Save Me

by Stephanie Street

  I guess it was her freshman year, though, when I realized just how much Allie was going to need looking after. She decided to sign up to be the student athletic trainer for football. At first, I thought it would be awesome, right? My best friend hanging out at football. It wasn’t long, however, before I realized just how wrong I was.

  The first week of summer practice, Allie was the hottest topic in the locker room. It was the first time I’d been exposed to how other guys looked at my best friend and it was not cool. Everything came to a head one day when I went to find Allie to give her a ride home only to find Travis Jacobs, a senior and the school’s biggest douche giving Allie a hard time.

  I will never forget the look of relief on her face when she saw me walk in that room or the sudden, explosive rage that had me yanking Travis around by his collar, slamming him into the wall and threatening his future childbearing opportunities if I ever saw him messing with Allie again.

  I probably could have handled that situation better. Typically, sophomores threatening seniors never ended well for the little guy, but I wasn’t that little (it was even better when I stole the starting quarterback position from Travis). After that no one messed with Allie in the training room or anywhere else. Rumors started that Allie was my girlfriend. But I squelched those too, by asking out Danielle Masters, a junior and one of the most popular girls in school. It didn't take long for everyone to believe I wasn't interested in Allie and some of them even forgot we were friends. What a bunch of idiots.

  -------

  “You ready to go?” I ask, poking my head into the training room after practice. Allie looks up from slicing off Bruce Beckett’s ankle tape. He’s a sophomore and plays JV and he’s looking at the top of Allie’s head like she’s an angel sent straight from heaven- until he catches me scowling at him.

  “Thanks, Allie!” Bruce jumps off the table and practically runs out of the training room. Smart kid. “See ya, Connor.” I barely nod at him.

  “Good grief, Connor. Stop scaring the underclassman.”

  What? Ugh. Let me tell you something about Allie, she is completely clueless. This is a good thing for the most part. She is sweet and unspoiled and completely unaffected by her own beauty. In fact, I’m pretty sure she has this crazy idea that she isn’t pretty. Wrong. She is gorgeous. Not flashy, but in a girl-next-door kind of way with a blonde ponytail swinging down her back, wide hazel eyes, and a few cute freckles across the bridge of her nose.

  “What are you talking about?”

  She turns to me, her brow furrowing in that cute way it does when she’s trying to figure me out.

  “Bruce. You just scared the crap out of him.”

  “Oh. You know how it is with the JV guys.” And usually I’m above all that. I remember what it was like being a freshman and sophomore (remember Travis Jacobs?). I make a point to not be a jerk to the younger guys and get after anyone who does. Except when it comes to Allie, who is still staring at me like she’s wondering what is going through my head.

  “You done?” Seriously, she's gonna make me squirm with that penetrating glare of hers.

  “Yeah.” She tosses the wadded-up tape from Bruce's ankle in the trash can and grabs her backpack off the chair by the door and we walk together to my truck.

  I open the door for her just like I always do and she shakes her head like it’s completely unnecessary just like she always does. My mom may not have taught me manners, but hers had.

  “You got a lot of homework?” I ask, sliding into the driver’s seat.

  “Nope.”

  “Wanna play?” I don’t know how much time we’ll have once this year really takes off. I want to hang out as much as possible and that usually means kicking zombie ass.

  “Sure. But only if you promise to behave yourself,” she threatens, her finger pointing in my face.

  Right.

  ------

  Haha! Yes! There she is. I use my controller to back my character out of the darkened room showing on my half of the television screen and run him down the hall. I glance down at Allie’s portion of the screen. Her character will hit the room in three, two, one-

  “Allie, in there! Go in that room!”

  Allie’s character races into the room, full tilt- and wakes up the witch hiding in the corner.

  “Hahahaha!” I lean over until our shoulders touch, laughing in her ear as the witch comes after her and her character dies. “You fall for it every time.”

  Scowling, she smacks me on the back of the head. “You suck. You know that, right?” Allie drops her controller on the blanket in front of us as we lay on our stomachs, side-by-side, at the end of her double bed.

