern coast of Spain, where we’ll drink sangria and stay up all night dancing. And we’ll end in Paris, because you have to end in Paris, and I’ll take you to the best macaron shop, and we’ll have a macaron feast for breakfast while we sit on the Pont des Arcs and watch the sunrise.”
Luke. Wants to go to Europe. With me. And do all that romantic stuff he just said. This whole staying-away-from-him plan? Not going to work. I realize Luke is looking at me and waiting for a response.
“Yes. Yes to all of it. I’m in.”
He gives me a wink that sends my heart soaring into the atmosphere. “Assuming we live in the right kind of world?”
“Yeah. Assuming that.”
I’m not thinking about my parents, though. I’m thinking about Megan. I am so totally screwed. Because I am really, really, REALLY starting to like this guy. And the more time I spend with him, the more I realize I won’t be able to let her have him.
The rest of the game passes by in a blur, and Sam finds me when it’s over. “Hey, we’re going to get pizza at Shorty’s now,” he says, even though I already know about the pizza plans. He looks pointedly at Luke. “Do you want to come?”
“Sure. Hey, thanks, man.”
Sam smiles at me, probably thinking he is paying me back for helping him with Amanda. He probably forgot Megan will be there too. He probably didn’t see her glaring at me for the duration of the second half. So he doesn’t realize we’re headed for an extra-large disaster.
It never occurred to me how much time and energy girls like the Crownies spend on things like color-coordinated accessories and hair maintenance. It’s exhausting. The summer after seventh grade, I get a vacation from being girly in the form of Oak Hills Soccer Camp. For four glorious weeks I can play soccer, hang out with Sam, and not worry about clothes and makeup. When I get to camp, I realize it’s swarming with cute soccer-playing boys, but I’ve taken a stand. I will not break out my makeup until the end-of-camp dance.
My resilience is tested the very first week when I meet Alex Martinez. It’s a match made in soccer heaven. He’s the best boy at camp. I’m the best girl. Is he the cutest boy? Maybe not. But being good at soccer makes him seem so to a bunch of soccer-obsessed girls. We show off on the field if we spot him on the sideline, take circuitous routes to the dessert station so we can squeeze by his table in the dining hall, and talk about him in our bunk beds after lights out. So far, all this talking and effort has amounted to absolutely squat. Alex has shown zero interest in any of the girls at camp (although we dissect his every word and gesture for hidden meaning).
Three weeks into camp, I’m having one of those days where you feel like the luckiest person on the planet. To top it off, I score the game-winning goal at the end of the scrimmage. Could today get any better? I collapse in the warm grass on the sideline and roll around like a puppy. It is the perfect day! I yank off my cleats and grab my flip-flops from my bag.
Underneath them is a small, folded-up piece of notebook paper that I know wasn’t in there before. Alex smiles at me from across the field, and chill bumps pop up all over my forearms even though I’m still soaked with sweat from the game. I open the note.
Meet me at your cabin after everyone else goes to dinner.
I read the words again and again to make sure they’re real. Then I tear off down the path to the girls’ cabins so I can make first shower. Alex Martinez! I have so much to do. The other girls will just die when I tell them. But I’ll have to save the news until after. I can’t risk one of them giving me away.
I bound up the rickety wooden steps and drag my suitcase out from under my bed. The bottom is littered with all the things I didn’t think I would need until the end-of-camp dance: mascara, a blow-dryer, pear-scented body lotion, the one dress and one skirt I brought. But if I use any of this stuff, my bunkmates will know something is up. Girls’ voices start funneling in through the screen door, so I run to the shower and yank the plastic curtain closed.
By the time I finish showering, the room is a frenzy of getting ready. No one cares when I pull on soccer shorts and a T-shirt. No one notices when I wad the makeup and lotion into my towel and step outside. I hop the porch railing and tiptoe behind the bushes lining the side of the cabin. The girls inside jabber on about everything from today’s scrimmages to boys to whether we’ll get ice-cream sandwiches at dinner tonight. I crouch underneath the window and apply my lotion and makeup. The tiniest bit of mascara and lip gloss is all I’m brave enough to use without a real mirror and Amberly’s help.
