“But, I thought that’s what you wanted me to do….”
“Forget it, Trisha. You are so history.” She pointed at me. “Don’t you dare follow me or I swear I will climb up on that table and scream to everyone that you’re in love with Graham Fordham.”
I dropped her arm and sucked in my breath. “You wouldn’t!”
“Oh. I would. And for your information, Graham is outside right now, kissing Ashley Welles.”
I recoiled in horror, my hand going to my mouth. “What?”
She leaned into my space and glared at me. “Stay out of my life, Trisha Perkins, and prepare to kiss your spot on varsity good-bye. You take what I want, and I’ll take what you want.” And then she was gone, Beth running after her.
I didn’t dare follow her. Not with that threat.
But she had to be lying. Graham would never kiss Ashley. Never! But when I looked back at Graham’s table, he wasn’t there. And neither was Ashley.
Oh, God. Had Sara been telling the truth?
My stomach churned and I sank back onto the seat across from Kirk.
He eyed me, looking way too amused by the whole situation. Why wouldn’t he? Two girls in a screaming fight over him? Of course he’d think it was hilarious. I glared at him, and all he did was smile. “So, I’m thinking that you and me on a date…not a great idea, huh, Trisha?”
“Gee, you think?”
His smile widened. “So, about Sara…”
“What?” I snapped. I had to get home. This night was a disaster.
“I had no idea she could yell like that. It was a good threat, too. Think she can pull it off?”
I stared at him. “You like her now because she yelled at me?”
He shrugged, still looking way too happy. “I didn’t realize she had it in her. Is she really going to kick your butt on the soccer field?”
How could he sound so cheerful? I stuck my tongue out at him and left.
I’d had enough.
10
I almost stayed home from practice with Graham the next morning, but Sara’s threat kept hanging over me like a bad grade. If she really decided to bust her butt on the soccer field, I was in such trouble, especially since I already had one bad tryout.
Forget Sara. She was going down.
I was already drenched in sweat by the time Graham arrived a little after ten. I was burning my way through some drills and I had my back toward that side of the field, but I suddenly knew he was there. It was like my bones got all tingly and my pulse jacked up.
He said nothing, and I didn’t turn around. All I could think about was him with Ashley. Had he left with her? Why had he let her put her hand on his arm? Was all his anti-girl sentiment actually a lie? Was it just me he didn’t like? Had he really kissed her?
Scowling, I slammed the ball at the net. It careened over the top of it and sailed into the next field. Crud.
“Nice shot.”
Was he sarcastic with Ashley too, or was I the only lucky one? “Thanks,” I snapped, jogging after my ball to retrieve it. I picked it up and turned around, almost stopping at the sight of him.
He was wearing navy sweats and a fleece against the brisk morning air, and he was wearing a baseball cap on backward. So casual, so cute. So unfair.
“So, want to do some passing drills this morning, then?” he asked, not even giving me the slightest inspection.
“Yeah.” I walked up and dropped the ball at his feet. “Sounds good.”
He cocked his head. “Good morning to you, Ms. Cranky.”
“Good morning to you.” I ignored the remark about my mood, because, well, he was right. I was being a grouch, and it wasn’t like I was going to tell him the reason. What was I supposed to say? Ask him whether he was dating Ashley?
“Are you dating Ashley?” Oh, crud! How had that slipped out?
Graham looked startled. “Ashley? You’re kidding, right?”
I grabbed the ball with my toe and headed away from him to start the passing drill. “You were there with her. She was all over you and you didn’t seem to mind.” I kicked him the ball and started running down the field.
“All over me?” He slammed the ball, and I had to sprint to catch it before it sailed past me. “She and her friend had a table and they let us join them when there were no other open ones. Not a big deal.”
I cut in front of him and he passed me the ball as he split in the other direction. “Well, she had her hand on your arm. What’s up with that?” I kicked the ball ahead of him and felt a mild sense of satisfaction when he grunted and dug in to try to catch up to it.
