by Dean, Ali
“Oh, no,” I answer easily. “No boyfriends.” It should be weird to me how quickly things get personal with these girls, but it’s not. They already know all these details about one another and they’re only trying to catch up now that they’ve brought me into their friendship. I guess I could be put off by their pushiness to know everything about me, but instead I’m grateful. I need all the help I can get navigating this if Griffin Perry calls me. Even if he’s not the one I’d be most excited to hear from, I don’t think Beckett’s going to be calling anytime soon.
Ellie places her elbows on the table across from me and leans forward. “So, no boyfriends but any friends-with-benefits or wannabe boyfriends?”
“No, not really. Phoebe was the only other girl my age around who liked to skateboard. It’s not that big in Connecticut. The rest were all guys. The main group in our grade were assholes. I mean, most skateboarders I’ve met are awesome. But this group, it was four of them, they were the ones who bullied Levi.”
Zora does her single eyebrow raise I’m already becoming familiar with. “You know you don’t have to date skateboarders, right?”
“No, I couldn’t be with anyone who didn’t skateboard.”
The girls laugh, but when they realize I’m not joking, they stop. “Wait, are you serious?” Ellie asks.
“Yeah kinda,” I admit with a shrug. “I guess. I don’t know.” I haven’t given it all that much thought until just now. “The only guys I’ve ever been attracted to are skateboarders.”
“The only guys?” Zora asks, skepticism filling her question. “Impossible.”
Lucy defends me. “What’s wrong with only liking skateboarders? We all have our type.”
Ellie’s already on to the next question. “Okay, so if the skateboarders your age were dicks, did you hook up with older guys or out-of-towners or what?”
I can’t just come out and say it so I give them the one story I do have to start with. “My first kiss was actually with a guy who didn’t skateboard at all. He was an athlete, and he was cute, but I didn’t have a crush on him. He just happened to be the first guy to show interest in me who I was remotely interested in back.” I want to roll my eyes at how lame this sounds, but it’s the truth. “It was freshman year, Wyatt and Phoebe had been dating for a while at that point and I’d never even kissed someone. So I went with this guy, Gavin, to homecoming. He kissed me and…” I can feel my cheeks heating, but I force myself to tell them, wanting to be real with my new friends. “It was disgusting.”
I shiver at the memory.
“Disgusting?” Lucy asks beside me.
“All slobbery and wet and he was, like, trying to eat me.”
Ellie nudges Zora beside her. “Oh my God, that sounds like your first kiss with Daniel.”
Zora shudders. “So gross.”
I smile weakly, knowing my next question will give me away. They might change their mind about me. These girls are so cool. They don’t hide back anything in life. Will they still want to be my friend once they find out I’m not like them? “So, it gets better?” I ask Zora.
“Oh yeah, much better. I’ve had a couple more bad kissers since, but…” She stops abruptly. “Wait, hold up.” Zora puts a hand up. She lowers her voice and looks around. “That was your only kiss?”
“Yeah, and it was like making out with a fish so I haven’t been real eager to do it again.”
Zora starts laughing, and when she snorts out “a fish” I recognize she’s not laughing at my lack of experience, but my description of Gavin’s kissing skills.
“It really was terrifying, you guys,” I explain. “I still sometimes have nightmares about it.”
Lucy and Ellie crack up and I have to laugh along with them.
“How long did you let him kiss you like that?” Lucy asks between cackles.
“I didn’t know what to do. I wasn’t sure if it was normal or not so I wanted to see it through. We were outside the school and when someone finally walked by I was so relieved.” I clutch my stomach to contain the laughter. It’s such a relief to relive this terrible memory now and be able to see the humor in it. “I mean, he kept trying to suck my face. Literally. But I had an excuse to push him off.”
“Good for you,” Zora says, wiping a tear from her eye.
Our laughter slows down, and I go on to tell them, “Then I had to break up with him, and he had a big ego so that part sucked too.”
