He hit me with the slow blink. “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
Whatever riposte I might have made fell by the wayside when the boy in front of me moved and a harried parent volunteer said, “What can I get you?”
I rattled off the order. After a momentary hesitation, I turned to Alex. “Do you want anything?” He’d been standing in line a long time, ostensibly for a reason other than needling me.
“I hope you don’t expect something at the end of the night just because you bought me Skittles.”
“Skittles?”
“Are you mocking my taste in candy?”
I shook my head; what could you say to someone so lost to all reason?
The woman behind the counter set a bag of Skittles next to the candy bars. “Is that it?”
Alex squinted at the menu, pretending to consider.
“He’s fine,” I told her, handing over the money.
“Oh, I know, honey.” She slid the change to me with a wink.
“See how you are?” I hissed when we’d edged away from the concession stand.
His expression was all innocence. “What did I do?”
“Maybe it’s unconscious. A reflex.” I’d been speaking mostly to myself, but Alex looked intrigued—not surprising, given that he was the subject of my ruminations.
“What is?”
“The way you act.” I waved a candy bar at him. “Those looks you’re always giving people and the hair—”
His hand flew to his head. “What’s wrong with my hair?”
“You can’t pretend you wake up looking like that. How long does it take you to style yourself every morning?” His mouth opened; I pointed at him to show I wasn’t finished. “And the way you smiled at that lady, who by the way is someone’smom—”
“I was thanking her.”
“You were giving her heart palpitations.”
“Really?” Alex grinned. “How do you figure?”
He wanted me to admit that I’d been affected too, but I had no intention of revealing any such thing. It was bad enough I could feel myself blushing. My eyes cast about for an escape. The band kicked into an up-tempo number, signaling the end of the first quarter.
“There’s my sister,” I said, as though I’d been looking for her all along. Hurrying to the low chain-link fence bordering the playing field, I waved at Cam, who was chugging from a water bottle. Alex didn’t follow, nor did I look back, though the prickling between my shoulder blades suggested he was still watching.
“How’s it going?” I asked her, trying to sound normal and winding up closer tocrazed fan.
Cam swiped her forearm across her sweaty forehead. “We’re winning,” she said dryly.
I nodded, racking my brain for a more informed remark about a match I’d barely watched. Cam’s almost-smile faded.
“I need to go,” she said abruptly. Turning on her heel, she marched over to the coach, saying something I couldn’t hear.
From the corner of my eye, I spotted a tall figure staring in the same direction. A quick glance led to another, and then a third, as a vague sense ofhe looks familiarshifted toOh! It’s that brawny guy.The one I’d noticed lurking near Cam at the party. It was the breadth of the shoulders that gave him away. Well, that and—
“I didn’t know you were into man buns,” Lydia whispered, sidling up next to me. She pointed to the back of her head, lest I mistake the kind of buns she meant.
“What?”