  Just for that I kick her foot off mine.

  “Hey!” she screeches.

  You see, Allie has this foot thing. She’s always messing with my feet when we play video games. She’s even instituted a no sock rule because footsie with socks on is apparently a travesty.

  Looking injured, she attacks my feet again. “You owe me after tricking me...again.”

  “You shouldn’t be playing footsie with me all the time. I have a girlfriend.” Allie scowls at the mention of my girlfriend, Kayla. I’m just teasing her, though, because she’s been doing that foot thing since we were kids taking naps on mats in her mom’s daycare. “Besides, I can’t help myself. You’re just so damn gullible.” I laugh and she kicks me this time.

  “I am not gullible. We’ve been best friends all our lives. Heaven forbid, I actually trust you.” She nudges my shoulder, trying to make me feel guilty for getting her fake killed.

  “Nah-uh. I cannot be manipulated by you anymore. I’m immune.” Allie rolls her eyes and then rolls off the bed, taking my controller with her.

  “Fine, then I am done killing zombies for today.” Allie sets our controllers on top of the console under her television. It’s actually my console, but we never hang out at my house, so all of my games and shit are in her room.

  “Awe, come on, Alberta.” She hates it when I call her that, but of all my favorite things, riling Allie up is my absolute favorite. Her eyes shoot daggers at me and her lips flatten. See? It’s hilarious.

  “Jerk.” She punches my arm, then shakes out her hand, making me laugh.

  “Good grief, Allie, you think you’d learn.” I flex my bicep, obnoxiously patting it with my hand.

  “Arrogant jerk.” She sticks her tongue out at me and starts putting away laundry from a basket on her floor.

  “You know you love me, Al. Don’t try to deny it.” I mean the words playfully but the smile slips from her lips, making me feel bad. She tries to hide from me by carrying a stack of folded jeans into her walk-in closet. But I know her, something I said made her sad.

  It’s been like this all summer. Of course, we hung out every day. Playing video games, working out, helping her mom with her daycare kids. After all day together, we usually ended up sort of flirting. Nothing serious, you know, I never meant anything by it (not much, anyway). Most of the time I was just trying to get her to blush or I’d say something to make her eyes widen and say ‘Co-nnor’ the way she does when she can’t really believe I’d just said what I did.

  But sometimes, she gets this look in her eyes, and I know I’ve gone too far. But I can never guess what’s gonna put that look on her face until after it’s already out. All I know, it makes me feel horrible. Allie is my best friend. Seriously, the most important person in my life. I don’t even know what I’d do without her. Probably die.

  We tested it out one time when we were little, but not on purpose. My jerk parents thought it would be fun for me to go to this sleepaway camp the summer I was nine and Allie was seven. I made it one week without her before the camp people called my parents and they had to come pick me up. After that, I threw the hugest fit whenever they even mentioned doing anything that would take me away from Allie for more than a day or so. See? Death.

  Rolling onto my back in the middle of her bed, I stare at the poster of N’SYNC tacked to
the ceiling. And I know I’ve got to say something to make her laugh again.

  “You know, Al. The school printed these posters of all the senior football players. Full size.” I point to her boy band poster. “I’d be happy to give you one to put up right there. I’ll even help you hang it.”

  “Sacrilege! How dare you?” She pokes her head out of her closet, her face a mask of feigned outrage. “How would I ever fall asleep without J.T. and his boys right by me?”

  I grin at her, trying to hide the fact that her comment kinda made me feel hot all over. Allie’s always saying things like that, stuff that I could totally take the wrong way. Allie’s mind may never be in the gutter, but mine usually is and now I seriously want to put my poster up there so Allie can fall asleep every night looking at me and not some boy band from fifteen years ago.

  Not that our relationship is like that. At all. No, Allie and me- purely platonic. I mean, sure I’ve thought about it. Ever since Mrs. B pulled me aside when I was thirteen and told me she wasn’t stupid and let me know it wasn’t appropriate for me to sneak into Allie’s room through her window anymore and have secret sleepovers, I haven’t been able to think of Allie as just my friend. Since then, I think of her as my friend and a girl. It sucks.

