Playing Her Secret Crush

by Casey Griffin

  “Aww,” Penny whined. “I’ve got chores to do. But Mom says if I get them done really quick, I can play more later.”

  “Great,” Alex said. “Let’s all meet in a couple of hours.”

  “See you guys later,” Trevor said.

  The others signed out of the game and disappeared in little puffs of smoke, leaving Katie and Alex alone.

  “So, are you coming over now?” Katie asked. She hoped he didn’t hear the nervous hitch in her voice.

  “Just can’t get enough of me hanging around this summer?” he teased.

  She snorted. “What do you mean? You’ve hardly been around. You know, between Gillian and Lucy and Mia and that other one.” She counted them off on her fingers, trying to work from the top of the cheerleader pyramid down. “Oh, and don’t forget that date with Audrey. She’s still messaging me, by the way, asking why you haven’t returned any of her calls.”

  He groaned. “What did you tell her?”

  “That you’ve been in Spain running with the bulls.”

  He laughed. “Thanks. I can always count on you.”

  “Well, I had to make it sound plausible,” she joked—sort of. Thanks to his carpe diem attitude, he was always trying to find new ways to get a rush.

  “I’ll see you soon,” he said.

  “Sure thing.”

  Katie began gnawing on her lip before she remembered her lipstick. She took a calming breath. Don’t be stupid. It’s only Alex. He was just her friend, and she needed his opinion on her New Look. No big deal.

  Signing out of the game, she stripped out of her faded jeans and Marvel T-shirt and whipped open her closet. From its depths, she pulled out the little bag she’d been stashing all summer. Her secret weapon for The Plan to get noticed: a new, lacy red pushup bra.

  Not that anyone would see it was lacy, or red, for that matter. Or would they? Eventually, maybe…but she was getting way ahead of herself.

  The point was she was going to know she was wearing it. It would make her feel confident, like all those Victoria’s Secret models. And magazines always said the sexiest feature on a woman was confidence. If only that had come in a bottle at the cosmetics counter, too.

  Katie riffled through her closet until she found her new red dress. She cut off the price tags and slipped it on over her new bra. Stepping in front of the mirror, she scrutinized how it hung.

  “Looking good,” she told her reflection, because she was trying Step two: Act confident. If she repeated her positive affirmations enough, she’d hopefully start to believe them, and others would see it, too—specifically the guys at school.

  It wasn’t like Katie had never had a boyfriend. She’d totally had one…sort of. But she didn’t like to count him, even if he had been her first kiss.

  Back in ninth grade, Kyle Jacobs, the swoonworthiest guy in their grade, had asked her out. But it turned out he was only dating Katie to make her friend Annabelle jealous. And it worked, because after they’d been going out for a couple of weeks, Katie walked in on Kyle making out with Annabelle at a house party.

  After Katie ran out, Annabelle—drunk on two wine coolers and showing off her hickey like it was a medal of honor—confided in pretty much everyone at the party that the only reason Kyle had dated Katie was because she was the “warm-up” for the main attraction: Annabelle. By Monday morning, Katie’s new name was Warm-up Warner. The next year, she switched schools.

  But she wasn’t a freshman anymore. She was a senior now, and this was going to be the year to put all that behind her. She wouldn’t blend into the pages of the yearbook, forgotten. She’d attract friends like Alex attracted girls, and ten years from now, when her classmates were reminiscing, they’d say “Remember Katie Warner?” And not in a “God, she was so weird” kind of way or a “Remember that time she farted in Biology?” way.

  While she waited for Alex to arrive, Katie grabbed another magazine. Just as she flipped to a new article, she heard the familiar chugging of an old Ford truck engine.

  Katie jumped up so fast the magazine fell to the floor. Heart leaping, she rushed to the window and spotted Alex’s truck pulling up across the street.

  As his tall, muscular frame slid out of the cab, her stomach did a little jig. She knew it wasn’t just because she hadn’t seen him in a while. That reaction to him had never gone away even after two years, despite being “just friends.”

