“Itoldyou those shorts were a great purchase,” Shannon says the instant I open the car door, and I let the relief of validation wash over me like a waterfall. “Now get your ass in here because my new mascara is agodsendand you are about to love me.”
The mascara is indeed miraculous, and with a little brown eyeliner, a dab of highlighter, and a hint of lip gloss, I look understated and natural. To be honest, I would probably bang me. Shannon is a master at makeup application, and more importantly, she’s generous with both her skills and her Sephora-size collection. I’m too busy preening for her “Looking good, Rissy” to irritate me.
“Chase is gonna die,” Kiki confirms. Impending death is her greatest compliment, and I smile even wider.
The bleachers are full by the time the three of us roll in, but the nice thing about being that ideal combination of loved and feared is seats always seem to appear when you need them. We squish in a row toward the front of the center section, and my eyes immediately land on Chase, tall and lean in his navy-and-white uniform, with biceps so beautifully carved I want to lick them.
I’ve always loved watching Chase play—the way his muscles ripple when he pulls back his arm for a throw, the way his footwork looks like a manly dance… I know I’m biased, but he’s genuinely good, good enough to play in college, which is his plan. (He also plans to major in sociology, though he’d be interested in sports medicine if he were better at science. Yes, I know a lot about Chase Harding’s aspirations.)
Coach Montgomery calls a time-out and I use the opportunity to scan the crowd to see who else has shown up. I get a smile and wave from my lab partner, Jamie Nguyen, who’s sitting with her—what do you call it when someone’s neither a girlfriend nor boyfriend? Non-binary-friend?—Taylor, a cute junior with a mop of lavender curls, and I recognize a bunch of other random classmates. Idon’tsee Jasmine.
That’s no surprise. She’s home prepping for her party. A party that could be ten people or a thousand, for all I know. She never actually confirmed I made the cut. But I’ll be there, and my stomach is bubbling just thinking about it, wondering if her room is hiding memories similar to the ones I keep scrapbooked in mine. Is there astrip of pictures of us in her mirror? Or has everything faded away for her, the way it seemed to when we talked by her car?
I’m snapped out of my thoughts by the crowd erupting, and I jump to my feet along with everyone else, wondering if Chase ran in a touchdown.
At what point did I take my eyes off him, anyway?
“Harding is killing it tonight,” a guy in front of me says to another, and my heart bursts with totally misplaced pride. For the rest of the half, I stay glued to every pass, every kick, every play. Hardingiskilling it tonight, and by the time the buzzer sounds at halftime, my heart is thumping in that old familiar way.
“I can smell the hormones dripping off you,” Shannon says as she reaches into her purse and pulls out a pack of gum. She takes a piece and passes it down the line of us. “God, you still want him so bad.”
There’s never a point in denying anything to Shannon, so I don’t. The gum is the perfect excuse for my mouth to be too busy to respond, and then Gia and the cheerleaders come out and we clap, whistle, and stomp as she shakes her pom-poms. I take a few pictures of her cheering, plus a couple of selfies with Kiki and Shannon, and I’m working on filtering and posting them when Shannon simultaneously coughs loudly and jabs me in the side with a bony elbow.
When I look up, there’s the star himself, helmet off, hair soaked with sweat, his slightly crooked smile lighting up the entire field. “You came,” he says, and it takes everything in my power not to look around to confirm he’s talking to me.
I shrug, even though I can feel an unstoppable smile betraying me. “I heard Kosinski’s aim really improved over the summer. Had to see for myself.”
“And?”
God, there are so many people watching us. “I’d say you’re all looking pretty good out there,” I concede, and if possible, his smile dials up a few watts.
“Looking pretty good out here too,” he says, and though my bare legs and back are hardly visible to him from that angle, I feel a little naked under his gaze.
I know this effect. He’s had it on me for as long as I can remember. But since when do I have it on him?
He glances back at the field and it’s clear he’s gotta go back, but he turns to me again. “You going to the party tonight?”
The party. That’s what it is to him. Not Jasmine’s party, justtheparty. She does not factor into this equation. Not a bad thing for me to remember. “Planning on it.”
“Good. I guess I’ll see you there.”
“Or you could drive her,” says Shannon. “She could use a ride.” The innuendo isn’t lost on me, and I turn to glare at her. “What?” she says innocently. “Gia’s gonna have all her cheer shit. I don’t have room for all of that.”
Shannon drives a fucking tank, but okay. I’m willing to bet Chase knows it too, but he says, “As long as you don’t mind waiting for me to shower, I’m happy to take you.”
I don’t know whether to kiss Shannon or kill her, but Kiki declares that they’ll keep me company until he’s ready since they have to wait for Gia anyway, and before I know it I’m watching Chase jog back to the gamewith the knowledge that about a hundred people just watched that go down and the night has only just begun.
I’m gonna need more gum.
The Stratford Saints crush it, and Chase practically skips out of the locker room to pick me up from where Shannon, Kiki, and I are discussing celebrity bullshit. “I’m so flattered, being driven by tonight’s MVP,” I tell him with an exaggerated flutter of my lashes as we head out to his X-Terra. He laughs, but his joy and pride are palpable. It’s one of the things I’ve always liked most about him—he wears whatever he’s feeling on his sleeve.
It’s also one of the things I’ve always hated. He’s so clear about his emotions, I could never wonder if he might be secretly into me or hope he might be harboring a crush. But that clarity makes this moment, when I catch him shooting glances at the low back of my T-shirt, all the more delightful.
“As much as I love talking about myself and my win,” he says once we’re buckled in, “I wanna hear more about you. What’d you do this summer? Clearly you spent some time at the beach.”
Talk about the last thing I wanna discuss.Jasmine does not factor into this equation, I remind myself, though we’re literally going to her house. I take a deep breath. “Actually, I spent the entire thing at the beach. My mom and I went to the Outer Banks.”
“Oh, where’s that?”