  Plus, I used to love our secret sleepovers. See, there's this treehouse outside Allie’s second story window that allows easy and secret access to her room. We used to have so much platonic fun, playing video games with the sound down or watching scary movies and no one ever knew. Or at least we thought they didn't.

  I wonder if Mrs. B knows I didn’t actually stop coming over until I was sixteen and it had become damn near impossible to hide my reaction to Allie and I sleeping in the same bed. Seriously, I can’t even tell you how tempted I am sometimes to take advantage of that stupid treehouse.

  But I don’t. Everything is ‘just friends’ (well, mostly) because you see, I can’t lose Allie (please see the aforementioned sleepaway camp story). What if I try to take things to the next level? Or even mention it and Allie runs screaming from the room?

  Connor loses Allie forever.

  Not. Going. To. Happen. I just couldn’t survive that kind of world. So instead, I keep up a steady stream of girlfriends that don’t really mean anything and spend every spare minute outside of school, football, and stupid social obligations to the popular crowd- with Allie.

  And, for now, I don’t let on that my mind has gone down completely inappropriate paths, because she is smiling at me again. Instead I ask, “How do you feel about physics after your first day?”

  And all is right with the world as she launches into a detailed description of the huge homework assignment Richardson laid on her class the first day (but isn’t due until next week, she reassured me, since we’ve been playing video games for three hours). See? That’s what happens when I keep my non-platonic thoughts to myself- Connor still has Allie.

  *Keep reading for a sample of Dating: One on One.

  Sample Chapters of Dating: One on One

  Chapter 1

  Piper

  “Piper! Go find your brother. He’s not getting out of piano today.”

  Ugh.

  “Mom, I’m busy.” I lifted my head from the arm of the couch to call back.

  Mom appeared in the entryway between our tv room and the kitchen, hands on her hips, an I-mean-business expression on her face. “Netflix does not count as busy, Piper. Now get going. Luke isn’t answering his phone.”

  Yeah, I wonder why. Covering my eyes with my forearm, I snuggled deeper into the couch cushions.

  “Piper!”

  “Okay!”

  Stupid Luke. Groaning, I threw off my blanket and wondered why I always had to be the responsible one. Luke was older than me, okay it was only by ten minutes, but still. Would it hurt him to be the mature one for once?

  Dragging myself off the couch, I slipped my feet into my well-worn tennis shoes and made sure to slam the door as hard as I could on my way outside.

  “Piper!”

  Ha! She had to yell that pretty loud to be heard from inside our house which was closed up like a tomb to ward off Indiana’s late summer humidity. Thank goodness for air conditioning that I was leaving to chase down my twin! The thin fabric of my tank top stuck to my skin just seconds after walking outside. How in the world could anyone play basketball in this heat? I didn’t need the GPS family app on my phone to tell me that’s where Luke was. He lived and breathed basketball. Too bad it didn’t make him any better at it.

  Luke was one of those few exceptions to the old adage ‘practice makes perfect’. He was good, a starter on our high school’s junior varsity team last year. But I started varsity. And while he’d probably start varsity this year, I never let him forget I got there first.

  It didn’t take long to reach the basketball court at our neighborhood park where Luke and I had been playing since we were old enough to hold a basketball. It was one of the few things we really enjoyed doing together.

  Wait a second-

  Oooh, what do we have here?

  I slowed my long stride. The basketball court was filled with a full complement of players. Five on five. Shirts vs. Skins. Full court. Luke, his best friend Jared Castle, and all the guys from the team. Will, Adam, Grayson, Zeke, A.J., Mateo, Noah. I’ve known each and every one of them since grade school. And some even before that. They were all Luke’s friends and we’d been playing basketball against them since we could dribble the ball.

