by Piper Shelly
“What—what?” Shit. Something had gone wrong. I sat back on my heels and chewed the inside of my cheek. “Sorry, what did you say?”
His eyes narrowed a little more. “You sighed. Like you were drooling over Harrison again.”
Harrison…Ford. Right. Not Hunter. A little late, but my cheeks started to burn with shame.
“Liz, is everything all right?”
“Sure.” And in my most innocent I-don’t-know-what-you-mean voice I added, “Why?”
“Ever since I came back from camp you’ve been acting a little crazy.”
“Bullcrap. I’m fine.” The way he lounged on my bed, arms folded over his chest, brow creasing, it gave me the creeps. I slid off the bed and stopped the DVD. “Let’s call it a day here, shall we?”
I held the case out to him, but Tony didn’t take it. Instead, he sat up, Indian style, and angled his head. “Are you throwing me out?” He said it so slowly, disbelief flaring into his eyes.
Did I? In over thirteen years of friendship, I’d never asked him to go. Jeez, he was right—I was crazy.
“Look, I’m just tired from this Indiana Jones marathon. And then I promised my mom to clean up my room today.” I dropped the DVD case on the bed in front of him. “It’s almost four. I should get started.”
“I’d offer to help you, but I’ve got this feeling you’ll just say no.” He stood, looking at me as if he waited for my contradiction.
What in the hell rode me to disregard his offer? I avoided his gaze, finding his hoodie, and handed it over to him. “See you tomorrow?” A hopeful edge to my voice made me wonder if I expected him to be mad because I didn’t let him help me clean.
“Yeah. Meet you at training. I can’t pick you up, though.” He grimaced, and I wondered why. “But hey, tomorrow we’ll play the first real match with the newbies. Make sure you play in my team.” There it was again. The typical sly Tony-grin that caused my heart to melt every time.
Just that it wasn’t lopsided…like Hunter’s.
I grunted, aware of my lack of focus, as I ushered Tony out of my room. As he climbed down the shed and I closed the window, I wondered where Mom kept the clinical thermometer. I sure must be suffering from a high fever.
CHAPTER
9
TUESDAY, TWO THIRTY P.M., I pedaled my mountain-bike to the soccer training field. Susan rode along with me, and we were the last to arrive. After securing my bike, my gaze swept over the trimmed lawn in search of Tony. He stood on the far end with a small group of girls and boys. I started toward him, but when one of his friends headed away, I glimpsed Cloey there and decided to miss out on their doubtlessly entertaining conversation.
It didn’t take long until Tony spotted me and excused himself from the group. Barbie grabbed his biceps, saying something to him, pointing an eerie scowl in my direction. I glared back, feeling an overwhelming need to flip her off. But I was grown-up enough to resist.
Thankfully, I couldn’t hear what she said to Tony; I was so not interested. But that he rolled his eyes at her and pried her hand from his arm was highly satisfying.
He jogged over. “Hi, Liz. Are those shades new?”
Yeah, good feeling that the guy knew my entire collection of clothes and accessories. Meant he paid attention. I grinned.
“Nope, they’re mine,” Hunter said behind me. When he came around to face me and carefully slid the sunglasses off my nose, I couldn’t stop my smirk from spreading into a real smile.
“He gave me them after the party,” I told Tony, who suddenly looked a bit puzzled. “Hangover and sunlight—not a good combination.”
Both boys laughed at that, and I had a hard time deciding which sound pleased me more.
As we headed toward the gathering group of kids, Ryan asked Tony if he wanted to be captain of the other team.
“Sure. Want to vote players?” Tony’s eyes skated over to me. A wink said I was one of his first choices.
“Yep, you can pick first,” Ryan said to him then laid his arm over my shoulders. “But not her.”
Stunned, I stopped, and I swore Tony stared at Hunter with the same look of amazement as I did.
Ryan ignored him. His arm slipped away from me, and the left side of his lips tilted up. “Play with me?”
Man, I lost my voice. Hunter knew how miserably I handled the ball. Still, he wanted me on his team.
