by Rachel Shane
Brett had managed to score several rare comics and a few advanced copies of mainstream ones that weren’t even on sale yet. They’d waited in line for two hours to get into a panel with the stars of the adaptation for the first book in Harper’s favorite YA series, The Gorgeous Games, and she grabbed both their hands and squeezed, bouncing in her seat. But it was Poe who scored the biggest item, so she claimed, slinking away to purchase something in a tiny paper bag, which she clutched to her chest as if it contained gold. She refused to reveal the contents, teasing only a simple, “Later.”
When Harper was waiting in line for autographs from the cast of The Gorgeous Games movie, Poe caught Brett looking longingly at a father leading his small son through the cramped space. The dad held out his arm to swat away the bigger men like a sword to clear away trees in a forest blocking his path from rescuing a princess.
Poe nudged Brett with her shoulder. “Hey, if you ever want to talk about it, you know I’d understand. The word ‘dad’ isn’t even in my vocabulary. It’s worse to me than most swear words.”
Brett swallowed hard, shuffling his feet on the scuffed gray linoleum floor. “It’s just weird because even though he wasn’t at home for the last few years, he was still there. I could still visit him. But now—” A shaky breath rattled through Brett’s lungs. “When he died, I thought I’d still have my mom. Now I have nobody.”
Brett’s dad had been bedridden in a nursing home for four years before a simple kidney infection became too much for his weakened immune system to fight. Harper and Poe had surrounded him at the funeral like sentinels and taught him to cook when his mom started working later and later. She said it was because of the money, but Brett suspected it was because she didn’t want to go home to the house his dad would never return to, even if he hadn’t lived there for the last few years.
“It’s hard,” Poe said. “I’m not going to lie and say it’s not or that it gets better. My mom’s not always the greatest. I mean, she’s cool sometimes. And some of the things that make her not so great are also the things that make her cool.” Poe laughed to herself. “But the thing is, she’s still here. He’s not. And that’s what matters.”
Brett glanced at her sideways. “My mom’s not here though. Only at night when I’m already asleep.”
“True. But what I’m saying is, even if she’s not around as much as you want her to be, she’s still around. She still loves you, despite having a sucky way of showing it. I know my mom does too.”
Poe rarely invited the trio into her home, and when she did, it was during the times her mom fled with the new love of her life somewhere, only to return either married or heartbroken, and whichever one she wasn’t, she would be shortly.
Brett studied her. “So you’re not even curious about your dad?”
Poe shook her head. “Not even a little. I just can’t wait to get out of that claustrophobic house and move into…a slightly less claustrophobic dorm room.”
Brett laughed. “Hey, in a little more than three years, we could be having this same conversation in the Wisconsin State Student Union.”
Poe raised her brow. “Actually, tonight is the annual prospective student overnight there. One of the guys I was seeing last week was telling me about it. So, in two years exactly.” She waved her hand at the floor. “Though hopefully we’re doing something slightly more exciting than standing off to the side, chatting.”
At that moment, Harper returned hugging several autographs to her chest. “Oh my God. The guy who plays Prince Rupert kissed me on the cheek! He kissed me!” She squeezed her eyes shut as a sloppy smile stretched on her lips. “Did I miss anything cool?”
“Nope, we were just talking about doing a final tally and then heading to the hotel.” Poe gave Brett a subtle wink. They shared a secret now. A bond.
“Twenty for me,” Harper said, grinning.
“Shut up. I have twenty!” Poe lightly punched Harper on the arm, her form of solidarity.
“Actually, I do too.” It seemed nearly impossible that so many girls had noticed Brett. Brett! On their own volition!
“A tie?” Harper sighed. “The competitor in me groans.”
“Well, we have, what? Ten more steps before we exit the premises.” Poe jumped back a step, making it eleven. “Anything can happen.” She jiggled the brown bag. “And then when we get back to the hotel, I have a new challenge for us.”
