Page 67 of Playing with the Heartbreaker

“You okay?” he asks. He shakes the water from his hair. “Apparently Farrah left already. I think I no longer ‘owe her’ one.”

I nod and wrap my arms around myself, shivering.

He closes the distance between us. “Your lips are turning blue.” His hand rests on my chin, tilting my face ever so slightly upward.

“So are yours.” I touch his cheek.

His hand moves to my hair, squeezing water from my ruined bun. I forget all about the cold. We should not be this close. Not after everything I said about his reputation. I shouldn’t have said it out loud, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

I breathe in, shallow and sharp. His eyes lock on mine.

But then the warm expression in them cools. He steps back. Immediately, my body aches for the warmth of his.

My eyes search his face as my lungs deflate. It’s not fair of me to feel rejected when I keep pushing him away.

“I’m going to go figure out how to get your mom’s car unstuck. No need to give her another reason to hate me.”

He tosses me a large towel from inside, then disappears into the office. He comes back a minute later. “It should be good now. Just needed a reset.”

“Right. So…”

“You can hop back in, and I’ll restart it. Should have you out of here in a minute.” He hands me another towel, taking the wet one from me. “To keep the seat dry. I’ll get it from you at school.”

I take it, albeit reluctantly. “Okay. Yeah, sure.” I grab the Sugar & Spice bag and hand it to him before climbing in the car.

As soon as I’m buckled, he goes back into the office, and the car wash starts. I blast the heat to try to dry myself off and chase away the chill of disappointment.

Water rains down on the windshield again as the car moves, but I can’t tell if that’s why my vision is blurry or if it’s the tears rolling down my face.

* * *

My double chocolate milkshake melts in its glass in front of me. I scoop whipped cream onto the end of my straw and lick it off. A peppy song plays over the speakers, barely audible over the chatter of students filling the diner.

“For someone who just won a get-out-of-grounding free card, you’re sulking quite a lot. I think your salt and sugar are disproportionate. Here.” Anita shoves a plate of shoestring fries toward me.

I grab a few and dunk them in my shake. Chewing, I say, “Thanks.”

“So, what is with you?” Charlotte asks, sipping her strawberry shake across the table. Her eyes flit up now and then to a place behind me, but I can’t summon the energy to care who she’s looking at. “Aren’t you happy?”

As Maggie guessed, my mom let me off early for good behavior. I think the clean car may have been what pushed me over the finish line. She couldn’t stop talking about how it looked cleaner than usual. Guess that extra rinse cycle made a difference.

“Of course. I missed having a social life. I’m just…”

“Distracted?” Anita sips her cookies and creme shake. “Speaking of Hotty McStriker, what’s happening with that?”

I raise my eyes just barely and catch Rhoads’s gaze. We smile at each other, but it feels forced, like there’s an invisible wall between us.

“I think I screwed everything up.” I chomp more fries, a bit angrily. It feels good to smoosh something. When I don’t have a soccer ball to abuse, diner food is the next best thing.

Charlotte gives me a pointed look. “Are you ready to admit we’ve been right this whole time?”

I look away, but my friends can read me easier than a picture book.

“The question isn’t what you’ve done to break it,” Anita says. “It’s what are you going to do to fix it?”

Thirty-One

RHOADS