by Julie Cross
I almost fell off, right at the beginning, but then I leaned onto my back leg and saved it. The hardest part was watching the tracks Jordan had already made (with what little illumination Tony’s back porch lights provided) to make sure I got just a little closer than he had. When I did come within two feet of a huge oak tree, the most awesome rush of excitement and fear shot through my veins. I leapt off the sled, hitting my right shoulder into the snow first and then tumbling sideways. I watched the sled smack into the tree and do its own somersault in the air before landing with a thud.
I lay in the snow, catching my breath and letting the cold wet substance beneath me numb my body from any pain that fall may have caused. A few seconds later, Jordan stood over me laughing. “I’m dead if my dad ever finds out you did this. You know that, right?”
“Uh, yeah.” I accepted the hand he stuck out to help me up. “That was so awesome!”
He brushed the snow out of my hair, then he took off his white Cardinals stocking cap and pulled it over my head. “You must be freezing.”
“I’m in awe,” Tony said when we stood in front of the fire again. “Total awe. I never knew it would take a freshman girl to make Bentley look like an ass. All he does is show off like some Hollywood stunt man. Someone needed to knock him down from his giant pedestal.”
Jordan punched Tony in the arm, but otherwise looked unaffected.I smiled at him and sat in front of the fire, trying to warm my hands and dry my jeans. Jordan adjusted the hat on my head, folding up the bottom to keep it from covering my eyes, then he plopped down next to me on the bench. “Give me your hands.”
I put both hands in front of him and he held them in his, blowing warm air on them. “That’s very boyfriendly of you,” I said. “So what’s up with the girls you’re avoiding?”
He shrugged and moved his thumbs over the backs of my hands, rubbing them gently. “It’s not anything bad. Lindsey, the taller one with overly–perfect teeth, started bugging me about not going out with anyone, like not having a serious girlfriend. I think it was her way of trying to get me to ask her out.”
“But you don’t want to ask her out?” I couldn’t blame him for that. She seemed very annoying and fake.
“Correct,” he said right away. “The problem is, when you turn a girl down and you’re not dating someone else, you’re basically saying that something’s wrong with her. I hate getting into that shit.”
I smiled. “Oh, so you’re secretly nice underneath all your shallow comments and observations of the opposite sex.”
“If I were nice, I’d just be honest and say no, but I’m too chicken to tell a girl why I don’t like her. I mean, who wants to create a complex for someone, right? And your fingers are about five degrees away from frostbite.” He quickly stuck my hands under the front of his shirt, pressing them to his bare stomach.
My heart immediately started pounding. “Uh…is this your way of getting me to feel your abs? Because I’m pretty impressed. You have nice hamstrings, too,” I blurted out.
“I think I would blush if it were someone besides you saying that.” His brown eyes swirled with reflected color from the fire. “But I have a feeling your compliment will be followed by asking me what type of core conditioning I’ve been doing.”
Maybe…
Because I was pretending to be someone’s girlfriend, it was easier to be bold now, kind of like wearing a costume. I pulled my hands from beneath his and gripped his fingers, sliding them under the bottom of my sweater. “Let’s compare. But I’m sure you’ve got me beat.”
Jordan jumped, his gaze zooming in on his hands under my shirt, which I quickly realized meant something completely different than my hands under his shirt. He swallowed hard, his gaze lifting to meet mine.
My face flared up like an oven. “I’m sorry.” I released his hands and shoved them toward his lap. My eyes darted sideways, trying to see if anyone was watching. They were, of course. I stood up keeping my eyes on the hill. “I’m gonna use the bathroom.”
I moved quickly around the bonfire and then around to the side of the house and leaned against the wall, catching my breath. Oh my God. I just put a boy’s hands under my shirt. A little higher and he would have known exactly how big my chest wasn’t.
“Karen?” Jordan said, appearing in front of me. I could barely see him in the dark.