Harper perked up and she inched closer to Brett. He had no idea what she was doing but his heart amped all the same. She dragged her finger over the gold metal of his fake ab armor, slowly, methodically. Brett’s mouth went dry as he pictured Harper doing this for real. “Wow,” she said. “Do you work out?” Then she burst into giggles and hopped back. “And there we have it, folks, Brett wins with twenty-one!”
Oh God. She’d hit on him. “That doesn’t count,” he said fast, desperate to cover up the way his pulse was skipping.
“But does this?” Poe swung her hips slowly, seductively, then raised her hand and knotted it in the back of Brett’s hair. She pressed herself close, her breasts hitting his metal armor. “You look like you can save the day.” She lowered her voice. “And the night.”
Harper burst out laughing.
“Twenty-two!” Poe said. “Clear winner. You better give me a fucking awesome nickname.”
Back at the hotel, they ordered a room service feast consisting of juicy burgers, crispy chicken tender baskets, and three servings of guacamole because none of them were willing to share. When their stomachs groaned in protest of another bite, they changed into pajamas. Brett had to tear his eyes away from Harper’s ruffle t-shirt and pants, instead glancing out the window at the star-speckled sky. Poe donned one of her usual tank tops and teeny tiny shorts, not caring that she wasn’t wearing a bra and the room was cold. The trio sprawled out on a single bed and cracked open Poe’s stash. Vodka. Chasers. Munchies. The works. Harper’s breath was so close, hot funnels of air moved the hair on Brett’s arms.
Before they twisted the caps, Poe bolted upright and cleared her throat. The hum of the air conditioner provided ominous background music, radiator clanking. “Challenge numero dos. Hidden in this room are three sets of googly eyes with Funtac on the back. You find a set, you re-hide it in a new location in plain sight. Hide it well enough that neither of us will ever find it, but also obvious enough that you can laugh at our obliviousness. Only public spaces we all frequent are in play.”
Brett donned a wicked grin, his eyes zooming to the top of the lampshade, the cord for the curtains, the bed skirt. All perfect hiding spots. “When does it end? In the morning?”
Poe shook her head. “It never ends. Tomorrow, whomever hid the sets last takes them back home and hides them again at school.”
Harper gasped and leaped from the bed, pointing to a pair of eyes on the remote control. “I win!”
Poe leaned back. In the hallway, the bing of the elevator arriving sounded. “Not yet. You just won the right to re-hide them in a better spot.”
Harper waved her palms in the air like a magician doing a trick. “Close your eyes.”
“Part of the game is finding a way to hide them when neither of us is looking,” Poe said.
Harper sighed in frustration but plucked the eyes off the remote and cupped them in her palm. “Is this what you bought at Comic Con?”
“I couldn’t let you two have all the fun.” Poe nudged her glass of Vodka and OJ. “And speaking of fun…”
“Here’s something fun.” Harper lifted her glass in the air. “Biggest secret we don’t already know about. Go!”
“I’ll go first.” Brett readjusted his position, folding his legs beneath him on the white bedspread. “I stole the answers to the chem mid-term.” He shook the ice in his glass. “And the questions to the English one.”
Poe gasped. “But…we’d been studying for weeks.” She’d memorized everything in the entire textbook, it had seemed. And he’d memorized nothing.
Brett downed a sip
of the vodka mixture, trying his best not to cringe. “It was easy too, thanks to my job in the office.” He spent study hall in the office helping to make photocopies and organize files. “They were just in a pile waiting for approval. Quick snap with my phone camera and done.”
Harper threw a fluffy pillow at Brett. “Next time, share the wealth. I got a B minus on the Chem mid-term!”
“Wait wait wait. Back up a second.” Poe raised a brow. “Are you saying Mister Never-Do-Wrong did some wrong?”
Brett lifted his glass in toast. “Every light has a shadow. Every hero has a dark side.”
Harper squinted at him. “That’s a line from Book Two of The Gorgeous Games series.”
Brett turned bright red. He hadn’t meant to reveal he’d secretly read the books Harper adored. Twice. Okay, three times. “Yeah, they said it in the panel today.” He prayed that was true.
“I don’t think they did.” A little wrinkle indented the bridge of Harper’s forehead. “The panel was for the first movie.”
