“Who are you there with?”
I switched the phone to my other ear. “Jake. He, um . . . we were out eating, and someone invited us here, and it sounded fun . . .” Oh, that didn’t come across too lame. “It’s not like you’re thinking, Nate. I haven’t even seen Mike since I’ve been here. Jake and I were just sitting outside with Leo—”
“You’re with Leo?” Now he was really mad. Hurt. I hadn’t thought of how that might come across—that the two of us were together and hadn’t included him.
“No. I didn’t know he was coming. He didn’t know I was here. But I meant that you don’t have to worry about me, because Leo’s here.”
Nate mumbled something I didn’t catch. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“Nothing. I’ll see you tomorrow, Quinn. Have fun tonight.” There was a click on the other end of the line, and when I checked the screen, CALL ENDED flashed.
I couldn’t remember Nate ever hanging up on me. I sat staring down at the phone, frowning, until I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Hey.” Jake stood next to me, smiling down. “Are you ready to head out? Pretty sure things are only going to get wilder, and I’d rather not be here when it goes south.”
“Yeah, I’m ready to leave.” I stood up and gave a quick look around the backyard, but neither Leo nor Sarah were anywhere in sight. I tried not to think about where they might be as I followed Jake through the side yard.
“So how was the game?” I picked my way through the dark until we reached the sidewalk. “Did you kill a lot of . . . whatever you were hunting?”
Jake chuckled. “I got a little bit of play time, but most of the guys were pretty wasted. It wasn’t much fun.” He held the passenger door open for me, and I slid into the seat, nerves suddenly dancing in my stomach. This was the part of the night I’d worried about most. Did Jake expect me to kiss him? Or sit in his car in my driveway and make out with him? I felt stupid and naïve, a seventeen-year old girl who’d never had to deal with this up until now.
Making it worse, of course, was the niggling knowledge that if Leo were the one driving me home right now, I’d be wishing and hoping for him to kiss me. I’d be plotting how to make sure that happened.
We pulled into my driveway, and I was relieved when Jake immediately opened his door and hopped out, jogging around to my side to get my door for me. He walked me up to the front door, where I turned with a smile. I hoped he couldn’t tell how forced it was.
“Well, thanks for a fun night.” God. I sounded insipid even to my own ears. “I really enjoyed the pizza, and . . . just hanging out with you. Thanks for asking me.”
“You’re welcome.” Jake laid a tentative hand on my upper arm and slid it lower to link his fingers with mine. “Would it be okay if I kissed you?”
If I’d thought things were awkward before, now they were a hundred times worse. If he’d just leaned in for the kiss, I would’ve dealt with it. Now there was the whole issue of giving him permission and then . . . what?
“Um, sure.” Oh, feel the excitement I was exhibiting.
Jake grinned, and without further ado or time for me to worry about which way I should tilt my head, he tugged me closer and pressed his lips to mine.
I waited for the spark. I waited to feel the same thing I had when Leo had kissed me outside the hospital. But it never came. Kissing Jake was . . . pleasant. His lips were soft, his breath wasn’t bad, and he never moved his hand from where it was linked with mine. He didn’t open his mouth or stick his tongue down my throat.
But I was able to think about all of this as he kissed me. I wasn’t lost in the sensation or overwhelmed with desire. I analyzed it as though I were watching the two of us from a distance. My heart didn’t speed up, and my pulse didn’t race.
After a minute, Jake stepped back, smiling at me, and touched my cheek. “Thank you, Quinn. I had fun tonight. Maybe we can do it again?”
“Um, sure.” Apparently those were the only words I could handle at this point. I disentangled my hand from his and reached for the doorknob. “I better get inside, though. Thanks again, Jake. See you on Monday.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer or watch him leave. I managed one more pseudo-smile and slipped inside, closing the door behind me.
When I used to picture my first date, I thought I’d come back home dancing on clouds, just like the girls in romance novels. Or in the movies. But all I wanted to do right now was throw myself across my bed and cry.
Leo
“Lion!