  Giving herself one last look, she applied another coat of Bodaciously Bold lipstick. Then she puckered up in the mirror and blew herself a kiss before rushing to the door to meet Alex.

  She couldn’t wait to see his face when he got a load of the New Katie. He was going to love it for sure—at least, that was the positive affirmation she was supposed to tell herself.

  Chapter Two

  The first thing Alex felt when Katie opened her front door was immense guilt. Well, first it was surprise over the dress she was wearing, and how it made her honey eyes pop, and how it hugged her curves. And then he felt guilty for checking out those curves. Alex wasn’t supposed to be checking out Katie’s anything. Katie Warner was off-limits.

  “Alex!” She threw her arms around him and he hugged her back.

  After a week trapped with his family in San Jose, he relaxed in Katie’s presence. The knots in his back untied, and his muscles softened to mush until he melted against her curves—which he totally wasn’t thinking about.

  He might have only been away a week, but it was a week surrounded by family he hadn’t seen in almost two years, since his brother’s funeral. So naturally, it was all they could talk about. All he heard for seven days was “What a waste,” “So much potential,” “He was so alive.”

  They didn’t know the half of it.

  His arms automatically tightened around Katie. She squeezed back like she could sense how stressful his week had been without him having to say anything at all. But as he held her just a little too long, that guilt squeezed him even harder, and he pulled away. It reminded him of what he’d come to talk to her about.

  Grabbing Alex by the arm, Katie tugged him inside. He barely had time to kick off his shoes before she was dragging him up the stairs to her room, which only gave him a whole new angle to check out the dress.

  He just wasn’t used to seeing her dressed up. She usually wore clothes that hid her figure like loose T-shirts and jeans, but he’d always thought those looked pretty good on her, too. And he’d certainly never seen her wearing this much makeup.

  In Alex’s eyes, that was part of what made his best friend so awesome. She wasn’t obsessed with all that girly stuff—checking her makeup in every reflective surface or refusing to do things because she wasn’t wearing the right shoes for it. He’d thought she was cool with who she was and how she looked. He liked that about her. So what had changed?

  He hadn’t realized he was still staring at the curves shifting beneath that dress until he heard her mom’s voice at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hi, Alex!” she called up. “How was your vacation?”

  Alex spun around, heat crawling over his face. “I-It was great, thank you.”

  “Your family’s good?” she asked casually.

  He shrugged. “The usual.” Obviously, she hadn’t noticed him checking out her daughter, so he relaxed and went back down the stairs to talk.

  “That’s good.” She smiled warmly enough, but since the Warners were practically his second family, she knew things weren’t that “good.” Her expression conveyed the same pep talk she usually gave him. Things will get better with time.

  Mrs. Warner was great. Alex felt like he could talk to her about stuff like his brother. Whenever he tried with his own mom, she just ended up crying and leaving the room.

  When Mrs. Warner’s eyes landed on her daughter, they widened. She made a pleased little gasping sound. “Sweetheart, you look cute as a button.”

  Katie rolled her eyes and came back down the stairs. “Yeah. Button. That’s what I was going for.”

&nbs
p; “This is a nice dress.” She tugged at the fabric, causing Alex’s eyes to drop again. “When did you get it?”

  “This thing? Oh, it’s old,” Katie said. “Just something I threw on. I wanted to see if it still fits before school starts.”

  But her mom’s smile only grew wider. “Is this about a boy? It is, isn’t it?”

  “Mom,” Katie groaned.

  A boy? Alex’s hand tightened on the bannister. Surely she was only teasing her. Katie had never had a boyfriend—well, except for that loser in freshman year, but that was before Alex had met her.

  “It’s fine, sweetheart,” her mom said. “You’re starting senior year. It’s perfectly normal to be interested in dating.” She played with Katie’s long, dark hair, which was down for once instead of in a ponytail.

  Katie tried to swat her away. “Mom!”

