“Yes, sir?” And now I’m struggling to sit up, which is hard to do in a hammock. I’m squirming around and Leo is trying to help me without really understanding what I’m trying to do.
“I received your e-mail this morning and I’m a little confused. Are you turning down the salutatorian honors? You’ve asked me to find a replacement for you to give the welcome speech.”
“Um, well, I figured if I wasn’t graduating, I couldn’t give the speech.”
I had e-mailed Mr. Spencer late last night after the long conversation with my parents, telling him that since I would not be salutatorian, he’d need to give the next person in line notice so they could start working on what they would say.
“I mean, I didn’t get the off-campus PE form signed and you said there was nothing you could do if he didn’t sign it, so…”
“I got your form yesterday afternoon,” he says.
This stops me cold.
“Yesterday afternoon?”
“Coach Cantu dropped it off at my house. Highly unusual. I told him he just should have scanned it and e-mailed it to me.”
This is a man who rarely carries a phone. There’s no way he has a scanner.
“I’m graduating?” I ask, and Leo tries to sit up a little too quickly and we’re wobbling again. He finally stretches across the entire hammock sideways with his hands on the ground on one side and his feet on the ground on the other side. He’s turning and looking at me with wide eyes.
“Well, yes. And you’re still the salutatorian.”
I squeal so loud that Mr. Spencer lets out a string of curses I know he wishes he could take back.
“Practice is Monday morning. You’ll need to be there a little early so we can run through the opening.”
“Yes, sir!” I say, ending the call after we say our good-byes.
I throw myself at Leo and as he flips over to catch me, we pitch completely off the hammock and land in the thick green grass.
“Did I hear what I think I did?” he says.
I’m nodding and laughing and crying. He holds me close and I bury my face in his neck. His hands run through my hair and he’s telling me how proud of me he is and it’s more than I can take.
Pulling away from each other slightly, we’re face-to-face for about five seconds and then we’re kissing. His hands wrap around me, tugging me in closer, and mine latch on to him like I’ll never let him go.
When I remember we are in full view of the back windows of my house, I break the kiss and bury my face once again in the crook of his neck.
“You know what this means,” Leo says.
A million things run through my head as I wonder where he’s going with this.
“We both lost out on first-place finishes.”
And we’re laughing. And it feels so good.
“Why do you think he signed it?” I ask.
He shrugs. “Want to go ask him?”
I’m up before he’s finished his question. “Yes, I do. After all that, I want to know. Will you ride with me?”
He gets up, pulling my hand into his. “Of course.”
I drive us to the club without bothering to call. There’s no way to know if Coach Cantu’s even going to be there, but I can’t wait.
The guy at the guard station waves me through before I come to a complete stop, and it doesn’t take long to find Coach Cantu. He’s sitting at one of the round metal tables on the patio of the clubhouse, a notebook and calendar spread out in front of him.