Matt Lampert pounded up behind me in the locker room and gave me a friendly punch in the side. “Dude, you rocked today. We’re gonna crush them on Friday night.”
“Yeah.” I pulled my practice jersey off over my head. “I guess.”
“What’s the matter?” Matt opened his own locker and began to undress. “You should be flying high. Coach even said something good about you. That almost never happens.”
“That’s true.” I sat down on the bench. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.” It had actually been more like a long month since our game against Franklin Township. We’d ended up playing some of the toughest teams in our conference over the past four weeks, and all those stressful, important games were beginning to take their toll on me. My grades had taken an unusual dip, I’d lost weight, and I wasn’t sleeping well.
“We got a couple of days before the game. Let’s chill tonight. Come on over, and we’ll eat pizza, slay some zombies and knock back some brews.”
I rubbed my hand over my face. “I’m supposed to do something with Sarah tonight. I haven’t taken her out in like, a week.”
“Is she complaining?” Matt grabbed his towel.
“Nah. I just feel bad.” Guilty was a more accurate description of how I felt. I hadn’t intended to start anything serious with Sarah; she was supposed to be a temporary distraction for me and diversion tactic for Quinn. I’d figured we’d have some fun, and then it would sizzle out, like things always did. We’d part friends again, and I’d be off the hook.
But for some reason, that hadn’t happened. One date had led into another, and before I knew it, people in school were referring to us as a couple. Like it was official or something. Sarah, to her credit, never put any pressure on me. If I didn’t call her, she didn’t give me shit. She didn’t insist on hanging all over me in school, the way some girls did with their boyfriends.
And if she’d noticed that I got more interested and affectionate whenever I’d seen Quinn hanging with Jake Donavan, she didn’t mention it.
I wasn’t sure what was going on between Quinn and Jake. They hung out at school, but I couldn’t say for sure if that was happening more than it had before or not. I didn’t know anyone who was friends with them, so I couldn’t just casually ask. I thought about checking with Nate, but he ignored me whenever we passed in the hall. If Quinn really was dating Donavan, I couldn’t imagine Nate was any happier than I was.
Not that I had any right to care. I’d had a chance with Quinn, and I’d thrown it away, on purpose. I’d chosen the way that was better for her. I was sure Jake Donavan was just her type; as a senior and editor of the paper, everyone liked him, even though I didn’t think he was a big partier. I’d seen the way his eyes followed Quinn, and I’d sure as hell picked up on how he looked at her that night at Anders’ party. He liked her.
I followed Matt into the showers, moving on automatic pilot and not paying any attention to the guys’ typical yelling and teasing. Everyone was a little punchy today, after the last few weeks. Even Coach seemed a little worn out, a little more laid-back. Still, I was having a hard time getting into the groove. I nodded when someone shouted out to me, I smiled when I realized they expected it, but inside I was brooding.
I pulled on jeans and a Henley after my shower, stuffed my dirty clothes into a duffle bag and headed out of the locker room. Matt hollered after me.
“Taylor, don’t forget. Tonight. You bring the pizza, and I’ll supply the res
t.”
I paused. “Yeah, I’ll see what’s going on, man. I’ll text you.”
Opening the door of the locker room, I stepped into the silent school hallway. A few feet away, leaning against the wall, Sarah sat on the floor, her phone in her hand as she read something on the screen. She looked up at the sound of the door closing behind me.
“Hey.” Pushing against the wall, she rose to her feet in one languid movement. I studied her for a moment, taking in the whole Sarah Jenkins package: the beautiful hair, spilling down around her shoulders, the dark eyes, slender legs encased in her skinny jeans. The shirt she wore had some kind of rounded neckline that hugged her ample tits and dipped just low enough to give me a tantalizing peek. There wasn’t any doubt that this chick was sexy. Any sane man would be turned on, hot for her luscious bod and ready to go as far as she’d let him.
But for some reason, my own body, usually so ready to rock and roll, wasn’t playing along tonight. If dicks could sigh, mine would have been doing just that.
