21

IT TURNED OUT THAT KISSING was an acquired taste.

In all honesty, that first kiss on the driveway felt weird. Her lips felt different than I’d imagined. Mushier or something.

What if there’s something wrong with me? I thought. What if I’m the first person ever to not like kissing?

But then she kissed me again.

Kissing may be an acquired taste, but I’m happy to report that it’s acquired really fast.

Now that we had started kissing, it didn’t seem like we were ever going to stop.

We kissed every day after her meeting with Dad. If both our teams were practicing at the high school, we kissed before and after entering the gym. If one of us had a home game and the other didn’t, we’d wait for each other outside the locker room, lips ready to go.

For three years I had complained to Eric about all the PDA (Public Displays of Affection) going on at school. I had muttered, “Get a room” under my breath repeatedly. But I guess I was just jealous. Because suddenly I was PDAing repeatedly and without remorse.

I was the president of the PDA.

I wasn’t just a PDA employee; I was also a client.

I was the star player on the Rapid River PDAers.

You get the idea.

It was the post-game kissing I liked best. Especially when it was Kirsten who had just played the game. I was back on the team now, and that was great—but it had been almost a month since I returned, and I hadn’t yet touched the floor in a game. I was pretty sure the place I sat on the bench had begun to form indentations that perfectly matched the contours of my rear-end.

It wasn’t as if my teammates were begging Coach to let me play, either. I’d been playing with them since we were in elementary school, and I’d never been much of a difference-maker. Skilled, sure. Good enough to get some court time, absolutely. But not someone who made much of an impact one way or the other. They didn’t say it, but some of them might have even been a little angry that Coach had reserved a spot for me over their friends.

Of course, the real problem was our record. Unlike the football team, we weren’t terrible. In fact, being terrible might have been easier to take. Instead, we were good enough to compete against most teams we played, but not quite good enough to pull out many wins.

And it was hard to be revved up about anything—even kissing Kirsten Howard—after watching my team lose yet another heartbreaker.

On the other hand, Kirsten’s season was still going strong.

To say the least.

So far, the Rapid River girls’ varsity basketball team hadn’t dropped a single game.

In mid-January, they beat Pine Hill, their biggest conference rival. The next week they beat Lakeshore, who was ranked second in the state at the time. Their next game was against Eagle Creek, and practically our whole town showed up to cheer the team to victory.

Part of the team’s popularity, I suppose, had to do with the boys’ team’s mediocrity.

Part of it had to do with the high-octane, fast-breaking, full court-pressing style my dad had the girls playing.

But most of it had to do with Kirsten. By the time they beat Pine Hill, Kirsten had been athlete of the week in our local paper, The Dais, four times. She’d been athlete of the week in the city paper twice. A week ago the city paper ran an article on her. Dad was quoted as saying, “No disrespect to anyone else, but she’s the best player in the state, and I’m not sure it’s all that close.”

“Yes, Coach Duncan might be biased,” the article concluded. “But having seen her play, this humble reporter finds it hard to argue with him. And only partly due to fear of repercussions. (Note to Kirsten’s Krazies: I’m on your side!) Don’t take our word for it, though. Go check her out yourself, if you can find a ticket. Don’t worry: you have time. Kirsten’s only a ninth-grader.”

Kirsten’s Krazies were our self-titled student cheering section, who showed up to every game and held up signs with Kirsten’s name on them. Against Lakeshore the senior guys spent the entire first half shirtless, their chests painted with the letters of her name. You might think that a group of older high school guys stripping to the waist for my girlfriend would make me insecure, and if I’m being completely honest it did—but it was also pretty cool to know it was my girlfriend they were stripping for if that makes any sense. During halftime, our athletic director, Mr. Morris, told them they could either put their shirts back on or leave the game and never come back. (When I told Kirsten about this, she was furious. “Wait,” she said, “you’re telling me they can show up shirtless in the freezing cold during a football game but not at a girls’ basketball game?” I assured her I wasn’t telling her anything, just reporting what Mr. Morris had said.)

