I looked awesome, and I couldn't believe it. I looked like a girl.
"Nat!" Blue grinned at me. "You look gorgeous, now come show the world!"
"Is he here?" We'd intentionally come to the same pasta place as last Saturday, hoping that it was a team tradition for Zach to come there before each meet and do his carbo loading. Even Allie had agreed it would be fun to see Zach's reaction to my new look.
"I haven't seen him, but a red Jeep just pulled into the end of the parking lot, so maybe that's him."
OMG. My heart fluttered and I clenched the edges of the sink. Was he really here? To see me in my hot new look? "Should I tell him I broke up with Matt?"
Blue narrowed her eyes. "I'm not sure. According to Allie, he's interested because you're unavailable. I think I'd wait to do that. I'd hold steady."
"Too many games. Ugh."
She grinned. "It's all worth it if he's the right guy."
"I hope." I pushed back from the sink. "Okay. I'm ready."
I followed her out of the bathroom, crossing my fingers behind my back that Zach would be out there in the lobby.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
No Zach in the crowded foyer.
Deflation whooshed through me. I had really wanted Zach to be there. I needed him to be there. After Matt's rejection, I needed someone to notice me as a girl. And Zach had been so nice to me all week. Truly, he couldn't be a jerk, could he? I needed him to be a nice guy, and I needed him to like me.
Allie and Frances were standing by the hostess desk, giving me impatient looks.
"Sorry," I said. "I..." A hand touched my arm and I spun around.
Zach grinned at me. "We meet again."
He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt and sneakers, and he looked so cute I thought I'd die. "Hi." Nice strangled voice, Natalie.
His eyes widened, and he gave me a thorough onceover. "You look cute. Different."
I flipped my new hairdo. "So you're saying I didn't look cute before?" It was amazing that I could give him attitude when all I wanted to do was drop on the floor and thank him for noticing. How pathetic was I? Totally.
"No." He checked me out again, and my cheeks got hot. "You look ... I mean ... wow."
I felt one of my friends elbow me in the back, and I grinned. "Thanks."
He'd noticed I was a girl! There was absolutely zero doubt about that. And it felt amazing. No guy had ever looked at me the way Zach was looking at me right now. I wanted to memorize the expression on his face, so I could replay it again and again and again and again.
"You here with your boyfriend?" He tore his eyes off me and glanced over my shoulder.
"Girls' night out." To tell or not to tell that Matt and I broke up. That was the question.
He looked behind him, and I saw Val and some other members of the team clustered in the corner. Val was here? Total bummer. "So, you want to sit with us then?"
"No, thanks." I nodded at Val. "She hates me, and I don't need to deal with that the night before the race." My friends had allowed me to come tonight only if I promised I wouldn't sit with the team. And honestly, they were right. Just the sight of her made me tense up, and I did not need that tonight, not after all the extra miles I'd put in this week.
Zach glanced at Val, then looked at me again, but this time, his expression was thoughtful. "Did she mess with you before the race last weekend?"
"You could say that." I felt someone step on my heel, and realized I'd revealed too much. "Not that she can bother me or anything, but I don't want to deal with her tonight. I want to focus."
He shifted his weight, then said, "I'll blow off my friends if you blow off yours."
I tensed. "What?"
"You and me. Table for two." He lifted a brow. "What do you say?"
"Um ..." Should I say yes? Would that be too easy? Or no? My friends hadn’t prepared me for the right answer to that question.
Allie stepped up and put her arm around me. "She'll eat with you. Give her a good pep talk for tomorrow."
I jerked around and looked at Allie. "What are you doing?" I whispered. Since when did she want me to cozy up with Zach?
She nodded toward the doorway, and I looked. There was Matt, standing in the doorway, watching me.
My heart lurched. Matt was here? Why? Not because he thought maybe this was my hangout the night before a meet? Because he was hoping I would be there, and he would get a chance to steal another kiss?