“Yeah, breaking up with big egos is rough. Especially high school freshman boy big egos,” Ellie says with a deep nod.
I sigh. “So that’s the extent of it. After that, some other guys asked me out. I didn’t really like any of them that much or barely knew them and it wasn’t worth it to me. Once I said no a few times guys stopped asking.”
“Wow,” Lucy says. “You do like boys though, right? I mean, it’s totally cool if you don’t, but I want to be on the same page here.”
I squirm a little in my seat. “No, it’s a fair question. I dress kind of like a tomboy, and the same guys who bullied Levi for being gay tried to tease me for being a lesbian. That was only after I shut them down when they tried to hit on me. It didn’t last long once they realized they weren’t getting to me.”
“Wait, so you do like girls, not guys?” Zora asks.
“Oh, no,” I say, shaking my head when I realize what I said. “I’ve had crushes on boys. Just no one from my high school, so it never went anywhere.”
The guys I fantasized about were the Beckett Steeles and Griffin Perrys of the world, and the irony is not lost on me. In fact, it’s weighing on me hard.
Lucy claps her hands. “All right, now that we’ve got that settled, I know what my role is here.”
Zora and Ellie nod like they know exactly what she’s referring to. I’m afraid I do too.
“It’s time our girl makes out with a good kisser. And I think we already have the perfect candidate.”
Chapter Nine
Jordan
I don’t hear from Griffin until Monday night, which Lucy assures me is to be expected. I’ve had a full day of classes, and my mind is spinning with syllabi and assignments. I’m still getting headaches from the concussion too. I’ve arranged to have nearly all my classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so that I can get to skateparks on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But I know after the fall on Sunday I shouldn’t skate anywhere except around campus. Besides, I’ve already got a ton of homework.
My phone rings from an unknown number with a local area code, and while I’m surprised he’s calling instead of texting, I know it’s him. The only other people who have my number around here are already programmed into my phone, including Beckett.
“Hello?”
“Mystery girl, it’s Griffin. We met at The Mecca yesterday.”
“I remember. And you didn’t actually introduce yourself, you know,” I tell him. It had bothered me a little. I mean, we all knew who he was, and he probably heard the girls gushing as he walked over. But he could’ve still pretended, right?
“Sorry, you and your friends distracted me from good manners, I guess.”
That’s fair. “They can be a lot to handle,” I admit.
“But not you?”
“No, not really. I say what’s on my mind, just like them, but what’s on my mind isn’t nearly as outrageous.”
“Maybe not, but I still want to hear it.”
There’s a pause, and I’m uncertain what to say next. He doesn’t let it hang for long, “So, when can we meet up to skate together?”
Skate together? With Griffin Perry? I don’t care if this is a date or not, it’s an opportunity I can’t pass up.
“I can’t until Thursday. Did you see that bruise on my forehead?” I don’t wait for him to answer. “I got a little concussion and have to take it easy this week.” I shouldn’t even go skating at a park on Thursday, but keep it lowkey. That will give me time to go out and buy a new helmet too.
We don’t get off the phone once we’ve made pl
ans for Thursday. He asks me about classes and where I’m from, and I find out he’s living near campus, about to launch his new skateboarding company, Brazen. When he tells me his roommates are students, I want to ask if Beckett is one of them, but I stop myself.
Lucy conveniently returns from a shower right as I’m hanging up with Griffin. She demands a debriefing, and then proceeds to analyze what it means. “Okay, so if he just wanted in your pants he’d make it more clearly a booty call. Like, ‘hey let’s meet for a bite and then go back to my place’ kind of thing. I mean he wouldn’t say the ‘go back to my place’ part but it would be implied.”
“How do you know these things? I know you’ve had more than one lousy kiss but high school guys didn’t operate like this. They couldn’t, they lived with their parents.”
Lucy shrugs. “I watch a lot of reality TV. Plus Zora liked to troll campus occasionally to hook up with older guys when she got sick of the high school options.” She waves a hand like it doesn’t matter that she actually has no first-hand experience with guys in their twenties and is perfectly equipped to psychoanalyze Griffin’s intentions. “He invited you to skateboard, and since he knows that’s your thing, he actually intends to spend some quality time with you.”