Tony awaited my answer with a comical grin. Since he didn’t seem annoyed at all, I thought I could as well accept. “O-kay.” And yeah, if that hadn’t come out so much like a question, I wouldn’t have sounded like a total idiot, too.
“Cool. Let’s play some ball, guys.” Tony jogged ahead and had his first pick of players.
I didn’t pay attention to who he called on his team, because Hunter asked me one basic question then. “Do you know how to play soccer, Matthews?”
“Kick the ball into the goal?”
He chuckled, rubbing his neck. “Yeah, that and a little more. For now, just don’t touch the ball with your hands and try not to kick it past those white lines.” He pointed at the rectangle marking the playing field.
“You know, I’m not a complete imbecile.”
Or maybe I was. Before the first ten minutes were over, I hurt my wrist on the ball zooming toward me, and twice it went sailing far behind the opposite goal, due to a kick of mine. Great. But on the plus side, no one snubbed at me like Ryan did yesterday on the beach.
At least no one did until I apparently made the most fatal error of all when I aimed for a goal again.
“Offside,” several guys shouted at once, some of them rolling their eyes.
I stood totally at a loss.
“Never mind. I’ll explain this tomorrow,” Ryan said as he came running toward me and kicked the ball to someone from Tony’s team. He took position on the field again, but not before he offered me a grin. “Nice shot.”
He could try, but it didn’t lift my spirits. Discouraged from the failures, I went to the far back, close to our own goal, deciding to be the passive player for the rest of the game. Only that Hunter had different ideas. For some reason he kept me in the game, sending killer-shots to me, spurring me on to give my best.
And I did. For three and a half minutes. Then I felt for the first time how a kick against the shin felt. The pain, when Cloey’s shoe collided with my leg, brought me to the ground. I bit my lip to stop my eyes from watering.
“Come on, guys! Fair play!” Ryan shouted. He stood over me and offered me his hand to pull me up. “You okay?”
I said nothing but nodded. My voice would have betrayed me otherwise. He sent me back into the game.
The pain from that little escapade wasn’t completely gone, when Cloey got me again. I cursed her in a volume loud enough to compete with a police siren, but it ricocheted off her thick head. As it happened a third time, I knew she was doing this on purpose. And from then on I didn’t touch the ball anymore, not to give her a reason to kill me out on the field.
After the game, Tony worked his fingers into the muscles at my neck as I hunched on the bench. “If I had known you’re actually such a good player, I would have made you play with me every day after school.”
I gave an irritated snort. His being nice did little to mend my broken pride—or bones. “That girl chose the wrong sports. She’d be a pro at kick-boxing.”
“Who? Cloey?” At least this time, he didn’t deny that she was after my life. “Did she get you bad?”
I scowled at him over my shoulder. “She was like an eighteen-wheeler. Unstopped.”
He bit his lip. “She can be an aggressive player.”
Which put it mildly. I sighed. “Are you going to hang here much longer? Because I really need to go home and tend my bruised shin.” And then I was still grounded, of course.
The pause he took to scan the playing field made me wonder if he was looking out for the troll with the bad temper. The flames of anger and jealousy licked up my spine. But she seemed to have gone alrea
dy.
“I’m coming,” he said.
On the way to our bikes, we crossed Ryan’s path. He cut a brief glance to my leg and winced at the color. “Put ice on that ankle. I want you fit tomorrow.”
The thought of more torture coming at me in just a few hours rendered me silent.
“What does he mean? There’s no training with the girls tomorrow. Just us guys,” Tony pointed out as we walked on.
Okay, I figured it was time to spill. “Ryan is doing some personal training with me.”
Tony could have said many things then, like asking me why, or where, or even when it happened I was insane enough to agree to that. But he chose to say the most stupid thing of all.
“With you?”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like an ass. But…are we seriously talking about Hunter?” He snorted, and I should have kicked him in the butt for it.
“What’s your problem with that?”