“I don’t even remember. What’s it matter to you?” He was breathing heavily as he dribbled the ball a few feet, waiting for me to move into position.
“It doesn’t matter, except Kirk was convinced you and I were dating, even when I denied it.” I ran across the field and nodded for the pass. “So when he saw you and Ashley getting it on, he thought I was all pathetic because you were hanging with her in front of me.” Not quite the truth, but close enough if he wanted to hear what I was really saying.
Graham smashed the ball at me and I had to head it to keep it from sailing past me out of bounds.
“Sorry,” he muttered, blocking the ball and trying a much more controlled pass right to me. “Ashley asked if you and I were a couple.”
My cleat caught in the turf and I almost went down. “What?” I regained my balance and dribbled a couple of yards while Graham sprinted toward the goal. “You and I? As if!” I lifted the ball up, toward Graham’s face. “Did you kiss her?”
He scowled and headed the ball into the upper right corner of the net. Then he spun toward me, his hands on his hips. “Did you just ask me if I kissed her?”
I eased to a stop in front of him. “Did you?”
His cheeks turned red and my gut tightened in dismay. Was that a guilty look? “Graham! Why didn’t you tell me you were dating her? I thought we were all bonding over our ‘we aren’t into the dating scene’ thing, and then I find out that you’re dating her?”
“I didn’t lie to you,” he protested. “I said I wasn’t dating her, and I’m not. I’m not dating anyone.”
“But did you kiss her?”
“Why does it matter to you?”
“Because I thought you were my friend, and friends don’t lie to each other. I trusted you because I thought you were like me. Not into dating. We made fun of people who got stupid around the opposite sex. Was all that a lie too?”
“No! I’m not dating her!”
I folded my arms over my chest, well aware that he was avoiding the bigger question. “Did you kiss her?”
He turned away to go retrieve the soccer ball that was still sitting in the back of the goal. “She kissed me when we left,” he muttered. “It was nothing. Friends. I didn’t kiss her back.”
“Friends?” Oh, God! My stomach was killing me and I felt this weird buzzing in my ears. “You don’t kiss someone that you’re only friends with! What kind of stupid comment is that?”
He grabbed the ball and spun toward me, a scowl on his face. “It’s not the same kind of kiss, trust me.”
“Was it on the lips?”
His cheeks got even redder. “That’s not the point.”
“It is the point.” I marched up to him and poked him in the chest. “If you kiss a girl on the lips, it’s not a friends kiss. It’s a dating kiss.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Of course it does!”
His eyes narrowed, and I realized I’d gone too far, riding him over Ashley. Come on, Trisha! Get it together!
Then he suddenly dropped the ball, set his hand on my shoulders, and pulled me toward him. Before I even knew what he was doing, he bent his head and kissed me.
On the lips.
Oh. My. God.
His lips were soft and warm and he tasted like mint toothpaste, and my belly jumped like a mile. His fingers tightened on my shoulders and I instinctively grabbed his
wrists as he kissed me again, so gently, so soft, so perfect.
He tilted his head, his breath hot against my lips. A chill shot down my spine and I kissed him back. This was how a kiss was supposed to be. It was amazing and perfect and awesome and I would never, ever, ever forget this moment.
Then suddenly he froze and his lips stopped moving. So I froze too.
He broke the kiss and looked down at me, his hands still gripping my shoulders, his eyes all dark and intense.
I stared at him, my lips tingling and my body all freaking out.
He cleared his throat. “See?”
I wet my lips, trying to get my brain working again. “See what?” That you like me? That that was the best kiss in the history of the world?
He took a breath. Then another one. “A guy and a girl can kiss on the lips and it can be a friends kiss.”
I blinked as his words sank in. “A friends kiss?”
“Yeah.” He dropped his hands from my shoulders and sort of shook out his shoulders. “See? We kissed. It meant nothing, because we’re just friends.” He sent me a sideways glance. “Right?”
Depression settled like a black cloud in my mind as I realized what he meant. The kiss had meant nothing. He’d kissed me to prove a point. To win an argument.
