Playing With the Boys

by Nicole Leigh Shepherd

  Lucy’s eyes widened. “You think who likes me?”

  “Ryan,” Regan answered. “He was totally flirting with you.”

  Lucy tried to keep her jaw from dropping to the floor. Kendall walked in, suddenly interested.

  “Who was flirting with Lucy?” she said accusatorily.

  Regan clammed up. “No one.” Kendall nodded, choosing for this moment to believe her.

  “I need a refill,” she said, holding out her drink. “You want one, Reeg?”

  Regan took Kendall’s cup. “Sure. I’ll get it.”

  Kendall put an arm around Lucy’s shoulder. “Yeah, you should let Lucy mingle.” Then, to Lucy, she said, “I mean, you gotta mingle, unless you want to stay single.”

  Lucy smiled self-consciously. There was only one guy she wanted to mingle with. She decided to go find him.

  Walking into the living room, she didn’t see Ryan anywhere. And come to think of it, she hadn’t seen Pickle and Max for a while either. She glanced around the room and noticed Benji at the cheese squares.

  “Cheese is so much better in little squares than big triangles,” Lucy pontificated. “Don’t you think?” She gingerly sipped her Diet Coke, without the rum.

  “You know what’s the worst, though?” Benji asked. “That thin cheese. You know, the flat squares, wrapped individually. The yellow ones? Hate those.”

  “Me too!” Lucy practically yelled. “And what about that white stuff? On top of the Brie? Are you supposed to actually eat that? It’s disgusting.”

  Benji agreed. “I always eat the insides out with a cracker.” He thought for a second, then asked, “You know what else I hate?”

  “That cottage cheese is called cheese when really it’s nothing like cheese?” quipped Lucy.

  Benji pointed a finger directly at her. “Yes.”

  Suddenly, Ryan interrupted, shouting across the room. “Malone! Get over here.”

  Lucy couldn’t believe he was actually calling to her. She quickly ran over. He pulled Lucy into the hallway and put his face close to hers. She wondered what he was going to say. That he wanted to date her? That he thought she was beautiful? That he was crazy in love with her?

  Then he broke the bad news. “Your friend—the vegetable one—she’s puking in the bathroom.”

  The vegetable one? Lucy’s eyes widened when she realized what he was talking about. And that was not what she wanted to hear.

  “What?” Lucy gasped in horror. Pickle was puking? “Oh my God. What am I, like, supposed to do?”

  Ryan shrugged, distracted. “I don’t know. That freshman’s in there with her.” He wasn’t being rude, Lucy reasoned: he just didn’t want to deal with someone puking any more than she did.

  “Okay,” she said, deflated. “Thanks for telling me.” She slunk past all the laughing cheerleaders and Tank, who dramatically crushed a beer can on his forehead. She made her way down the long hallway toward the bathroom. Her heart raced and her knees felt shaky. This was so the opposite of how she wanted to be celebrating her first football game. She pushed open the door, where Pickle was hovering over the toilet. Max held her hair back. She looked up.

  “Oh, thank God,” Max said seeing Lucy. “Help.”

  Lucy stood frozen in the doorway. She couldn’t explain the panic that was enveloping her. For a strange second, she saw her mother’s face, gray and ill, instead of Pickle’s. “I don’t . . . really . . . I don’t know what to do,” she stammered. She wanted out. Out of this bathroom. Out of this house.

  Pickle’s body lurched. Lucy bolted out into the hallway, terrified.

  “Oh my God, oh my God,” she whispered to herself. This was the reason she didn’t drink. Fear.

  “Lucy,” Max called out. “Get in here.” Lucy recomposed. It took every ounce of willpower she had not to burst into tears. She peeked her head in.

  “I’ll go get help,” she offered, looking for any means of escape. Before Max could protest, Lucy ran out of the bathroom and down the hall. She wasn’t sure what or who she was looking for, but as soon as she saw Benji, she knew she’d found the answer.

  “Benji,” she called out desperately. Benji set down his sixth mini-quiche of the night and rushed over.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice full of concern.

  “It’s Pickle,” Lucy said, breaking down. “She’s in the bathroom. She’s sick. Well, not exactly sick, but—”

  Benji interrupted. “One too many rum and Cokes? Those are her favorite. And by favorite I mean she drank it that one time last year we stole a bottle of rum from my parents’ liquor cabinet.”

  “Really?” Lucy asked, eager for a brief distraction. She always forgot that Benji and Pickle had actually spent a fair amount of time together last year. “What happened?”

  “She passed out before I could get up the nerve to kiss her,” he admitted frankly. Lucy clapped her hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh. Benji was so brutally honest. It was endearing enough to make her momentarily forget how completely and utterly freaked out she was.

  “Listen, I’m supposed to be home by eleven-thirty. My dad thinks I’m at some postgame cheerleading get-together—” A whoop went up from the kitchen, where half the cheerleading team was egging on Kendall, who was drinking beer from a homemade funnel like a partying professional.