Poe waved her hand in circles in the air. “We’re getting way off track here. Secrets. Harper, go!”
“Okay.” Harper sat up straighter, twirling her cup in her lap on the bed. “It was at sleep away camp a few years ago.”
Poe made a buzzer sound. “Nnnnnnt. Doesn’t count. Nothing that happened at camp could possibly be that bad.”
Harper scoffed. “But I sneaked out of camp and—”
“Let me guess? You met some townie boy outside the camp walls, French kissed, maybe even let him feel you up, then skulked back inside as if nothing happened.”
“Um, yeah, actually.” Crimson spread across Harper’s cheeks and forehead, tinting her freckles. Brett focused on that image until it scrubbed his mind of the thought of someone else touching Harper.
“Doesn’t count,” Poe said. “Tell me the worst thing you did since you met us.”
“But—you know all my worst stories.” Except Harper froze. There must be something they didn’t know. “Okay.” She lowered her voice, and inched closer to the center of the bed, away from the walls. “I may have forged some permission slips…that I gave to the guidance counselor because I wanted to take a different class than my parents signed me up for.”
Brett blinked at Harper, shocked at her balls. Poe clapped once. “Secret accepted!”
Harper turned to Poe with her eyebrow raised in challenge.
Poe sucked in a big deep breath. “Last year, I went with my mom to her coworkers house for dinner. Pretty sure she had a crush on the guy or whatever and he had a son a few years older than me that was so fucking cute. I flirted. Hard. Wore my sexiest outfit, went all out. And it worked. But on the wrong guy.” Poe pulled her knees to her chest. “The son wanted nothing to do with me. But the dad—” Her voice cracked. “He followed me into the bathroom. Pinned me down and tried…” A tear sprung from her eyes but she punched at her cheeks, knocking the tear clear away. “I kicked him. Got away and ran right out the front door, embarrassing my mother. A few days later she was fired and it’s my fault. I know I’m fucking lucky that her getting fired was the worst thing to happen. But—” She sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve lived in fear ever since. That next time I won’t be so lucky.”
Harper flopped on top of Poe, wrapping her arms around her. “Oh God, Poe. I’m so sorry.”
She shrugged. “Hey, at least she found another job, right?” Her mom’s new job wasn’t at a fancy law firm like before but as a receptionist at a real estate office where she made half the salary she used to make and worked double the hours.
Brett’s fists clenched. He wished he was strong enough to crusade the night and save his friends—and strangers—from enemies like this. But Poe had saved herself and Brett was the worst kind of superhero. The kind that was afraid to take chances. So he did the only thing he could do: he saved them from bad moods with a little bit of humor. “Don’t you want to hear your nicknames?”
Poe swiped at her eyes before nodding.
Brett grabbed his shield from the bed and bent as if addressing a princess. “To you, dear Poe, I bestow the highest honor. Your nickname is—”
“—Butt,” she said, and then burst out laughing.
“—Steel. For all those balls you possess and for being your own knight in shining armor.”
Poe pounded her chest. “My tin heart concurs.”
“And to you, fair Harper,” Brett said, trying not to choke on the way her name skidded across his throat. “I present you with a name so fair to match. Sneaker.”
She spat out laughter. “Because I should be stepped on?”
“No, because you sneaked out of camp one night and because, you know, you have to wear sneakers for soccer.”
Harper shook her head at him. “Cleats, actually.”
Poe clutched Harper’s arm. “Help, we made a horrible mistake. We should not have let Brett win this one.”
“Can we at least change it to Shadow? Like, I lurk around in the shadows; every light has a shadow, when I play soccer…um…sometimes the sun casts shadows? Ignore that last one.”
Brett nodded. “Done. And for myself, I dub thy Blank Space. Because I’ve got a lot of work to do to fill in the pages.”
The three of them bumped fists like they always did, but this time it seemed like they were solidifying something. Making their friendship into an unbreakable entity. Their bond was stronger than ever now.