I blink at her a few times as I watch her mull this apparent conundrum over.
“But if he was like super-duper hyped up about hanging with you it seems like he would have tried to make it happen before Thursday and wouldn’t want to wait three more days.”
“Honestly Lucy, I think you’re overthinking this.”
She sighs. “Yeah, maybe. But I don’t want you to end up in an uncomfortable situation. However, I do think you should take some risks. Sure it would suck if he kissed like an octopus. That would be even worse than a fish. But I think the odds of that are low with Griffin Perry. Still, he also might be the kind of guy who assumes if you kiss him you’ll, you know, have sex with him too. So even though I want you to kiss him if he tries that, I don’t want you to do anything you’re not ready for.”
I place two hands on Lucy’s shoulders, realizing her protectiveness is placing me in the position of needing to play parent. “Lucy, I’m a big girl. I’m going to be fine. We’re just going skateboarding together. Relax.”
“For someone with so little experience, you’re very wise.” When she smiles at me, there’s a little punch to my gut as I realize why I’m able to be so detached about this. I’m being open and honest about everything, except for one part. Beckett Steele. And Lucy isn’t the only one I’m trying to fool here, it’s myself too.
* * *
The distraction of classes and homework helps, but it sucks not being able to skate. I’m still getting around campus on my skateboard, but only along the sidewalks, no jumps or rails. It’s not as if I didn’t go days without skateboarding back home, especially in winter. But I’m surrounded by skateboards here, and I’ve built it up in my mind for months. After worrying about Griffin’s intentions with the date on Thursday, Lucy spent the rest of the night worrying about me skating in a park only five days after the concussion, but I promised her I’d mostly just be ogling Griffin, not dropping into bowls or catching air. I’m not entirely sure that’s a promise I can keep, but I’ll do my best.
After studying all afternoon the next day, I soak in the rays as I ride my skateboard back from the library. I’ve just gotten off the phone with my parents, since it’s three hours ahead on the east coast and they’re feeling my absence at the dinner table. That’s when they’ve called me every day since they said goodbye at orientation and flew home. They don’t need to chat long, but the reassurance of my voice seems to be enough. I get it. I’m their only child, this can’t be easy for them. They’re doing good though, trying to let me spread my wings or whatever.
Classes just got out and the quad is filled with students. People play frisbee on the lawn, and I spot a couple guys skateboarding slowly ahead of me. They stop and pick up their boards when a few girls walking in the opposite direction wave and call out to them.
“Steele!” I hear someone shout from behind me. The taller skateboarder turns his head and as soon as I catch his profile, I freeze.
He lifts his chin in acknowledgment to whoever called out to him, and I tear my eyes away to follow his gaze. A guy wearing nothing but board shorts is jogging barefoot across the lawn. He catches a frisbee, pauses, and sends it in Beck’s direction.
People are walking around me now and I know I’ll be spotted any second. I’ve got a hat on backwards and I turn it around so the brim covers my face. I don’t know why, but I absolutely do not want Beck to notice me. I mean I do, but I don’t.
I figured I might run into him eventually on campus, but I didn’t want it to be so soon.
It’d be too weird if I turned around so I just push forward, right as Beck launches the frisbee back. He turns to the group of girls again as I get closer and I let out a long breath of air.
Beck’s back is to me as I pass the group. I overhear the girls invite him to the beach, and I kick my back foot harder to zoom past. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Beck turn toward the frisbee players just as I would have moved into his line of sight. I’m in the clear.
I can taste the odd mixture of disappointment and relief on my tongue, but the adrenaline is still high as I coast forward. My heart is already pumping wildly, and when I hear an unfamiliar voice call “Hey! Mystery girl!” it doesn’t register. A second later, I hear, “Jordan Slattery!” My name is shouted so loud, even the people in front of me stop to turn around. I step off my board to keep it from rolling forward and glance over my shoulder.
