“You can’t push someone’s back in soccer. That’s illegal,” he says.
“I didn’t know that. Sorry,” I say.
Curtis’s face, glistening with perspiration, appears in my view. I squint at him.
“What?” he asks gruffly.
“You’ve got sand on your face,” I say, pointing at his lower cheek. From here I can see hints of stubble coming in around his jaw.
He brushes it away. “Have I got it all?” he asks when I’m still staring.
“Yep.” I push myself off my back and look around for the ball. It’s drifted to the ocean, so I run against the wet sand to grab it — Curtis and I decided to play barefoot like last time, even if it’s more painful for our feet because we’d rather that than sand in our shoes.
We play for another hour, and even though I know Curtis is better, I can’t help firing up every time he gets a goal and trying harder, playing rougher. I get an alright number of goals, especially towards the end when Curtis gets tired, but my score is nothing compared to Curtis’s.
“That was fun,” I say when we finish. We sit in the shade of the cliffs, panting. Sweat soaks our t-shirts and it’d be a smart idea to take them off, but neither of us does.
“It was,” Curtis agrees, using his hands to mess up his hair, making it stick up in little spikes. “You’re a good opponent.”
“Please. You destroyed me.” I lean back and gulp in a breath of air. “If we had a brain cell to share between us, we would have remembered to bring a bottle of water.”
He laughs, a sound just as deep as his voice. It’s different from his usual polite laughter.
“That wasn’t that funny,” I say, but I’m pleased.
“Sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologise. I wish you’d laugh like that more often.” As I say that, I realise how rare it is to see Curtis relaxed and unguarded. “You’re usually so uptight.”
“I’m not that uptight. I’m not like Erin. No offence to her.”
“Erin’s not uptight, she’s just a stickler for rules. But you…” You’re so in control of yourself that you’re almost like a robot. You’re so closed off. But sometimes I can provoke you into acting without inhibition. That’s when you’re pissed at me, though.
“Are you enjoying the holiday?” I ask instead.
“Yeah, of course. This town is pretty, and I like living with people my age.”
“Yeah, it’s nice to get away from parents,” I say, looking out at the ocean. “To have more freedom.”
“I get you. I feel the same way,” Curtis says. “Like, I have a pretty good relationship with my family, but my parents have a lot of expectations for me. And I’m the oldest child, so I have to be the responsible one. It’s nice to relax.”
“How many siblings do you have?” I know Curtis has siblings — I’ve even met them when Kennedy forced me to hang out with her and Curtis and Curtis’s house one time — but I don’t know much about them.
“Four,” he says. “Three boys and one girl. Max is twelve, Andrew is ten, Dylan is eight, and then Harriet, who’s six.”
I whistle. “So five kids all together.”
“My parents really wanted a daughter,” Curtis says.
“So that’s six years between you and Max, and twelve years between you and your sister. You must be like a third parent.”
“That’s how it feels sometimes.”
“You’re so lucky,” I say. “I wish I had siblings.”
He looks at me in surprise and takes a moment to respond. “Yeah, I’m lucky to have them. But sometimes it’s lonely since I don’t have a sibling near my age.”
I nod, thinking of Erin and Bonnie who seem super close.