CHAPTER 10
HARPER
Harper’s host student outstretched her hands toward her to introduce herself, but Harper beat her to the punch line. “Starr Legend, number thirty two on the women’s soccer team!” She grabbed Starr’s hand and shook vigorously, vowing to never wash hers again. Starr scored the winning goal during the final game of the NCAA Division 1 soccer league last month, rocketing the Wisconsin Women’s Warrior Turtles to victory. Rumors were flying that Starr was the next Alex Morgan. Harper felt both a rush of awe and jealousy. It had always been her dream to be the next Alex Morgan. Like Harper, Starr played left forward, a strategic position due to the fact that only skilled lefties could excel there, giving Harper an advantage in high school. But in college…Starr would be her competition.
Women’s soccer wasn’t exactly hot on the CBS Sports betting brackets but Harper had gone to every game she could, sitting on the sidelines cheering while Connor spent the entire game snapchatting with others next to her.
Starr didn’t even flinch when she told her she’d switched places with her friend just to get her as host students. “And actually, next year we’re going to be teammates. I’ve been recruited by Coach Burnham.”
“I like you already,” Starr said as she led the Harper out the door, hoisting Harper’s suitcase above her head as if it weighed nothing more than a pea pod. “And not just because you didn’t make a lame joke about my name.”
Brett had included the story that ran in Time magazine about Starr’s name in the scrapbook of soccer inspiration he made Harper before their friendship went up in flames. It was one of the only remnants she’d kept instead of cutting to shreds like all the movie tickets she hacked up and the pictures she deleted off her hard drive. The quote stuck with her like a pocket of air, making her float. When you’ve got a name like this, you’ve got to live up to it. I couldn’t just be Starr Legend, waitress. I had to be Starr Legend, legendary superstar of the soccer field. That advice seeped into Harper’s attitude in games. She no longer played like a cog in a wheel but like everyone else on the field was her royal subjects and they owed her the ball. Her goals increased ten fold as a result. If Starr could break free of the stereotypes of her name, then Harper could do the same of her defective genetics.
“Not to toot my own horn or whatever, but you lucked out staying with me.” Gold glinted from Starr’s ears, belt, and shirt. She seemed to prefer fashion only when it came with bling. Even her short dark hair shimmered in the moonlight with flecks of gold sparkles.
It was her lucky day. Her new
dorm assignment of Frick Hall—the one Poe offered her on a silver platter—was right next to Connor’s dorm. Poe had deemed it a favor, but Harper felt like she’d somehow pulled an epic con on her former friend.
“And I can’t hold it any longer. Spoilers be damned.” Starr squealed, her dreadlocks swinging back and forth as she heaved Harper’s suitcase past boxy Haven Hall like she was lifting weights. “We’ve arranged a pick up soccer game tonight with the entire team! And you. We’ll be playing a few other prospective students but you get to be on our team.”
Harper stopped short. “Wait. I get to play with the soccer team?”
A soft thrum moved through her body. This was an advantage. Her chance to show off her skills before any of the other freshman teammates arrived in the fall. She could worm her way into Starr’s heart and burrow there until they viewed her as an equal…and not a newbie.
Except for one problem…she would never be on next year’s team if she didn’t ditch her host tonight, lure Connor out of his room via any means necessary, and sneak in to steal his evidence.
Starr didn’t bother taking Harper to Frick Hall like she’d been waiting for, instead they headed straight to the gym where the intramural indoor soccer pick up game would take place. The glossy floor created distorted reflections of their bodies, and scent of rubber balls lingered in the space.
Starr ripped off her t-shirt to reveal a matching uniform—not the uniforms of the Wisconsin State Warrior Turtles, but a shiny soccer jersey—in gold of course. She bent beneath the bleachers, plucked out a box wrapped in glittery metallic paper, and held it out to Harper as if she was presenting an award on a silver platter. “For you.”
Harper felt a tug of warmth, and she threw her arms around Starr before she even opened the gift. But the realistic part of her—the part that kept eyeing the exits—dropped her arms mid-hug and backed away, biting her lip against the knowledge that soon she’d have to betray her generosity.