But it had been so perfect! How could it have meant nothing? It had been my first kiss! First kisses were supposed to be perfect! They weren’t supposed to mean nothing!
“So?” His voice sounded a little ragged. “You take back your comment about Ashley now?”
I gaped at him, struggling to get my mind together. Should I kick him in the shin? Cry? Leave? “You have no right to kiss me!”
He frowned. “It wasn’t that kind of kiss. It was just a kiss.”
Just a kiss. This was horrible! He was so not into me that he’d kissed me, I mean really kissed me, and he obviously hadn’t felt even the faintest spark of anything.
He wasn’t into me.
He wasn’t into me.
My throat tightened up and my eyes suddenly got all watery. Ack! I wasn’t going to let him make me cry! I jerked free of him and spun away, blinking as hard as I could. “So, yeah, so Sara is going to try to beat me out at varsity, so I have to, um, practice, really hard this week, because, you know, I don’t want to, like, not make it, you know?” The ball was blurry, but I grabbed it and started heading back up the field. “So, um, I think, like, yeah, maybe, so, run that drill another time?”
When he didn’t answer, I turned around. He was standing where I’d left him, the strangest look on his face as he stared after me.
“What?” I snapped.
“The friends thing,” he said. “You buy it now?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. That kiss makes it clear. No magic. Whatever. Can we practice now?”
For a long moment, I thought he wasn’t going to answer, then he nodded and seemed to kick into gear again. “Sure. Let’s do it.” He jogged past me, flicked my ponytail, and kept running.
Great. We were back to the ponytail-flicking relationship. It was the perfect foundation for another week of practice.
But as I squared up with the ball, I began to seriously doubt whether I could take another week of practice with him, even for the sake of varsity.
Because I just couldn’t get that kiss out of my mind.
11
Monday was the worst day of my life. Sara ignored me all day, and Beth tried to be neutral. And practice was the worst. Sara knocked me to the ground three times and played the best I’d ever seen her play. Even with how much I’d improved during the time I’d been practicing with Graham, she was still better than I was.
I was peeling my face out of the dirt for the third time when Beth squatted next to me. “You okay?”
“Great.” I spit some grass out of my mouth and sat up.
“You might want to apologize. That would help.”
“Apologize? I was trying to help her!”
Beth picked something out of my hair and tossed it on the field. “Well, she doesn’t see it that way.”
“Gee, you think?”
She looked past me. “Especially when Kirk showed up to practice again to watch you.”
“What?” I twisted around to peer behind me. Sure enough, Kirk was lounging on the sidelines, wearing his Nike shades and his usual jeans. Ross was standing next to him, kicking his toes in the dirt and shooting periodic glances at Beth. Those two really needed to get together. “Great. Like that’s all I need is to have Kirk here to bug me…” But as I studied him, I realized he wasn’t looking at me. He was studying the field where the action was.
I turned to look in the direction he was gazing, and my heart skipped. He was looking at Sara! No way. But he definitely was.
Grinning, I stood up and dusted myself off, watching Sara sprint around like someone had given her a bad haircut and ruined her life. She had no idea Kirk was watching her. She was simply being a pain in the butt to destroy me.
“What are you looking at?” Beth asked.
“Kirk. He’s here to see Sara, not me.”
“Nuh-uh…” Then she faded to quiet as she saw what I was seeing. “Wow. She has no idea. I’ll go tell her.”
I grabbed her arm before she could move. “No. Kirk only liked her when she forgot about impressing him and stopped being a stupid, flirty girl. If you point it out, she’ll go all weird on him again.”
Coach Merrill blew her whistle, signaling the end of practice, and I saw Sara shoot an evil glance at us before marching over to help Coach round up the soccer balls. My jaw tightened when I saw her chatting up the coach. She never talked with Coach. Ever. She was doing it just to get on the team, just to displace me from varsity. “I never tried to take Kirk from her, but she’s trying to steal my dream.”
Beth shot me a look, but said nothing. What could she say? She knew I was right.