Of course, I was as swept up in the craziness as everyone else. I had been since the first day I saw her play.

During her game against Eagle Creek, I sat across from Kirsten’s Krazies and the rest of the student section. The section was even louder that day because the boys’ basketball squad—sophomore, JV, and varsity—had the day off and showed up for the game. Every once in a while I looked up and saw Jake’s hair bobbing and Nikki laughing toward the back of the section. But mostly I watched the game.

Like everyone else, I didn’t want to miss whatever Kirsten was going to do next.

This one went down to the wire. Eagle Creek was winning by a point with six seconds to play. Coming out of a timeout, Rapid River got the ball around half court. Dad had Kirsten throw the inbounds pass. Some of the people around me were angry: How could Kirsten be passing the ball in? they wanted to know. Shouldn’t she be the one trying to get open for the pass?

I wanted to tell them to relax. The point of the play was to get Kirsten the ball. She’d pass it to someone—probably Heather Stern, the other guard, in the backcourt—then run and get the ball back with just enough time (hopefully) to make a move and go to the basket.

The Eagle Creek coach put her center, all 6’2” of her, in front of Kirsten. The center’s long body and arms would make it difficult for Kirsten to see who was open. At least that was the idea.

Dad was concerned enough that he considered calling a timeout to call another play. I watched him start to put his hands together in a T before his assistant coach pulled his arms down.

No timeouts left.

The referee handed Kirsten the ball, and the Eagle Creek center waved her arms wildly in the air.

Janet Pederson, our center, flashed to the free-throw line, and I knew Kirsten wanted to get the ball to her. If Eagle Creek’s center was guarding Kirsten, someone smaller had to guard Janet.

Except Kirsten couldn’t possibly get a pass up and over this girl’s outstretched arms. Not one with any zip on it. So she went under them instead. She faked a pass over the top and then, her eyes and chin still high in the air, made a no-look bounce pass between the girl’s legs.

Janet caught the ball on the second bounce, and I thought she was going to make a move to the basket.

I think she thought she was about to make a move to the basket, too.

She set her pivot foot and started to raise the ball in the air.

But right then Kirsten streaked by her, took the ball out of her teammate’s hands and—using Janet’s body as a screen—went in for a game-winning layup.

It happened that fast: Kirsten, seeing she had a bigger, slower player guarding her, had followed her pass to Janet, racing around the Eagle Ridge center to take the “handoff” from Janet.

The crowd erupted. So did Kirsten, and Janet, and the rest of the team. They jumped around and hugged as people rushed the court. I stayed where I was, though. Everyone wanted to get a piece of Kirsten, to clap her on the shoulder and congratulate her—and while they did that, I walked down the bleacher stairs and went the opposite way, away from the court, to the hallway that led to the locker rooms.

Usually, by the time she came out of the locker room (she was always one of the last to leave), Kirsten was happily exhausted. She was excited about the latest victory but also completely wiped out. And the combination of the two gave her a certain calm.  We would sit near the locker room door where she couldn’t be seen by the parents and fans who were waiting outside to do more shoulder clapping and autograph seeking. (It was mostly younger girls who wanted her to sign their program or jersey, but not entirely. Plenty of older kids and even adults had shoved markers and programs at her as she got in her dad’s car and left the high school.) Once she summoned the energy to meet her fans, Kirsten would turn her head and plant her lips loosely on mine, then stand up and walk down the hallway with me toward the people and the parking lot.

But the Eagle Creek game was different.

She didn’t sit next to me.

She pounced on me.

She skipped out of the locker room, jumped up and pushed her lips against my lips, her teeth against my teeth—and I swear, she growled at me. I could feel it leave her throat and vibrate in the back of my mouth.

We both leaned our heads back. I think we were equally surprised.

“Whoa,” I said. “Where did that come from?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I wasn’t trying to do it. It felt good though, right? Weird, but really good.”

I nodded.

“Weird but good,” I said.