I covered my hands with my face. “Sorry…I wasn’t trying to—I’m just stupid when it comes to this stuff.”
He pried my hands off my face. “I don’t think I’m the first guy at a high school party to get caught feeling up a girl.”
“I know that, but it’s different with me,” I said with a sigh. “I’m not…well…”
“You’re right,” Jordan said. “It is different with you.”
“Don’t want take advantage of the flat–chested freshman who looks like she’s twelve,” I said, closing my eyes, feeling the exhaustion of the entire weekend rolling over me in giant waves. Right at that very moment, I wanted my mom more than I had in weeks. I didn’t care if that made me less mature. She’d know what to say. She’d know about all of this.
“Don’t listen to Tony,” he said. “You do not look twelve, seriously…besides—”
I laughed and opened my eyes, taking in Jordan’s worried expression. “I don’t care about Tony’s comments. It doesn’t bother me. I know what I look like, what other girls my age look like. But I’m not going to have boy hips and a flat chest forever. I won’t be four eleven and three quarters forever. I’m okay with it, really.”
Jordan stepped closer, resting a hand on the red brick beside my head. “I’m gonna kiss you.”
My stomach jumped up toward my heart. “What?”
“I’m going to kiss you.” He had this serious, determined look on his face. “I mean, I won’t if you don’t want me to…”
I could feel my eyes widen as he leaned closer, my heart hammering faster, every other muscle in my body completely frozen. No words of protest were able to fall from my tongue before his mouth was on mine. My eyes drifted shut, my stomach doing a dozen floor routines beneath my rib cage.
Holy crap. Jordan Bentley is kissing me.
His mouth was soft despite the cold air. He pressed his lips more firmly against mine for a second longer before pulling back and slowly opening his eyes.
My heart thudded so loud I could barely hear anything going on in my head. And I really liked when my thoughts were silenced.
Jordan’s forehead wrinkled. “Was that okay?”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “It happened so fast. And I’m not sure exactly why you did it?”
Nerves and confusion filled his expression and then he backed away and leaned against the wall beside me. “I’m gonna be totally honest with you and you should appreciate that, considering how rare it is for a guy my age to spill exactly what he’s thinking.”
My chest was still rising and falling, post–treadmill style.
“First of all,” Jordan said, turning his head toward me. “Confidence in a girl is such a turn–on. You have no idea.”
I laughed, despite the awkward tension.
“Second, I never really have anything to offer anyone.” He smirked at me. “Besides my abs and hamstrings.”
I rolled my eyes. “Of course.”
“But with you—” The smile dissolved from his face and I felt my heart flying again. “It feels like I’ve known you forever. And when I think about everything you’re going through, how much I get it…it just makes me want to kiss you.” He paused, watching my face carefully like he was ready for a big reaction of some kind. “I don’t know what that means…I wish I did.”
“You don’t know what it means in the same way you don’t know why you decided to make out with that Sara girl a few weeks ago?” I asked, trying to understand these multiple levels of confusion.
“No, with Sara it was just shallow hormonal driven behavior for both of us,” he said drawing in a deep breath. “Not that kissing you
means something serious. That’s what I’m trying to tell you—I don’t know what it means, just that it wasn’t shallow and hormonal. You’ve never thought about kissing me before?”
“No, not really.” But I am now. I chewed at the dry skin around my thumb nail. “And I don’t really think I’ve been all that confident.”
“You’re not insecure about your body or being accepted. How many girls your age do you think are like that?” Jordan asked, giving me his single dimple half smile.
“You’re such a dweeb,” I said, returning the smile. “I am so going to tell everyone here that Jordan Bentley actually used the phrase, ‘insecure about your body.’”
I turned my back on him, pretending to walk toward the bonfire. Jordan hooked his arm around my waist from behind, holding me back. “Don’t even think about it. We share a bathroom, remember? There are so many ways I could get back at you.”