As if she could sense my feelings, Sarah hesitated. “We were meeting here, right? I thought . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“Yeah, sure.” I rubbed my jaw. “Sorry. I’m just tired.” I repeated the same excuse I’d given Matt. “Matt invited us over, so maybe we can pick up some pizza and take it over there.”
“Oh. Okay.” The hint of disappointment in her voice was unmistakable, and unreasonable as it was, this only irked me. And then of course that made me feel guiltier.
“Look, do you want to skip tonight? I won’t be very good company. I just want to lay around and maybe watch a movie. Play a little Zombie Chase. That’s not going to be very much fun for you.”
Sarah nodded slowly. “Okay. That’s fine.” She bent over to pick up her bag, and I averted my eyes from her ass. Straightening, she glanced over her shoulder at me. “Maybe tomorrow night we could see a movie or something.”
“Can’t. Tomorrow’s Thursday, and this week we play Friday night, so we have curfew.” As a cheerleader, she knew that.
“Oh, right. I forgot. Well, there’s always Saturday.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us moved. Sarah’s face was carefully neutral, giving no hint about how she was really feeling other than where she’d caught her lip between her teeth. I waited, unsure of what to say next.
The painful silence was broken by the buzzing of my phone. I stretched back, reaching into my pocket to dig it out, frowning as I scanned the text. “Hey, I need to go. That was my mom, and she, uh . . . she asked when I was coming home. I guess my brothers are both in town unexpectedly.”
“Everything okay?” Sarah tilted her head, studying me.
“I guess. I don’t know. It’s just weird because they don’t come home very often.” I typed a quick reply to my mother, telling her I was on my way, and tucked my phone back in my pants. “I’ll see you later.”
“Leo.” Sarah called me just before I rounded the corner. “I . . . can I ask you something real quick before you go?”
My shoulders tensed. “Sure. What’s up?”
“Do you even want to date me? I mean, what are we doing here? If you just want to walk away, please just tell me. I don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated to me in any way. Okay? Seriously.” She pressed her lips together before she went on. “I like you, Leo. I have since we met . . . remember the sprinklers that summer?”
I smiled. “Yeah. I remember.”
“But I understand that this might not be the right time for us. It’s fine. I’d rather you tell me the truth than let me look pathetic, trying to hang on when maybe you never even meant for us to be anything more than—just friends.”
“Sarah.” I sucked in a deep breath. “I like you, too. You’re probably the coolest girl in this school, you know? You’re kind to everyone, you’re gorgeous . . . but I’ve got a lot of shit going on in my head right now. It’s not you, it’s got nothing to do with you, but pretending we could be anything long-term wouldn’t be fair. To either of us.”
“I understand. Thanks for saying that.” Those pretty dark eyes filled with tears, but she managed a smile. “Now you better go home and see your brothers before your mom calls out the National Guard.”
I turned to leave again, pausing just before I opened the door. “Sarah? I meant what I said. You really are the coolest girl I know.”
She laughed, even as a single tear spilled down her cheek. “Oh, get out of here, you big flirt.”
I felt nothing but relief as I jogged down the school steps and across the lawn toward the parking lot. Mine was one of the few cars still there, but I did spot the ancient Ford Quinn sometimes drove. I assumed she was there late working on the paper. Jake was probably with her, and an image of the two of them, making out in the newspaper office, sent a stab of pain through my heart.
But if Jake Donavan made her happy, I’d take that pain. And maybe someday we’d find our way back to being friends. That was as much as I could hope for at this point.
Simon and Danny’s cars were parked along the curb when I got home. Seeing them there gave me an odd feeling. My brothers usually made it back here for holidays, but we didn’t see them often other than. Danny was in the last year of his undergrad degree at Rutgers, and Simon had a job at a marketing company in Baltimore. They called often, and Danny came down sometimes if I had a big game, but they had their own lives.
Which was why both of them being back home on a weeknight made me nervous.
I pulled into the driveway, grabbed my bag and walked slowly into the house. The front door was unlocked, and I dropped the duffel just inside, yelling to my mother as I toed off my shoes.
