“Cool if I call you Guy?” Frank asked, pronouncing it “gai.”
Guy shrugged, non-commital. I, however, committed mentally at that moment that I’d always call him by his proper name. I wasn’t an uncultured rube like my brother.
“Frank and Kitty brought us some food. Isn’t that nice?” Eva offered.
Guy gave a grimace of a smile for his mother’s benefit. He was clearly miserable. But I could swear that when his eyes finally met mine, they softened just the slightest bit.
I was in trouble. Big trouble. This was going to be the crush to end all crushes.
Part1:
TheCrush
Chapter 1
Guy
“Here, here.” I tapped my stick on the ice. Frank cut the puck away from Shane and passed it my way. Our little 3-on-3 game was going well.
The guys were starting to get the hang of some of the stuff I showed them. It was a winter afternoon where we didn’t have any other practice and I could convince a few of the guys to come with me to the rink. I didn’t know how long Maman and I would be staying in West Virginia. It felt permanent. I didn’t want to lose hockey completely just because we moved. It was still my best chance at going to college and getting drafted.
Right as I went to pop it in the goal, my eye caught on Kitty. She was sitting in the bleachers, hunched over a notebook and scribbling something furiously. Probably working on one of her play ideas. My mind wandered to how she had that idea for monsters that—
“Shoot it, Stelle!” Frank yelled. Kitty looked up and raised an eyebrow at me. My focus came back to the ice just in time for Shane to swipe the puck back from me and break away. My cheeks, already red from the cold, went redder. Why was I distracted byKitty?
After we finished our game, Kitty helped me put the hockey equipment away. Her arm wobbled as she lifted the other side of the goal, but I didn’t bring it up. She always joked about her weakling status and theater nerd body.
“What were you working on?”
“Just an idea,” she said, dismissing me. The door to the storagecloset closed behind us. “Smells awful in here.”
“That’s hockey.” I was trying to make her laugh. She wasn’t having it. “What’s wrong?”
Kitty shrugged. “Nothing.”
“Kitty.” I tugged her arm to get her to turn to me. Her breath stopped as her gaze met mine, shifting quickly between my eyes. Again, something stirred in me. Had I ever really noticed how pretty her eyes were? She’d recently gotten her braces off, and while she wasn’t totally different, she definitely looked more grown up.
“What?” Her voice was barely a whisper.
“You can tell me what’s wrong.”
Her face flushed. “It’s nothing, Guy.” I softened my look, trying to convince her to open up. It worked. She shifted a step back, chewing at the loose skin on her thumb. She always picked there when she was nervous. “Your fan club is here today.”
I knew who she meant. Some girls from school noticed that the guys and I went to the rink after school and followed, pretending to have a sudden interest in ice skating. The attention was flattering, but I wasn’t all that interested, particularly when Kitty was around.
“They come for all of us, Kitty Cat.”
“I hear them talking. They’re after you.” My gut turned. Did it bother Kitty that other girls were interested in me? Was she jealous?
And why was I interested in Kitty? We werejustfriends, right?
It’s true that I didn’t care about the other girls. They weren’t Kitty. Kitty understood me. She knew how to make me laugh when I was down. She respected me. She was always kind when she corrected my English. She was the only person who pronounced my name the French way, and I liked that about her. She didn’t treat me like an alien or an exotic creature like the other girls did. She saw me for who I was. I could be myself around her.
The realization came to me in a flood. Or maybe I’d known it all along and just denied it. Either way, something major changed inside me. I didn’t fully understand it, but it was there.
Kitty wasn’t just my good friend or my best friend’s little sister. I wanted Kitty to bemine.
“I don’t want them, Kitty.”