As we watched, Kirk sidled up toward Sara and started helping her pick up the balls. She jerked her gaze toward him, then grinned, then said something and he laughed, his gaze latched on to her face like she was all he needed to survive. I pressed my lips together at the sight of their little bonding. I wanted Graham to look at me like that, just one time, even. I wanted him to walk up and be all cool and casual, even after finding out that I liked him.
“Look at that. Kirk ditched Ross. You think I should go keep Ross company?” Beth was watching Ross with the most pathetically wistful look on her face I’d ever seen.
“Yeah, you should. Go talk to him.”
“Okay.” She nodded once, ran her fingers through her hair, and then trotted over to him. He gave her a shy but totally adoring grin when he saw her approaching him.
And I stood there, alone, watching my friends make these guys smile, and I knew what I had to do.
I marched over to “our” field and there he was. Kicking goals while he waited for me. Enough! He was adorable and funny and talented and I simply couldn’t take it anymore.
Graham glanced over at me and grinned. “Hey.”
I took a deep breath and walked toward him.
His smile faded. “What’s wrong? You look ticked off.”
“I can’t practice with you anymore.”
He frowned. “Why not? This is the big week. Crunch time.”
“I know, but I’m going to do it on my own.”
His frowned deepened. “Why?”
“Because I am.” I started to turn to leave, then hesitated at the look of confusion on his face. Over the last couple of weeks, he’d become my friend, and I owed him an explanation of some sort. It wasn’t his fault he was an idiot. So I caved. “Here’s the thing, Graham. That kiss was way out of line.”
He grimaced. “But I said it didn’t mean anything.”
“Exactly.”
A little furrow formed on his brow. “So?”
I shook my head, not quite willing to actually lay it out there. I mean, it was one thing to hint at it, it was another to announce I liked him, and I was
n’t interested in being treated like a leper from the guy I considered my friend. “So you changed the rules when you kissed me, and I can’t go back.”
He cocked his head. “Why not?”
I poked him in the chest. “Because you’re wrong. A girl and a guy can’t kiss on the lips and have it mean nothing, okay? Not a kiss like that.”
He stared at me, as a look of shock started to fill his face. “Are you saying that you liked my kiss?”
“That’s not the point!”
“But did you?”
“Forget it!” I threw my hands up in the air and started stalking back toward the gym. I could not have this conversation.
Graham was beside me in, like, one second. “Can you stop walking for one minute? We need to talk.”
“What’s there to say?”
“Do you…like me? Like, like?” he asked.
I heard the hesitation in his voice and I bit my lower lip. This was it. The end of our friendship. I could already feel him drawing away. I took a deep breath, steeled my resolve, and then turned to face him.
His eyes were wary, and he wasn’t touching me.
He looked so cute, so awesome, and all I wanted to do was say yes. To tell him the truth.
He took a step backward, away from me. “Do you?”
I lifted my hand and he flinched and backed up another step, in case I was planning to touch him.
My throat tightened up, but I had my answer. There was only one response I could give him if I had any pride. So I set my hands on my hips and met his gaze. “Graham, I think you’re a great soccer player, and I enjoy hanging out with you, and yeah, I think you’re a decent kisser.”
His skin took on this greenish tinge and he shifted his weight, shoving his hands deep inside his pockets.
“But, quite frankly, you’re not my type.”
Relief cruised over his face, making me want to bury my head in a pile of leaves and cry. “That’s great.” He chucked me on the shoulder. “You had me worried for a minute. Don’t mess with me like that. I can’t take it.”
I started walking toward the gym again, noticing that Sara and Beth and their boys were hanging out in a little foursome by the field. I could hear their laughter, and it made me feel even more alone. So I shot Graham a haughty look. “You’re delusional if you think I could ever be interested in you.” I laughed, even as my heart was breaking into tiny little pieces. The varsity girls were walking in the opposite direction of me, toward the field. I wanted to be with them. If I were with them, Graham wouldn’t matter anymore.
The Boyfriend Game Page 8