I spun around, not realizing how close my face would be to his. I could see the light brown speckles in his eyes, the little bit of red on the end of his nose from the cold, the scar just above his right eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Like what?”
He nudged me until my back touched the side of the house again. He was so close I could feel his heart pounding just as fast as mine. And my mind turned to hazy, warm fuzziness that covered all the bad thoughts like a thick blanket. One of his arms curved around my back, his other hand resting on my cheek. He leaned down, lowering his face to mine and my hands were reaching up, touching the sides of his neck.
His mouth barely touched mine and then he stopped. “Shit…Karen . . .”
“What?” I managed to whisper.
He lifted his eyes to meet mine. “We can’t do this. Something about it just feels so wrong.”
The world came back into focus and my face must have been bright red with humiliation. I dropped my hands and ducked under his arm. “Let’s just pretend it didn’t happen, okay? The first or the second time.”
Jordan jogged after me. “That’s the thing, I don’t really have to pretend anything with you and I like it that way. Crossing this line changes everything. It’ll be weird with us.”
I turned to face him. He looked so sincere and vulnerable it made me want to kiss him again. “You’re right. No kissing. Just friends.”
Relief washed over his face. “Great.” And then he hugged me really quick, like I had done earlier today. “Now, let’s go home before Coach Bentley figures out that neither of us are capable of eating pizza for three hours.”
***
“You guys look very…” Jordan and I both held our breath, mentally filling in the blank from Coach Bentley—guilty, secretive, intoxicated…”Cold.”
“Oh, yeah. I took Karen sledding,” Jordan said with the ease of a professional con man. “She’s never been before. Talk about a deprived childhood. See why I quit gymnastics, Dad?”
Damn, he’s good. I rolled my eyes behind Jordan’s back. “It’s cold, wet, and there’s really no challenge to it, other than surviving frostbite. I don’t think I missed out on much.”
Coach Bentley shrugged at both of us and then turned his focus back to the TV. By the time I walked into my new bedroom, it smelled completely like…Jordan…like his aftershave stuff in the dark green bottle resting on the back of the toilet. I changed into my warmest pajamas and snuggled up under the covers, sighing with relief that I wouldn’t have to spend another night in that closet. And pretty soon, my old furniture would have a brand new scent after its new owner took it over.
Just before I drifted off to sleep, Jordan flipped on the hall light and stood in my doorway, leaning against the frame. His hair was wet from the shower and looked more brown than blond. He wore St. Louis University flannel pants and no shirt, just a wet towel hanging around his neck.
“A little more comfortable than the closet, huh?”
“Uh–huh.” I closed my eyes again so I didn’t have to stare at his bare chest.
“I’m sorry about earlier. I have a feeling I’m gonna hate myself tomorrow for that.”
“Don’t, seriously,” I mumbled. “It’s not like we were tangled up on the couch with your hand up my skirt.”
The wet towel hit me in the side of the face and I laughed, still too tired to open my eyes. “I am so not picking that up.”
I heard Jordan’s feet creak across my floor as he bent over to retrieve the bathroom towel, his light laughter telling me everything was okay with us. “Good night, Karen.”
“Night, Jordan.”
Even though I agreed with Jordan’s reasoning for not kissing me again, that didn’t keep me from falling asleep thinking about his mouth against mine, his hand resting on my face, the endearing nerves that caused him to spill everything he was feeling. Overall, it really was a great first kiss. I just wouldn’t tell him that. No need to further inflate his ego.
CHAPTER TEN
February 16
Mom,
A boy (guy) kissed me last night and I’m not sure if I would have been the kind of girl to tell her mom about her first kiss. I think I would have waited for it to happen a few times before I told you. Like right before you would have seen it for yourself, maybe?
Love, Karen
P.S. I do know that I’d never in a million years tell Dad
Dad,
You were wrong about teenage boys. Some of them, or at least one of them, are capable of having clean, moral thoughts.
So there.