Even at soccer camp, girls make getting ready a huge ordeal. My muscles ache from being curled up like this. It’s Lindsey who’s taking forever. If I pull a hammy two days before the tournament because she’s taking an hour trying to make her pores look smaller, I’m going to punch her in the face tomorrow. After what seems like an eternity, I hear the last girls leave. I count to one hundred and then hobble around to the front door, rubbing my legs as I go.
I try on my dress. Then my skirt. Then my cutest pair of shorts. Then the skirt again. The dress. Shorts. Skirt. Shorts. I finally settle on the shorts because I don’t want to seem like I’m trying too hard, even though I am totally trying my absolute hardest. I’m just shoving everything else back in my suitcase when the door creaks. I nudge my suitcase under the bed with my foot.
Alex stands in my doorway looking cute as ever in a T-shirt and shorts. He’s nice and bronzed from playing soccer in the sun, and his eyes are the color of chocolate.
“Hey,” I say.
He walks over to the bunk bed and settles beside me on my sleeping bag.
“Nice shot today.”
“Thanks.”
I think he wants me to do something, but I realize I’ve never had a boy kiss me before, unless you count that time in second grade. I’ve been doing all the kissing. So I sit back and wait to see what Alex will do. He watches me for a little while, his black hair falling into his eyes. He pushes it back over and over again, a move that frequently sends girls at camp into fits. But he doesn’t speak or move any closer. Hey! I think Alex Martinez is nervous about kissing me! Finally, he gulps like a cartoon character and says, “You look pretty.”
“Thanks.”
He goes from zero to kiss before I know what’s happened. One second, he’s sitting a foot away from me on my bed telling me I look pretty. The next, we’re kissing. And we keep kissing. For a really long time. Longer than I’ve ever kissed anyone else, anyway. FYI, the world’s longest kiss happened at a kissing contest on Pattaya Beach, where this Thai couple kissed for fifty-eight hours and thirty-five minutes. Which sounds wildly romantic until you realize there is no way they went fifty-eight hours and thirty-five minutes without peeing.
After a few seconds, I remember what Megan said about how much cooler it is with your eyes open. So I open them. I see Alex’s eyes squeezed tight shut. I see a wrinkle of concentration between his eyebrows. And just past his left ear, I see Sam standing on the porch and staring at me through the screen door, looking like someone ran over his puppy. My eyes open wider. Alex’s tongue continues to poke around in my mouth.
“I was coming to get you for dinner,” Sam says.
At the sound of his voice, Alex and I jump back from each other like two magnets pushed together at the wrong end. Sam clomps off down the stairs and into the woods. I look at Alex, then to the door.
“I gotta go.”
I take off after Sam, leaving Alex sitting on my bed, still shiny and dazed from our kiss. Sam has a head start, but he’s got at least seventy pounds on me, and he’s lumbering through the trees with all the grace of a seasick rhinoceros. I catch up quickly.
“Sam!”
He ignores me.
“Sam, stop!”
He keeps running.
“We can keep this up as long as you want, but we both know I can run faster and longer than you.”
He finally barrels to a stop and slumps with his back against a pine tree. His cheeks are bright red, and there are rings of wetness spreading at the neck and armpits of his green T-shirt.
“What?” he pants.
“What’s the matter with you? Why are you acting so weird?”
“Nothing. Just cause I didn’t want to stick around and watch you suck face with that pretty boy.”
Sam wipes at his sweaty cheeks. It hits me how red and veiny his eyes are, and that pitiful expression from earlier flashes in my head, and I realize he’s not just wiping away sweat.
“I—I don’t understand.” And I don’t want to. Because there’s only one logical explanation for him crying over me and Alex, and it means the end of me and Sam.
“I ran away because—”
“Sam,” I whisper.
“I couldn’t stand to see him kiss you because—”
“Don’t.”
“Because I like you, okay.”
And there it is.
“And not just as a friend. And not just as this awesome chick I play soccer with and tell jokes to. I really like you. I want to be the one sitting on your bed kissing you.”
I can’t even look at him. Why did he have to ruin everything?
He picks at the bark of the tree behind him. “But you’ll never feel the same way about me, will you?”
“No,” I say sadly.
There’s no coming back from this. We’ll never be able to act the same, like this never happened. We’ll never have our easy comfortable friendship again. I’ve lost my best friend.