  “I’m just saying, girls your age are always gossiping about boys. You spend so much time playing that video game that I was starting to worry. It’s good to see you putting yourself out there and getting all dolled up, acting like a girl.”

  “I’m not dolled up.”

  Alex frowned. “You are kind of dolled up.”

  “And I am a girl.”

  “Yes. You’re my little girl.” Mrs. Warner squealed as she pulled her daughter in for a hug.

  Alex laughed as Katie squirmed in her mother’s embrace, but his smile faded quickly. Sure, maybe other girls their age always gossiped about guys. Heck, he knew they gossiped about him, too. He’d seen the flirty smiles, heard his name whispered and the giggles as he passed them in the halls. But Katie wasn’t like that. She didn’t spend all her time talking about guys. She spent her time…well, with him.

  Katie relented and sank into the hug. “Umm, this is great, Mom, but is it okay if we’re done with the mother-daughter bonding thing now?”

  “Sorry. You two probably have lots to catch up on.” She reluctantly pulled away. “But just so you know, you went a little overboard on the lipstick, honey,” she didn’t quite whisper.

  Katie’s hand flew to her mouth and she quickly wiped at it, smearing lipstick on the back of her hand. With a sigh, she turned and trudged upstairs.

  Alex followed her up to her room, stifling his laughter. He could sense Katie shooting looks at him over her shoulder, but he kept his eyes on his feet (and off that dress). He couldn’t think of her like that. After everything they’d been through together, she felt like family. He could even say he loved her. Just not like that.

  Maybe there was a time, at the beginning, when he’d hoped… But it wasn’t possible. Not now.

  When he walked into Katie’s bedroom, he wrinkled his nose. It smelled like perfume. It was a nice scent, just not how Katie usually smelled—like her coconut shampoo.

  As Alex dropped his backpack on the floor, Katie closed the door to her room and turned to him. “So, how was your vacation, really?” she asked, and he knew she didn’t mean the answer he’d give anyone else.

  Alex sighed and flopped down on Katie’s carefully made bed to relax. Sometimes it felt like her house was the only place he could relax.

  After his brother died, he’d spent a lot of time hiding out in Katie’s room. Home just didn’t feel the same anymore. The Warners’ place became more his home. Being with Katie felt like home.

  “Better now that it’s over,” Alex answered. “Don’t get me wrong. I love my family. But Jason died almost two years ago now, and it felt like his wake all over again. Everyone was talking about his accomplishments, what he could have accomplished, if he’d lived…” He sighed. “I get it. I do. I’m just tired of it, I guess.”

  “I know,” she said, and by her tone of voice, he knew she understood that he was tired of missing him. Of hurting.

  Jason once had the world at his feet. Everyone loved him: teachers, football scouts, gullible parents, and, most importantly, girls. Alex had just found him annoying, really. But that was mostly jealousy of his older brother, resentment of living in the shadow of The Golden Child.

  That resentment went away after he got sick and they started getting close. Jason was always asking Alex to visit him in the hospital, maybe because he regretted how their relationship had been. Alex recalled him once saying that he had a lot of regrets.

  The week before he’d died, he told Alex, “Life is too short. You never know when it’s all going to stop.” He reached out to grip Alex’s collar, the line for his morphine drip stretching to its limits. “Promise me you won’t let it go to waste. Promise that you’ll live life to the fullest.”

  Alex didn’t understand how someone who seemed to do it all, to have it all, could feel like they should have done more with their time—as short as it was—like Jason had somehow missed out between all the partying and girls in the backseat of his car. Alex promised his brother, anyway.

  Since then, he hadn’t just followed in his brother’s footsteps. He’d taken that life and practically made it an extreme sport. Despite his parents’ and therapist’s objections, he wouldn’t live with any regrets. And yet, he still felt like there was something missing, something more that he could be doing. Between the skydiving, mountain biking, white water rafting, and a new girl every chance he got, it was just never enough.