Taylor Sly has a hand up and he’s coming in my direction. I hadn’t even noticed who Beck was riding with. My cheeks heat as I feel the curious gazes of the group of girls he was talking to, along with half the students on the quad.
Taylor reaches me, and I take a step back when he stands inches away. “Sorry, I feel like hugging you or something. It’s like finding Waldo. I can’t believe I just spotted you. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
I adjust my backpack with one hand and put my board back on the ground. “Yeah, so I guess not such a mystery girl then, huh?”
“You saw the video? How come you didn’t comment?”
I put a foot on my board and slide it back and forth. “I don’t know. I don’t have Instagram.” I shrug, and to keep him from asking about that I lift my chin. “How’d you get my name?”
“A couple people from the east coast recognized you. They told me you went here.” He points to his chest. “I’m a senior. I hear you’re a freshman.”
It isn’t a question, and I can only assume that whoever told him my name also said I was new at Summerside U. I know one of them was Tanner, one of the jerks from back home. Of course he’d take an opportunity to comment on Taylor Sly’s video.
“Yeah, I’m a freshman.” What does he want from me? Why did he even post that video in the first place? I haven’t given it much thought, but now with him standing right in front of me, I’m uncertain what this is all about. Probably nothing. Just a guy who saw a girl do something he wasn’t expecting, and tried to get some attention by turning it into an identification mystery.
“Cool, have you met any skateboarders yet? You know Riptide isn’t the only place around to skate. It gets all the focus, but it’s usually pretty crowded. I can show you some other parks that are closer and aren’t as popular.”
Biting my lip, I take a quick glance up at the sky. God is playing a joke on me, isn’t it? Taylor Sly isn’t quite on the Beckett Steele or Griffin Perry level, but he’s up and coming. Plus, he’s definitely cute, though not head-turning and jaw-dropping kind of attractive. Just, you know, normal hot college guy attractive.
I narrow my eyes. “Are you trying to butter me up so you can take my picture, post it on Instagram, and show everyone you found me?”
He lets out a booming laugh, and I glance around, recognizing we still have the
attention of some people on the quad. I’ve been diligently avoiding looking in Beckett’s direction, but now that he’s taking long strides our way, I can’t pretend like I don’t notice him.
Our eyes lock, and the friendly, concerned guy from Sunday morning is absent. The cartoonish blue of his eyes is just as vibrant, but there’s a flash of annoyance in his expression.
Taylor is still talking. “That wasn’t what I was going for, Jordan, but now that you mention it, why not?”
Beckett joins us, his eyes on me so intense it’s hard to breathe. “Hi,” I squeak, and try not to cringe at how pathetic I am.
He’s standing sort of between me and Taylor, mere inches from me. Instead of taking a step back like I did with Taylor a moment ago, I take a deep breath. I swear, Beckett Steele even smells good. Sort of like that ocean breeze body gel scent, only with a distinct maleness. Weirdly, it makes me think about licking him, which makes me blink rapidly. Maybe I’ve been spending too much time talking about disgusting kissing techniques and it’s getting to me. Yikes.
“Hi,” he returns, holding my stare a moment before turning to Taylor.
“What are you guys talking about?” He directs the question at Taylor.
Taylor throws a hand in my direction. “It’s the mystery girl, man. Jordan Slattery. I found her.”
Beck swings his head back to me. “Mystery girl?” The annoyance I thought I detected in his expression earlier is there in his tone now too. I have the sudden urge to cry and I blame it entirely on hormones from being on my period.
“Uh, yeah,” I manage to get out. Griffin knew about it somehow, but that doesn’t mean Beck does. “From the Instagram video.” My throat tightens up and I’m afraid my voice will shake if I speak. There’s something downright wrong with me. Yes, a glare from those eyes and that face would definitely rattle anyone, but it’s not like he’s outwardly angry with me. Or is he? What does he have to be angry about anyway?