  And smack in the middle of the boys I’d known all my life- was someone new and he was tall. Easily the tallest player on the court. Six-five. Maybe even six-six. And man, was he cute. Even from this distance, his sweat-drenched hair curled in loose waves over his forehead, just asking for my hand to brush it back. My eyes drank in his tall body which was thickly muscled like he knew his way around the weight room. It only took me the three minutes walking across the grassy field to the blacktop for me to see he was cleaning up the court with our soon-to-be varsity basketball team.

  When I reached the edge of the court, I stood, hands on my hips, waiting for Luke to realize I was there. Too bad Jared beat him to it.

  “Luke, your Neander-tall sister is here,” a shirtless Jared called out, missing a pass from Mateo. I stuck my tongue out at Jared. He always teased me about my height. It was all fun and games until last year when he plateaued at six feet straight up while I was fast approaching five-ten, then he started getting pissy. I finally stopped growing at five-eleven and a half and Jared has never been able to forgive me for being at eye level. The boy teased me about being tall like it was his job.

  “Dude, pay attention,” Mateo yelled as Adam, a shirt, ran down the ball before it went out of bounds and ran it to the opposite goal.

  Luke glanced in my direction with an irritated expression. I decided to ignore Jared’s taunt and just deliver the message from my mom and get out of there. I was so not in the mood to deal with the boys today. Hot, new eye candy notwithstanding.

  “Luke, Mom wants you to come home and practice.”

  A collective groan erupted on the basketball court as everyone skidded to a halt, each wearing the same dejected expression- except the newbie who just looked confused.

  I took a second to rake my eyes over him. He was even more gorgeous than I thought from the other side of the park. Beautiful blue eyes and dirty blonde hair that was almost brown. He seemed older than I’d first thought. He had this bad boy vibe I hadn’t noticed from a distance, either. Tattoos creeped up his arms from his elbows to his biceps giving him an edgy look that was surprisingly beyond attractive.

  “Piper, what the hell.” Luke took a step toward me. It required some effort, but I finally dragged my eyes away from Mr. Easy-on-the-Eyes bare chest. Which was probably a good thing since a puddle of drool was already forming in my mouth threatening to dribble out the corner of my lips.

  Shaking my head to clear my scrambled brain, I focused on my brother and blushed. The knowing smirk on h
is face told me he’d caught me checking the dude out. I widened my eyes threateningly. One good thing about having a twin brother- the ability to convey death threats with a look. Luke just grinned.

  “Why don’t you answer your phone, jerk. Mom said no skipping piano today. She wants you home now.” Take that, Pukey Lukey.

  Luke was a brilliant pianist, but he hated it, or claimed to anyway. Mom’s stipulation to even out all the basketball we both played was to force us to pursue something artistic. Who knew where all the athletic ability came from, not Mom’s gene pool for sure, but in spite of her lack of ability or enthusiasm, she’d raised two kids who just couldn’t get enough basketball.

  She was more artsy and outdoorsy and was always trying to convert us. We resisted for the most part, but she’d put her foot down about developing other talents. Therefore, Luke had chosen piano when he was five. I was pretty sure now he wishes he’d picked something cool like drums or guitar, which he also dabbled in, but once mom discovered how good he was at piano, she was determined he wasn’t going to give it up.

  I, on the other hand, chose pottery. I’d been taking classes for years and even taught a beginner’s class through Parks and Rec over the summer. It was fun and I loved doing it. Thank goodness, I didn’t choose an instrument that required daily practice.

  “Piper!” Luke’s eyes narrowed.

  I’d be hearing about this for the next week. Luke didn’t like word getting around that he played piano. Something about threatening his street cred. Whatever, like he had any to threaten.

  I rolled my eyes. Emasculating my brother was one of my favorite pastimes. “Whatever, Luke. Mom said now.”

  Luke growled and marched over to his shirt. “I guess, I’ll see you guys later,” he said, throwing his shirt over his shoulder and making his way off the court.

  “Way to go, String Bean, now we can’t play,” Jared popped the ball in my direction with a hard chest pass.