“Second of all,” she continues, “you’ve made it perfectly clear you don’t want our relationship to go anywhere. You don’t love me anymore. You’re over me. And that’s fine because I’ll settle for being your friend, if that’s what it takes to have you in my life. But if you get to be single, then guess what, so do I.”
I bite my lips at this realization. I hate the idea of Dylan with other guys. It’s worse than anything. “Then what happened last week?”
She points a finger at me. “You told me it didn’t mean anything.”
My heart’s beating so hard I can feel it pulse in my neck. It meant everything.
“I guess I was right,” I say. I turn and walk away and I hear Dylan call after me, but I ignore her. I turn down the block and take out my phone. Two can play the jealousy game.
Revenge is on. So what if Dylan had one lousy date? Girls throw their phone numbers at me on a daily basis, like I’m a lottery ticket for someone to win. I scroll down my phone list until I find Kari’s name. I send her a message asking if she wants to hang out tomorrow.
She responds in under ten seconds.
For sure!!!
I look down at the message and take triple exclamation points as a sign of mild interest.
What are you thinking? she asks.
Erase Dylan from my mind, I want to type. That might sound odd. I consider what to do with her and glance at the tips of the Sandia mountains in the distance. I type in the first idea that comes to my head.
Want to go on a hike? I text back.
Can’t wait!! she replies.
I slip my phone in my pocket and take a long, thankful breath, like someone just rescued me from a near drowning incident.
***
Three hours later, at practice, I watch Travis out of the corner of my eye. He’s talking to one of the assistant coaches, his head leaned back and laughing. I imagine he’s talking about Dylan and he’s describing all the kinky positions they’re going to practice in bed. I stretch my legs on the warm grass and try to block him out, but every time I hear him laugh I want to hurl a ball at his gloating head. Miles is sitting next to me, watching my expression fluctuate between annoyed, irate and fuming with vengeance.
“Dude, you alright?” Miles asks.
I don’t answer him. I just shake my head. When Travis sits down in the grass and starts stretching, I pick myself up and grab my glove and a ball.
“Travis,” I say as I walk towards him. He squints up at me and throws me a cocky grin. “I need to warm my arm up. You want to throw?” I ask.
“I should stretch first,” he says and I pick his glove up off the ground and toss it in his hands.
“Thanks,” I say. He hesitates for a second, but then he stands up. We walk towards the outfield and toss the ball back and forth. We start off with small talk and discuss our game this weekend in San Diego and some of the competition we’re going to face. I pretend I care about other player’s RBIs and batting averages.
Time to digress.
“I want you to stay away from Dylan,” I say. It’s not a question. It’s not a subtle hint. It’s a warning. I whip the ball hard and Travis catches it and smiles another cocky grin. He knew this was coming and, as always, he’s more than happy to encourage a fight.
“I was just helping her out today,” he says, all innocent.
“And you just happened to rub her leg?” I ask and match his casual tone. I throw another ball, a little bit harder. Travis catches it and the impact knocks his smile down a few pegs.
“Yeah, so? She’s—” he pauses and flips the ball in his fingers as he thinks about this. “It’s hard to describe her. She’s cute, that’s for sure.” He gives me a second to let this observation sink it. It makes my teeth clench. “I’m thinking about asking her out,” he says and whips the ball back at me and I catch it without taking my eyes off of his.
“I don’t think so.”
I throw the ball, lighter this time, and we keep tossing back and forth while Travis considers my words.
“You passed her up,” he tells me. His words feel like he’s taking a swing at me. “That makes her available.”
I stare across the grass at him. “She’s not interested in you. So don’t waste your time.” I know this advice is worthless. Nothing is out of Travis’s league. A challenge only motivates him.
“I can change that,” he says and smiles.
I stop throwing and fix my eyes on his. “Keep your hands off of her,” I say slowly just to make sure I get my point across.
“I don’t know if I can,” he says and laughs a little. “I bet a girl like her is an animal in bed.” Something like thunder rumbles through my body. I wind up and throw a curve ball high and as hard as I can and Travis barely has time to react to the throw. He blocks his forehead with his glove like a shield and the ball bounces off the leather with a loud smack. It knocks any trace of a grin off his face and sends him back pedaling a few steps. He throws his glove on the ground and stomps toward me.