  It made him anxious when he really thought about it. It caused his heart to race, his hands to shake, a pressure to build on top of his chest like it could all end any second, and he hadn’t done enough. Of course, he never dreamed of telling his therapist that, in case she diagnosed him as completely insane. Or worse—he’d be forced to see a doctor only to find out he was dying of cancer, too.

  Instead, he liked to imagine the crushing weight was a message from his brother, a reminder not to slip into contentment, to live every moment like it was his last. His big brother was guiding him even now. More and more lately, Jason had been telling him there was something wrong, and it had to do with his feelings for Katie. That was what he needed her help with.

  Katie was watching him closely, waiting for him to go on. He’d been quiet for a while now, and a cute little worry line had formed between her eyebrows.

  He shrugged it off. “I’ll be okay. You ready to play or what?”

  “Sure.” She hesitated and touched her lips kind of self-consciously. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to go wash this off.”

  Once she was gone, Alex stretched out on the bed and rolled onto his side. He heard a crinkle beneath the blanket. Sitting up, he fished around until he found a magazine. It was some girly magazine, and it was open to How to Hook Your Guy.

  He tossed it aside, already coming up with ways to tease Katie about it like her mom did. Then he noticed another magazine on the floor. He picked it up, and it automatically fell open to a dog-eared page. Six Ways to Improve Your Love Life.

  Why would Katie even read this crap? She made fun of this stuff. In fact, she often criticized the girls he dated for these very things. The articles were always focused on how you looked. He supposed Katie did look pretty good today. Different, but good. She always did, though—without the magazines.

  He took a closer look at the article, and suddenly her strange behavior made sense. He’d laughed when her mom had teased her before, but she was right; Katie was looking for a boyfriend.

  Why was she suddenly so obsessed with improving her love life, anyway? What kind of guy was she going to get by following the trashy advice in a magazine? Some sleazebag, probably. No one good for her, that was for sure.

  Alex threw the magazine aside. It wasn’t like he could say anything. Why shouldn’t Katie put herself out there? Heck, he’d dated at least twenty girls in the last two years. Not that he’d planned it that way, though. The relationships just fizzled out every time, like a skydiving trip where the plane won’t take off the ground or scuba diving with an empty tank of air—short-lived. Only, there was one girl he couldn’t touch, the person his brother had developed serious feelings for before he’d died: Katie.

  Once Al
ex had learned of Jason’s feelings, going for Katie would have felt like a betrayal, like stealing his brother’s girl behind his back. Besides, he’d always thought Katie liked Jason back. Why else would she have spent so much time at the hospital visiting? But being near her only made Alex yearn for the same kind of relationship he had with Katie, only, with someone he could touch, he could kiss. That girl just couldn’t be Katie.

  The bedroom door opened, and Katie bounced back in. She stood in the middle of her room and held out her arms. “Okay. So what do you think?”

  “Think of what?” he asked, still lost in thought.

  “Of this.” She waved a hand over herself. “Of my new look.”

  She spun around so he could take it all in. As though they had a mind of their own, his eyes ran over her again, this time more slowly.

  She turned to face him, biting her lip. “So?”

  He could tell by her pink cheeks (beneath all that makeup) she was nervous, and he knew he had to say something. As beautiful as she was, she never seemed to realize it. If he said nothing, she’d only read into it in a negative way.

  He cleared his throat. “It’s…nice.”

  Her face fell. “Nice? That’s it? I spent all my birthday and Christmas money on nice?”

  “Nice is good.” He took another look at her, and for a moment, saw her as someone else’s, someone those magazines were going to attract. “I thought you looked fine before. Aren’t you always lecturing me about the pretty girls I date? Don’t judge a book by its cover and all that?”

  She picked nervously at one of her nails. “So…you’re saying I look pretty?”

  “I’m saying you looked pretty before.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Yes, well, what I was doing before wasn’t really working for me. Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but everyone knows it’s the reason people pick it up in the first place. And I just…” She sighed. “I’d like to be that book. I’d like to be—”