Love, Karen
Monday morning, Coach Bentley had the elite girls come into the gym at the usual time, but only for a team meeting and physical therapy with the trainer. This was a tradition Coach Cordes started following a grueling weekend at National Training Camp, and Bentley must have agreed with it because he kept it up. We usually got the evening off as well, unless we needed more physical therapy or choreography.
Blair did, in fact, have a stress fracture in her tibia and needed a minimum of three weeks’ leg–rest to allow it to heal. My shoulder was already feeling better, so our trainer didn’t even send me to the sports medicine clinic next door for an x–ray, let alone an MRI.
Ellen had been diagnosed with pneumonia in the ER last night after returning home from Houston. She was here anyway, because we had to be on our deathbed to miss a team meeting. She had on her baggy sweats and a winter jacket when she curled up on the blue carpet to wait for Coach Bentley’s painful rehash of the weekend.
Stevie sat on one side of me, back straight, eyes wide and ready to listen, but I could see the defeat on her face. She’d been knocked down a notch this weekend and I didn’t know how that would affect her decision to return to gymnastics.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” Bentley said, pacing in front of us. “It wasn’t a great weekend, ladies. Not great at all.”
From the corner of my eye, I saw Blair blinking back tears. Knowing Blair’s mom, they’d probably spent the entire morning analyzing every angle of her injury, looking for a place to point blame. Usually that included lectures for Blair about anything from not training hard enough to training too hard. When Blair’s mom got like that, my mom used to steer me away and find an excuse for us to snatch Blair and go shopping or out to lunch.
“Obviously, Nina Jones and her committee could see with their own eyes that Ellen was ill. Ellen hasn’t lost any ground or hurt her position, but regardless, it was a missed opportunity to show what she has to offer once again.” Bentley stopped pacing. “Sometimes things are beyond our control. Blair proved she was a responsible enough athlete not to compromise her position by training with a serious injury. Not every gymnast is able to resist that temptation to push yourself when you know it will do more damage than good. Even I wasn’t able to understand this in all my years of competing.”
Blair sighed but nodded her thanks to Bentley for at least making her feel like she did the right thing.
“You may not have been able to wow them this weekend,” he said to Blair. “But the maturity you showed is worth
points in the long run, and we all know this sport is more about the long–term goals than one weekend at National Team Camp.”
“It was Karen’s idea.” Blair flashed me a sad watery smile. “To tell you about my leg.”
Bentley gave me a nod of approval. “You girls do a fantastic job of supporting each other. I was told that by Nina and her team several times this weekend. And Blair, it could have been a real problem down the road had you pushed through that camp, ignored the injury, and out–performed the majority of the girls there. If they had picked you for the American Cup team only to find out days later that you were too injured to compete, that wouldn’t have sat well with your position long–term.”
I waited for Bentley to bring up my panic attack and realized quickly that it was not a topic for team meetings. More for the shrink that I’d see again tomorrow.
“Stevie,” Bentley said. “You aren’t going to be back to top form in only two months. We have to be realistic about your progress. You showed consistency in the easier versions of your routines. Every day you seem to get an old skill back again. Just give it time.”
“But we wanted to make you look good, Coach,” Ellen said. “It was your first camp with Nina Jones.”
She looked so young, curled up in a ball on the gymnastics floor, bright red circles on her cheeks, I half expected her to stuff her thumb in her mouth.
Bentley grabbed one of the sixteen–inch folded mats and scooted it closer, sitting down in front of us. “What makes you think I didn’t look good?”
Blair shrugged beside me. “I did nothing but bars and dance, Ellen puked in a garbage can in the gym and spent the weekend in bed or coughing on everyone. And Karen…well, we won’t go there…” I felt my face flush, but was glad she spoke up about the elephant in the room. “And Stevie basically did level ten skills all weekend, making a lot of people ask what she was doing there in the first place. Not that I’d ask that. Stevie’s the shit, in my eyes, always will be, of course.”