“No problem.” He mounted his bike, waiting for me to get the number-combination of my lock right. “Just thought you were grounded.”
“I am.”
“And you get out of the house for the training how?”
Now I avoided his gaze, stand-kicking into the pedals to get ahead of him. “Same way you get in.”
He had no trouble catching up with me. “You’re sneaking out? For Ryan Hunter?” If Tony was implying that I never did it for him, he let that leak from every syllable.
“So what?”
Tony cast me a sideways glance, his lips tight in a weak attempt at hiding a grin. “Here I’m gone for just a few weeks, and you turn into quite the Kinder surprise.”
Hell, yeah. And I couldn’t even stand those goddamn chocolate eggs.
“So, now that you’re acquainted with the exclusive way in and out of your room, want to come to Charlie’s for a drink with the others?”
“I’m not doing this during the day, Tony. My mom isn’t that ignorant. Hunter picks me up at five in the morning.” I whined. “He makes me run at the beach.”
“Ah, fun guaranteed.”
“I swear the man is Satan in the flesh.”
We reached my house, and while I got off my bike, Tony placed one foot to the pavement and studied me with those intense blue eyes. “You know I still don’t get it. Why are you torturing yourself for sports you loathed all your life?”
“I never loathed soccer.”
“You said it was the fifth, never mentioned plague that would bring the world down.”
Did I really say that? Wow, the man was good.
As I wheeled my bike into the shed, Tony’s raised voice drifted to me. “Is Hunter the reason?”
I froze, staring at Dad’s fishing rods for an infinite moment. A piss-glare on my face, I finally walked outside, slowly, then leaned against the doorframe with my arms folded over my chest. “What in the world makes you think that?”
Tony had propped his forearms on the handle bar of his bike, leaning forward in a casual way. “Well, you two are pretty close lately.”
Okay, I was almost seventeen, had never been kissed, and I had all I was going to take from my best friend. “Are you really that ignorant? I’m not doing this for Hunter.”
“Then why?”
Christ forgive me, I was going to slap him in a moment. “I’m doing this because of you!”
My heart stopped the moment I understood my slip.
Tony’s mouth hung open as he stared at me. He gripped the metal of the handle bar, closing his fingers so hard the white showed around the knuckles. Not quite the reaction I had prayed for the past five or so years.
His gaze dropped, his eyes trained to the ground in front of him. That was an eerie moment. Heck, I didn’t think something could shock Tony so much. Anything. Especially me. Okay, the hope that he would be all smiles and kiss me for my close declaration of love had slipped with his look, but his stunned silence made me feel very uncomfortable. I wished I was a snowman and could melt right now.
“Come here, Liza,” he finally said.
No. I waited a couple of seconds, struggling to get rid of the panic setting in. When I didn’t obey, he stepped off his bike and came toward me, the slowness only adding to my anxiety.
“Look—”
I shook my head, begging him to stop. “Please don’t give me that shit of you’re like my little sister now.”
“I won’t. Because we both know you’re far closer than that.”
Oh my God, this was going downhill, and there was nothing to stop the avalanche I had kicked loose. My knees shook all of a sudden, my mouth went dry.
Tony reached out but stopped before he would touch my cheek. His lips pressed together, he withdrew his hand. “I’m dating Cloey.”
What? No. Not that girl. Not any girl! No!
In deliberate movements, I backed off then walked into the house, not saying a word. With the screaming pain inside my soul, I quietly closed the door. It was all I could do not to break out in tears in front of Tony.
I couldn’t breathe. My stomach knotted, making me sick. As the first tears started to fall, I flew into my bathroom and dry-heaved into the toilet.
Tony shouldn’t see me like this, ever. I wished I could say he understood and that’s why he didn’t follow me. But with everything that happened, it probably was he didn’t want to face me after my declaration of my feelings for him.
It took hours until I could breathe again without my throat constricting and aching. I sat on my bed, flipping through the many photo books I had made of us over the years. Each time I turned a page, I wanted to rage and cry again about the loss that ripped my insides apart. But I had shed all the tears I was capable of. I felt completely empty. Hollow. Alone.