No, that was impossible. He'd made it so clear how he felt. This had to be a coincidence. But I still swallowed hard. He looked so cute standing there watching me. I smiled at him, but he didn't smile back, and my stomach started to ache again.
"Natalie? You there?" Zach waved his hand in front of my face.
"Yeah." I focused on him, trying not to see Matt in the background. Who was he here with? His friends? Was his girlfriend in town visiting? "I guess I'll eat with you."
"Gee, make me feel wanted." Zach put on a hurt face and tried to look pathetic. Didn't work. There was nothing pathetic about Zach.
"You can have our table," Allie said. "We'll wait for the next one."
Blue and Frances were standing back, grinning their heads off. Why not? All the work we'd put in today was paying off, wasn't it? Zach was here, and he was practically drooling. Everything I'd wanted.
"Thanks." Zach tucked his hand around my elbow and guided me up to the hostess, who smiled and led us back into the restaurant.
And all I could think about was Matt in the lobby. Until I sat down across from Zach and looked into those gorgeous brown eyes. Zach was a senior, and he was hot and he was popular and he'd ditched Val to be with me.
"You look really cute," he said.
I grinned and got a warm gooey feeling in my belly. It was easier to appreciate Zach when Val and Matt weren't around to distract me. "Thanks."
"I didn't realize..."
"Realize what?" That I was a girl?
He shook his head. "Nothing. So what's with the boyfriend? You guys still together?"
I narrowed my eyes. "Why do you care?"
"I don't." He picked up one of my hands and traced the lines of my palm. "Doesn't matter to me at all. I get what I want anyway."
Resisting the urge to pull my hand away, I said, "What do you want?"
"Guess."
I cocked my head, and thought of everything I'd heard about him. I had to know the truth. "You want a girl who already has a boyfriend so you can say you won?" I had to challenge him. Not that I really expected him to tell me, but I couldn't pretend it wasn't out there. "Or a conquest?"
He frowned. "What are you talking about?"
I pulled my hand away and clenched it in my lap. "Val told me that you wanted to use me and dump me. It's what you do."
He muttered something under his breath that wasn't complimentary, then he shot me a tense smile. "Val and I have a past. We went out for a while, and the breakup was...well...ugly. She's pretty spiteful and doesn't want me to find anyone else."
"If it's that bad, then why do you go out to dinner with her and invite her to your parties?" Where were all these questions coming from? Shouldn't I just be basking in the glow of Zach's attention?
Zach shrugged. "We're on the same team. I can't avoid her, can I?"
"Well, no, but going out to dinner with her doesn't seem..."
"It's not with her. It's with the team and she comes along. And I'm not with her now, am I?"
"No," I admitted.
"Natalie." Matt's voice made my heart leap.
I looked up to see him standing over me. I couldn't see his eyes because his glasses were reflecting, but his jaw was tense. "May I have a word with you?" he said.
Zach grinned and leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands behind his head. "She's with me tonight."
He looked like he was taking a little too much pleasure in that fact, and I saw Matt's jaw grind. I almost felt bad for Matt, until I remembered that he was the one with the girlfriend. He was the one who was too
embarrassed about me to introduce his stupid fake girlfriend to his friends. Zach was the one who'd ditched his friends to be with me, in public. "What do you want?"
"A word in private." He glared at Zach. "It's important."
"Fine." I dropped my napkin on the table. "Sorry, Zach. I'll be back in a sec."
"No problem. I'll be here." Did he look like he was enjoying himself or what? Big time.
I followed Matt to the corner of the room, where he stopped and faced me. "What are you doing?" he demanded.
"Eating dinner. What about you?"
He scowled. "That guy's a jerk. Why are you with him?"
"Because he asked me."
Matt blinked. "What?"
"He asked me to eat with him. So I did."
"That's your standard? Date anyone who asks?"
