“So they don’t actually call you ahead of time and schmooze you?”
“Oh, they schmooze.”
Tally’s head was resting against the window as she looked outside.
Anna turned in her seat to face me and Tally. “Tell the truth.” Anna’s eyes narrowed. “How did you really break your hand?” Then to Tally, she asked, “Did you see it happen?”
Tally stiffened and shook her head, but said nothing. Then she gave me a nervous side eye and reached for the door handle like she might jump out of Stella right here on the freeway.
I shrugged like that didn’t hurt and told Anna what I’d told everyone. “I tried to swat a fly on the wall. The wall won.”
Anna gave me apfftand faced forward again. She caught my eye once more, her expression daring me to make my move.
I reached my finger into my cast to scratch my palm. “I think Blue will end up going to the Bills. Third pick in the draft. We’ll see if I’m right.”
“Nah,” Anna said. “Kansas City.”
Blue shook his head. “I’m not going third. I haven’t played in two years. Maybe a hundred and third. If I’m lucky.”
While they argued the point, I unhooked my seat belt and slid to the middle, which was more elevated than the outside seat. My legs were too long to be in this backseat anyway, but now they were halfway up my chest like a grownup riding a tricycle. I probably looked ridiculous.
Enough of this.
I reached over and tugged on her arm which she’d tucked across her body for safekeeping. She glanced at me like she’d done something naughty. She knew she was being a pistol.
“Hey,” I whispered. “This girl I really like asked me on a date, and I’d like to hold her hand. Would that be okay with you?”
Her face said it wasn’t but her mouth said, “Okay.” So I slid my palm against hers and pulled her fingers through mine. At that contact, my heart pounded wildly, blood spinning through my veins like a frenzied centrifuge. You’d think afterkissing her, this would’ve been nothing. But it had been so long since the kiss that it felt like I’d been in a famine and finally gotten sustenance.
The euphoria only lasted five seconds until I realized her hand was a dead fish in mine. My excitement crashed. I let my grasp match, not wanting to force anything. Anna caught my eye again and I gave my head a tiny shake. She let out a frustrated exhale.
Same.
Blue’s gaze kept flashing to us in the rearview, his forehead crunched.
I’d waited years for this chance and I was blowing it. But I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. Playing it cool hadn’t worked. And now being bold had flopped. I didn’t know what to do.
By the time we arrived at the restaurant, an Italian place in the outdoor mall, our palms were barely touching. I dared a glance at Tally. Her chest was rising and falling at an abnormally fast pace, like she was having a panic attack. Or what I imagined a panic attack to look like. I dropped her hand and she yanked it to her lap like it had been burned. As soon as Blue put Stella in park, she flung the door open and bolted from the car.
Anna and Blue both looked at me in the mirror, eyes wide.
“Y’all,” I said, my lungs on the verge of respiratory depression. “I’m so confused right now. Why did she want to do this?”
“Bro,” Blue said with a baffled tone. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”
I shoved my left hand into my bangs and tugged in frustration. “Was she like this with Madden?”
Blue shook his head. “Not at all. She was super confident.”
That was concerning.
Anna’s expression turned sad. “Just bepatient?”
I didn’t know whether it was good advice or not seeing as how Anna didn’t know what I knew about Tally.
“Yeah.” I got out of the car to try, try again as Mom always sang after a failed attempt at just about anything.
Tally attempted to fall in next to Anna but the sidewalk wasn’t big enough with Blue on the other side. So she was forced to walk with me. Maybe she was feeling insecure. I mean, obviously, she was. But about what specifically? Gah. I didn’t know. I fell behind, pulled out my phone, and made a quick group chat with the women in my family.