  “—which, technically, I guess I am,” Lucy continued. “But I have to get home—and get Pickle and Max home, too.”

  “I could give you guys a ride,” Benji offered. Max hurried out, looking for Lucy.

  “Hello?” Max said to Lucy, exasperated. “Thanks for bailing!”

  “I’m not bailing,” Lucy shot back defensively. “I’m finding you guys a ride home.” Okay, she was bailing.

  “Wait. You guys?” Benji asked. “Are you not coming with us?”

  Lucy gulped. The truth was that she needed a ride, but she wouldn’t get in the car with a potential puker for all the money in the world. She wouldn’t, even if getting in meant she could move back to Ohio.

  Benji shook his head.“So you want me to bring Pickle and Max home . . . and you’re not even coming?”

  Lucy sighed. Well, when he put it that way, it sounded particularly bad. Max walked back toward the bathroom and instructed Benji:

  “You get the car; I’ll get Pickle.” But Benji didn’t budge. He stood staring at Lucy.

  “No, no,” Lucy relented. “I’m coming. I . . . I . . . really appreciate you, you know, driving us.”

  Max reappeared, using her body to prop up an unsteady Pickle, who looked like she’d been run over by a Mack truck.

  “You guys go on to the car,” Lucy said. “I’m going to thank Kendall for all of us.” Before anyone could protest or ask for help, Lucy ran off to find Kendall or anyone who wasn’t on the verge of explosive vomiting.

  “You’re leaving?” Regan gasped, spilling half of her rum and Coke on Lucy’s silver flip-flops. Lucy could feel the Coke fizzing on the tops of her toes.

  “Yeah,” Lucy said, disappointed. “Pickle—she’s in bad shape, so . . . I should help get her home—”

  Regan snorted. “Benji and that frosh can get her there. You’re staying.” Regan called out to Kendall. “Lucy’s staying, right?”

  “Whatever,” Kendall slurred back. Lucy nervously glanced over her shoulder in time to see Benji and Max drag Pickle out of Kendall’s front door.

  “I really can’t,” Lucy said. “I need a ride home anyway.”

  “One of us can give you one,” Regan assured her. “I’m barely even sipping this.”Then she leaned in, enticing Lucy. “Besides, I’m driving Ryan home, too.” Lucy’s heart fluttered. She could actually be squished in the backseat with Ryan. Maybe it’d be so crowded she’d have to sit on his lap. And she wouldn’t have to deal with Pickle.

  She felt guilty, like a bad friend, but she had gotten them into this party after all. And that had to at least count for something. Didn’t it?

  When Lucy woke up the next morning, she
felt terrible. She guessed not as terrible as Pickle probably did—but she felt terrible just the same. The ride with Ryan had been anything but eventful. He’d sat in the front while Lucy was sandwiched between Tank and Kevin in the backseat.

  Sascha, Aidan, and Caleb were also crammed back there, so it was cozy, to say the least. She supposed she couldn’t complain that she hadn’t had any team bonding time.

  Regan had dropped Lucy off last, so she’d gotten home at twelve forty-five, which had led to a fight with her dad. . . .

  “But Dad! What was I supposed to do? Call you and wake you up?” she’d asked. He’d said she was supposed to do exactly that. A firm eleven o’clock curfew had instantaneously been put in place.

  She rolled over and turned on her phone. Her multiple late-night texts to Pickle, Max, and Benji had all gone unanswered. And they continued to be unanswered . . . Saturday afternoon, Saturday night, all day Sunday. By the time Sunday night rolled around and her IMs had been ignored, her e-mails received with no response, and her voice mail messages left unanswered, Lucy knew she was screwed. They were officially mad at her.

  “Mason, come on,” Coach Offredi bellowed at Benji, as the team lifted weights before school. “You really going to let a girl press more weight than you? I’ve already gotten an earful from your old man. What would he say about that?”

  Benji was struggling to complete his third set of ten leg presses. Discouraged, Benji let the weight collapse back down with a crashing thud. Lucy had just finished her leg extensions and glanced over from her drop-downs. She wasn’t sure that what she was doing was actually called a drop-down, but it was where she took weight and, with straight legs and a straight back, dropped it down to her toes and back up, so that’s what she called the exercise in her head. Drop-downs.

  Coach Offredi turned to Lucy. “Lucy, get over there and show him how it’s done.” A look of panic crossed Lucy’s face. She knew Coach Offredi wasn’t actually being nice to her. He was just using her to humiliate Benji. She reluctantly set her weight back on the rack. At least he was using her name rather than calling her “little girl,” like he had been. That was an improvement, wasn’t it?

  She approached the leg press machine, wondering if it was called anything more technical than the leg press machine, where Benji was huffing and puffing. Lucy tried to act as though Coach Offredi hadn’t just ordered her over there.