When Mom called me to dinner and I told her I wasn’t hungry, she tried to make me talk in her understanding way. I had a hard time convincing her that I just wanted to be left alone. In the end she let me be, and I locked myself into my room. In my personal realm of misery.
As the sun set and I slumped on my bed with some heavy rave music on the iPod, I faced another problem.
I wasn’t going to play soccer anymore. Ever. And I needed to cancel on Hunter’s training the next day.
I called Simone and got his cell phone number, but I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone, so I sent him a text message.
DON’T NEED TO TRAIN TOMORROW. AND I WANT OFF THE TEAM. LIZA
But then, as far as I knew, he only knew my last name, so I added MATTHEWS in brackets.
It didn’t take long for my message to be answered. DOES IT HURT SO MUCH?
What kind of question was that? The pain eating my insides killed me. I slammed the phone on the nightstand and dropped onto my pillow with a snort. Seconds later, I realized he actually had no idea what happened. He must mean something else. Of course—my leg. Palm pressing to my brow, I breathed deep.
Then I texted him again. NO, LEG IS FINE. I’M JUST DONE WITH SOCCER. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP. BYE
I expected him to accept that and leave me alone. He did…for fifteen minutes. Then the next message came in. OKAY. TALKED TO MITCHELL. SO THE CAT’S OUT?
The cat’s out? Seriously? What the hell—Ryan knew about them dating and he didn’t tell me. But then, what reason would he have had? We weren’t really friends, and he didn’t know about my love for Tony.
Or maybe he did. M&M. Everyone knew it. I felt so terribly exposed right then. The entire town knew about my obsession with this boy, while he dated this bimbo. The urge to cry again persisted, but no tears fell. So I turned up the volume of the music and tried to blast my brains into oblivion with it.
The phone vibrated on the mattress next to me. New message from Hunter. CAN YOU SLIP OUT AFTER DARK?
I PROBABLY COULD. BUT WHY WOULD I DO THAT?
DISTRACTION. And this time he added a winking smiley face.
I wasn’t in the mood to be distracted. Not in any mood at all, actually. I only wanted to wallow
in self-pity. REALLY, I’M NOT UP TO MORE TORTURE.
God, if only the world could leave me alone for the next few hours. But no such luck. As soon as darkness fell, a low voice carried up to my room. “Get down here, Matthews!”
I choked on the piece of chocolate I’d just shoved into my mouth. I rubbed my tears-sticky eyes and rushed to the window. “Why did you come? Can’t you read? I said no.”
“You said no torturing you. I’m not going to. Now get into some nice clothes, wash your face, and come out.”
“I’m not in the mood—”
He jumped and climbed onto the roof of our shed then stalked toward my window with this evil grin on his lips.
CHAPTER
10
“MAY I COME in?” Hunter didn’t wait for my reply but ducked through the window frame and entered my personal domain.
I sucked in a breath and stumbled backward. The bed stopped me, catching my fall.
“Nice room.” Hands braced on the edge, Ryan sat on the sill. “You look miserable.”
“Gee, thanks for the news update.”
He lifted his ball cap and raked a hand through his hair, his lips tightening. “Listen, I totally suck at this whole want-to-talk-about-it crap.”
“Then why are you here?”
He shrugged. “Perhaps because I’m good at having fun and taking your mind off certain things. So what do you say? Want to come party a little?”
Another party with Ryan? Images of lying in his bed, my leg wrapped around his, flashed up in my memory. “I think I’ll stay home and listen to some music instead.”
He grimaced. “Don’t do this to yourself. No guy is worth it.” Then he did something I least expected. He walked toward me, took both my hands, and gently pulled me off my bed. “Come on, Liza.”
My name from Ryan Hunter. That was a first. And it sounded incredibly nice.
“I really don’t know—”
“I do. And now stop arguing.” He gave me a few seconds in which I could stare in his deep brown eyes and make up my mind.
I released a long breath. “Can I shower first?”