“Yo, Mom! I’m home. What’s up? Is this a surprise party deal? Did you all forget my birthday was a month ago?”
It was quiet for a minute, and then my mother’s voice floated in from the kitchen. “We’re in here, Leo. Come on in.”
I swallowed hard and padded down the short hallway in my socks. “Hey, what’s going on?”
My parents were sitting close to each other at the kitchen table. Simon and Danny were across from them in the same seats they’d occupied throughout our childhood. Danny’s eyes were suspiciously red.
My mother pointed to the empty chair that was my spot. “Sit down, sweetie. We need to talk.”
Quinn
“Let’s move Lisa’s article to the page two, and then stick the picture from the band competition on the front page.” Jake leaned back in his chair, dropped his head and looked at me upside down. “Slow news week.”
I laughed, and turning back to the computer, focused on dragging the photo onto the right spot on the front page. “Don’t worry. If the football team makes it into the playoff games, we’ll have pictures and stories for weeks.”
“Yeah, it’s looking good for them.” Jake sat up and spun the chair around to face me. “Okay, that’s the front page. I think we’re just about done. I’ll do one final check and send it over to the printer.”
I sighed and crooked my neck, working out the kinks. “Great. I’ll upload it to the email service.” We were slowly moving the school newspaper over to a completely paperless format, but in the interim, we released it in both paper and ecopy.
“Perfect.” Jake stood up, stretching his arms over his head. He leaned over the back of my chair, caging me in with his arms on either side. “Maybe we should celebrate. Ice cream or coffee?”
I tried to stop myself from tensing. Jake and I had fallen into a comfortable relationship over the last month. We hadn’t made any formal declarations; he hadn’t asked me to be his girlfriend, and I wasn’t sure if that made a difference to anyone but me. We hung out in the newspaper office, as we always had, but more often than not, he suggested that we do something together afterwards. He held my hand when we sat in the movie theater and kissed me goodnight when he dropped me off. But he hadn’t pushed anything. We didn’t make out in his car, and he hadn’t even tried to French kiss me.
I’d hoped that if we spent more time together, that missing spark might show up. But so far, it remained MIA. I was comfortable with Jake. We had a wonderful time together. But he didn’t make me melt in my chair when he gazed into my eyes.
Apparently, though, Sarah wasn’t having any problem finding the passion with Leo. It felt like every time I turned around, there they were, attached at the lips, with Leo’s hands all over her perfect curvy body. I found it harder to hate Sarah after we’d talked at Mike Anders’ party, but it wasn’t so much of a stretch to dislike her when her fingers were tucked into the back pocket of Leo’s jeans.
“I don’t know about tonight, Jake. I think I might just head home.” I smiled, hoping it looked genuine. “After we put the paper to bed, the only thing I want to do is put me to bed.”
“Oh. Okay.” Jake stood up, watching in silence as I gave the file one more go-over. “Q, can I talk to you about something?”
My stomach turned over. Nothing good ever came after those words. “Sure.”
“Do you like me?”
I spun my chair around. “Of course I like you, Jake. How could I help it? You’re a great guy.”
He sighed. “A great guy. Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
I quirked one eyebrow. “You’d rather I said you weren’t a great guy?”
“No, I’d rather you say . . .” He rolled his eyes up. “I don’t know. That I’m exciting. Unpredictable. Maybe even a little dangerous. But that’s what keeps you coming back for more.”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Jake. I think you’re one of the funniest people I know, but you’re still a great guy. I always have a wonderful time with you.”
“Yeah, that was what I was afraid of.” He dropped into his chair and gazed at me glumly. “We have fun, but you’re not dying to rip these chinos off me and have your way with my rockin’ bod?”
This time I managed to swallow my laughter. “I’m sure it’s not you. It’s me. I’m just . . . slow. Backward, probably. I know none of the other girls in the school have a problem with, um, getting physical, but it’s just not me.”
The Keeping Score Box Set Page 18