  “Um . . . you done?” she asked brightly. The real question she wanted to ask was, Are you mad at me for ditching you on Friday night? Benji looked up at her without actually moving his head in her direction, just his eyes. He reluctantly swung his legs around the floor and hoisted himself up. Wordlessly, he brushed past her. Lucy had her answer. Yes.

  When Lucy entered the locker room for gym class, she found Pickle dressing out and tentatively walked over.

  “Hey,” Lucy said softly, unsure whether Pickle wanted anything to do with her.

  Pickle looked up. “Lucy, oh my God.” She hurriedly apologized. “I am so sorry about Friday night.”

  “Sorry?” Lucy gasped. Why was Pickle apologizing? If anyone needed to apologize, it was Lucy—for abandoning her.

  “I got so nervous,” Pickle explained. “And I don’t know. . . . I was still nauseous from the ride and then I just started drinking. I don’t really drink, obviously, except that one time with Benji, and before I knew what happened . . . I just hope I didn’t embarrass you.”

  Lucy exhaled, a wave of relief washing over her.“Embarrass me? No! I mean, it happens to everyone.” Didn’t it? Lucy had no idea, but it sounded good and comforting.“So Max and Benji were okay?” she asked. “I was afraid maybe they were mad because I decided to stay. . . .”

  Pickle shrugged. “They didn’t say anything to me—but of course, even if they had, I wouldn’t have known it. I was out of it all weekend. I had to tell my mom I caught some forty-eight-hour bug.”

  “Did she buy it?” Lucy asked curiously.

  Pickle considered. “Hard to tell. Parents are smarter than we think, I think.”

  Lucy nodded, thinking of her dad. Hopefully, he wasn’t smart enough to figure out that she wasn’t on the cheerleading team. Because if he was, she could forget her curfew being eleven o’clock at night. It would be three in the afternoon! The bell rang. Lockers slammed as kids hurried to get onto the gym bleachers before Miss Sullivan marked them as late.

  “So I didn’t ruin my chances of getting invited to another party?” Pickle asked as she quickly tied her shoelaces. Lucy slipped her T-shirt over her head. “Because I didn’t even get to talk to Ryan for more than a second. . . .”

  Ryan? Lucy did a quick double take. “What?” Since when did Pickle want to talk to Ryan?

  “Ryan,” Pickle whispered. “That’s the guy I like. You know, the quarterback?”

  Lucy shook her head, caught off guard. “Since when do you like Ryan?”

  “Since last year,” she admitted. “When I didn’t make the soccer team. As soon as I saw the list, I had to hurry to get to class. But I just couldn’t do it. I was so upset. So I went out the back door, by the portables, ya know? And he was there, on the steps. And I couldn’t stop crying and I told him what happened. And . . . he hugged me. Ryan. The most popular guy in school hugged me. I don’t think he remembers it. He never recognizes me . . . but he told me that he didn’t make the football team his freshman year and to keep trying . . . and that’s what I did . . . and now . . .”

  Lucy nodded. Now she was on the soccer team.

  “You get to see him every day,” Pickle said enviously. “You’re so lucky.”

  Lucky, right. Lucy quickly slipped her sneakers on. She didn’t even bother to lace them up. She just wanted to end this conversation. Fast.

  “Come on,” she said. “We’re gonna be late.” She hurried across the locker room, pushing the double doors open into the gym. Her shoes squeaked on the gym floor. Pickle hurried to keep up.

  “So, do you think you could help me?” Pickle asked, then grabbed her head. “Ooooh, head rush.” They sat down on the bleachers.

  “Help you what?” Lucy asked, dreading what Pickle was about to say.

  “Get to know Ryan,” Pickle insisted, smoothing down her hair with her hands and then tucking it behind her ears. Pickle was so adorable, but compared to Ryan, who was a senior, she seemed like such a little girl.

  “Um . . .” Lucy hesitated. “I don’t know. . . .” She trailed off. How could she tell Pickle she’d help her get to know the boy that she herself liked? But could she say she wouldn’t? Pickle had been great to her, and it was obvious she was really into Ryan. What kind of friend would she be if she said no? Miss Sullivan blew the whistle and began dividing them into teams for badminton.

  Lucy and Pickle were placed on competing teams.

  “So,” Pickle insisted, “will you help me?”

  Lucy grabbed a racket out of the pile and took a long look at Pickle.

  “Of course I will,” Lucy finally answered. And then she headed toward her side of the court. If she’d thought she was screwed this weekend, it was nothing compared to how she felt right now. If Pickle wanted help with Ryan, what did that mean for her?

  thirteen

  Benji was still on Lucy’s mind as she distractedly flipped through the pages of Madame Bovary before English class started. She suddenly realized she had forgotten to finish her assignment. Martie usually assigned three chapters over the weekend, but since they were so close to the end of the book, this time Martie had assigned four in order to finish. Lucy hadn’t read the last chapter and knew she would be screwed if Martie called on her.