Well, when he put it that way, it wasn't exactly an endorsement, was it? How come Matt was so good at making me feel bad about myself? But I knew why. It was because I liked him. I couldn't lie to myself anymore. That kiss had pulled me over the line, and I couldn't stop thinking about Matt in that way. But I had to. I had to find a way or he was going to break my heart. "It's not a date," I said. "It's dinner. With a team member."
He gestured to my outfit. "Dressed like that? Not a chance."
Insulting my beautiful new look after I'd worked so hard? Tears burned my eyes. "What's wrong with my appearance?"
"Nothing. It's... well..."
"What?" My voice was crawling with disdain.
"You look like you're trying to impress him."
I lifted my chin. "Maybe I am. He seems to like it."
"Of course he does." Matt looked even more annoyed. "Half your body is hanging out of that shirt."
Resisting the urge to cover my stomach, I glared at him. Why was he being like this? Why couldn't he just tell me that I looked cute. "I take it Liz would never show a little skin in public?"
He narrowed his eyes. "No, she wouldn't."
"And she's probably smart too, isn't she?"
"Yeah."
"Well, then, I guess we've established two things. One, I'm not Liz. Two, I'm not right for you. Apparently, I'm simply a dumb slut. No wonder you're too ashamed of me to introduce me to your friends."
Matt gaped. "I'm not ashamed of you!"
"Hah! You ignore me in class, you ditched me at the last second when we were supposed to hang with your friends. You may think that athletes are the snobs, but you're the real elitist." I jerked my head in the direction of Zach. "Zach is far less of snob than you are."
"You think Zach's better than me?"
"He's not ashamed of me, and to me that ranks pretty high."
Matt's face was red and his jaw was so tense I thought he'd crack his teeth. "Come here." He grabbed my hand and hauled me across the room. At the last minute, I saw a table full of Matt's friends, guys I'd noticed sitting in the front rows of my classes, but I had no idea what their names were. We stopped in front of the table, and Matt slammed his arm around my shoulder. "This is the girl you all have been wanting to meet. My girlfriend, Natalie Page." He nodded at the table. "Nat, this is Richie, Eric, Steve and Lenny."
Their mouths all dropped open, and more than one set of eyes checked out my bare stomach.
"She's having dinner with her team captain, but she wanted to meet you guys."
I waved vaguely. "Hi."
Matt dropped his arm from my shoulder and turned me to face him. "Before you go back to him, I want you to think of this." And then he kissed me. Hard, fast and short. He kissed me like he meant it, like he wanted the entire place to know that I belonged to him, and only him. And it was absolutely amazing.
What was with all this public kissing? My knees were going to give out on me one of these times and I'd crack my head on a table and land in a plate of tomato sauce.
His friends all grinned and gave a couple catcalls, and my cheeks felt like they were going to explode with heat. How dare he kiss me when I had no resistance to his kisses? "You are a jerk, Matt Turner." I glared at him, then stalked back toward my table.
Matt caught my arm before I was halfway there, but not before I saw Zach watching us intently, looking a little less smug. "I'm the jerk?" Matt spun me toward him. "Me? Why?"
"Why?" I shoved him in the chest. Hard. "Because you're the one who kisses me out of ego. It's only when Zach's around, because you hate Zach and you want to show him you have something he wants. You're the one using me, and I'm sick of it." I shoved him again. "You have a girlfriend, and yet you want me too, as some token piece to show you can beat out the jock if you want to? Well, forget it. I'm sick of being used by you. As of now, we're officially broken up and I don't want you ever kissing me again!"
I left him standing in the middle of the restaurant, looking shocked, angry and embarrassed.
Good.
It wasn't until I sat down across from Zach that I realized what had happened. I started trembling and tears came up in my eyes. It was all true. Matt hadn't ever liked me. He'd merely used me to piss off Zach. His one and only chance to prove to a jock that he was as good as any of them.
I was so stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
"Natalie? You okay?" Zach asked.
