She brushes her bangs back. “Becky’s my best friend.”
“So what? She doesn’t need you to fight her battles.”
She lifts an eyebrow, gives me a hostile look, then glances back at her brother. “AndJillianshouldn’t be fighting yours.”
And then she’s gone.
“Wow,” Leo says, breaking a precarious silence. “Trouble in paradise.”
Max shakes his head. “Paradise my ass.”
“Dude, why are you still putting up with her?” Jesse asks. When Leah gives him a swift elbow to the ribs, he adds, “What? Just because I’m the only one with balls enough to voice the question we’re all thinking?”
“He puts up with her because she puts out,” Leo contributes obligingly.
Max sulks while Leah groans and the guys snicker. I scuff the toe of my shoe against the pavement because I fail to see humor in any of this—not the face-off I just took part in, or the fact that Ivy sides with her friend over her brother, or the thoughtless way Max and Becky treat each other. And I don’t think his sorry attempts at keeping this thing with her afloat are funny, either. Ninety-nine percent of the time, he’s a kicked puppy greeting his abuser with a wagging tail. And that remaining one percent?
He’s in my bedroom, kissing me senseless.
6
NOVEMBER DRAGS ON, A BLUR OF MIDTERMSand True Brew shifts. I stay well clear of the Holdens’ house, and when I see Becky sashaying down the hallways at school, I avoid her, too.
I can’t avoid Dad and Meredith, though—not when their late-night squabbles filter through the walls of my bedroom. She bugs him about his increasing workload, and he carps about her spending unnecessary money. When it’s daylight and I can’t give them the wide berth they’ve come to deserve, they nag me: Why can’t I help out around the house more?
It’s thanks to my parents that I accept Leah’s invitation to watch one of the boys’ districts-prep football practices on a rare afternoon off from True Brew. The weather’s not atrocious, especially for mid-November, and time with her’s infinitely better than time at home. We make camp on the rickety bleachers that line the practice field and catch up to the background clamor of colliding helmets and combative grunts.
More than once, I find my gaze traveling to the field, to number eighty, to Max.
He’s always been intense about football, and he’ssogood. He catches everything thrown his way, and he runs the ball like a dolphin cutting complex paths through choppy water: innate, fluid, effortless. Of course, that makes his being benched during last week’s final regular-season game (because he lost his shit after a questionable call and got in a referee’s face) even harder to swallow. But while he was on the field? Flawless.
Leah’s my ride home, so I’m stuck waiting outside the locker room with her after practice because she justhasto tell Jesse what an extraordinary job he did. I make sure to hang back behind her as the team files out—lugging gym bags and smelling collectively of Irish Spring—hidden, should Max emerge before Jesse. But Kyle beats them both, hooking his arms around Leah and me like it’s been weeks rather than hours since he last saw us.
“You came!” he says, tossing his head back theatrically. “And to a mere practice!”
“I’ve come to plenty of practices,” Leah says.
“But Jelly Bean hasn’t.”
“I come to all the home games—just to watch you call perfectly executed plays and drop neat passes into waiting hands.”
He grins. “And that’s why you’re the best.”
But I’m not—not really. Outside of work, I haven’t seen as much of Kyle as I’d like. I’ve been dodging him at school because he’s almost always with Max, and I’ve been keeping an enormous secret from him. Leah, too. Neither of them knows about the Halloween kiss, mostly because I’m too mortified to talk about it, and also because I told Max I’d keep it to myself. Becky’d yank my hair out in tufts if she knew my mouth had been anywhere near her boyfriend’s. Besides, like Max said, it wasn’t a big deal.
Only, maybe it waskind ofa big deal.… Otherwise, wouldn’t I have forgotten about it by now, like he apparently has?
Finally, Jesse comes banging out of the locker room. Leah bails on Kyle and me to disappear around the corner with him, and I’m quietly thankful for their consideration. The thought of watching them get all lovey-dovey makes my heart shrivel. Truth is, sometimes I covet what they have: a relationship that’s easy, and natural, and mutually beneficial.
I’ve never had that. I’ve never evencaredabout that, until…
I pull my ponytail free, letting my hair fall around my face. Then I cross my arms, like it’s possible to physically shield myself from these thoughts, these memories of that night.
“What’s up?” Kyle asks, dropping his bag, leaning up against the wall.
I join him, propping a foot on the brick. “Nothing of importance.”
“Really seems like you’ve got something on your mind.”