"No." I blew my nose in my napkin and wiped under my eyes. So much for my beautiful makeover.
"Did you...um...just break up with him?"
I nodded. "Don't worry. I know you're only interested in me because I was unavailable. I'm not expecting anything, and to be honest, I don't want it. I'm sick of being in the middle of everyone who has agendas." I set my napkin back in my lap. "Let's eat and talk about running, okay? Forget about everything."
Though the temptation to look over my shoulder and see what Matt was doing was almost overwhelming, I didn't. No way. He wasn't worth it.
"Can't do it," Zach said.
I sighed and picked at my salad, which had arrived during my public embarrassment. "Can't do what?"
"Forget everything."
I gave Zach an exasperated look. "What are you talking about?"
"I still want you."
I blinked. "What?"
"You're cute, you're funny and you're a great runner. I didn't care about your boyfriend before, and I don't care now. As I said earlier, I get what I want. And I want you."
Resisting the urge to pass out from shock, I studied him. Intensely. Tried to stare past his cute eyes and nice smile to what was hidden beneath. "How do I know I can trust you? I've been hearing a lot of bad stuff about you, and frankly, I'm not interested in getting involved with a jerk."
"Trust me, how?"
"That you're not lying to me."
He shrugged. "I'm not. I want you and I'll get you."
Aside from the arrogance that deserved a kick in the shin, he hadn't answered the question I'd meant to ask. "I mean, how do I know you won't jerk me around like Val said?"
"If I was that bad, would Val want me back?"
I frowned. "Does she want you back?"
"Of course. Why do you think she's giving us evil glares?" He gestured to his right, but I didn't look. Why bother? I already knew what her evil glare looked like.
I was so confused I felt like my head was going to explode.
Zach reached across the table and set his hand over mine. "We'll take it slow, okay?"
I stared at our entwined hands. Why wasn't my body going all zingy the way it did when Matt kissed me? Probably because I was still upset over the "breakup." It's not every day a girl breaks up with a guy who she isn't even dating. "Okay."
Zach grinned. "How about a real date next Friday night? You and me. The real thing?"
I forced a smile. "Yeah. That would be cool."
"Good." He rubbed his thumb over the back of my hand. "Wear this outfit again. I like it."
Victory.
Sigh.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I was doing strides to warm up for the race when Val stepped in front of me. I tried to dodge her and keep running, but
she grabbed my arm. I tried to shake her off. "Val, I need to get ready. Leave me alone."
"What's going on with you and Zach?"
I stopped struggling. "Maybe I should ask you what's going on with you and Zach?"
"What do you mean?"
"He says he dumped you and you want him back, so you're trying to sabotage any relationship he has. You say he's a jerk and you're trying to protect me from him. Who's lying, Val?" I pulled away.
She paled. "He said that?"
"Yes." The beauty of already being soundly rejected by the cool kids was that I didn't have to worry about messing up my chances with them. I had no chance, so why bother to put up with her attitude? She might hate me, but she'd never take away the fact that I could run.
Actually, she'd done just that last weekend, but I wasn't going to let her do it again. "We can talk after the race. I need to get ready." I sprinted off before she could grab me again, then I found a spot away from the others.
I closed my eyes and jogged in place, snapping my knees up to my chest. My tension seeped away, my mind settled in my legs, and the race became my world. When I opened my eyes, I was ready. Clear, settled and focused.
Today was my race.
* * *
Allie tackled me with a huge hug after the race. Blue fell on top of her, and Frances next. "You are so awesome!" Allie shrieked, while Blue shouted something about victory and Frances chanted my name.
"Get off me, you guys. I can't breathe." But I was laughing. God, was I laughing.
"Did you see Val's face when the results went up and she saw that you'd beaten her at the finish line?" Allie rolled off me onto her back, lying on the grass with her arms up in the air. "That was so awesome!"
Smart Boys & Fast Girls (A Girlfriend's Guide to Boys) Page 11