“What’s your problem?” he yells. Some of the guys warming up turn to watch us. I take a few quick steps until I’m in his face. All he needs is a good look at my eyes to know where I stand. I see the anger in his eyes settle as the truth sinks in.
“Oh,” he says. He raises his eyebrows like he’s surprised. And maybe he is. I’m sure he suspected I still liked Dylan. He didn’t know I still loved her. “I get it,” he says.
I stare him down a few seconds longer. “Thanks for the warm up,” I say and walk away towards the infield. I feel like I’m in high school and I could win an immaturity award, but I don’t care. Passing off Dylan as single is one thing. Exposing her to dickheads like Toolshed is another. It really was the noble thing to do.
***
The next afternoon, I park in front of Kari’s apartment. I stare up at the blue, two story house and feel guilty. What am I doing here? If I can’t stand the thought of Dylan dating anyone, why do I get the privilege? But I would feel even worse if I canceled at the last second. So, I decide just to go through with it. Zero expectations.
I turn off the engine and get out of the car. It’s a perfect day for hiking—seventy-five degrees and a clear blue sky. I take it as a good sign. I ring the doorbell and one of Kari’s roommate’s answers. She grins at me shyly and opens the door.
“Come on in,” she says.
I walk into the living room and it smells like vanilla or cinnamon or something girly. There are white Christmas lights strewn all over the room even though it’s almost May. The girl who opened the door introduces herself as Anna and another roommate sitting on the couch waves and tells me she’s Kim. I say hi to both of them and Kari shouts that she’ll be right out. I stand there and look at the walls and they’re covered with framed nature photography. I think Dylan’s pictures are better.
No I don’t.
Damnit!! I swear that girl put some kind of a hex over my thought process.
When Kari walks into the living room I stare with surprise at what she’s chosen to wear hiking: skinny jeans, platform flip flops, and a tank top that sparkles with rhinestones.
“Ready to go?” she asks.
I stare back at her. “Are you?”
“Oh, wait, let me grab my purse.” She runs out of the room and her shoes clop with her down the hall. She’s back in two seconds with a blue purse large enough to be a grocery bag hanging off her shoulder. She’s smiling so huge and looks so excited that I feel awful. Maybe she forgot what we planned.
“What do you want to do?” I ask her.
“Don’t you want to hike?” she asks.
“Um.” Should I tell her to change into tennis shoes? Or is that rude?
I rub my hand over my stomach. Earlier this morning I had a bad feeling in my gut, but I couldn’t decide if my gut was telling me I should back out of this date, or if it was hinting I should have used less hot sauce in my breakfast omelet. Now it’s pretty obvious.
I play it safe. “You know
, I don’t really feel like hiking. We can do something else.”
“No, let’s hike. It’ll be fun.”
“Um, do you have tennis shoes?” I ask. You know, socks, shorts, sunglasses? Common hiking attire. I hear Kim laugh but she muffles it with a cough. I’m getting a sinking feeling in my chest.
“Oh, duh. Just a sec.”
A half hour and two outfit changes later, Kari is ready to go. What I took for a laid-back girl majoring in sociology has ended up being a high-maintenance fashion diva that can’t leave the house without her outfit carefully coordinated and approved by not one, but two roommate checks. Good, God. I’m so glad I’m not a girl.
I decide to take Kari to an easy trail called Rinconada Canyon loop on the outskirts of town. It’s usually full of families and dogs. I figure if a six-year-old can hack it, she’ll manage.
“I’ve never been on a hike before,” Kari announces when I start the car.
No kidding.
“Really?” I say.
“I love the outdoors,” she swoons. I glance down at her tennis shoes. They look like they’ve never seen the light of day. “It just takes so long to hike,” she says. “It’s like a full day event, when I can go to the gym and burn like five times as many calories in under an hour.”
Like, you’re totally right. I muffle a sigh. I am never taking Bubba’s advice again.
We stop at Starbucks on the way to the park because Kari informs me she hasn’t eaten all day. I wait for her to order a salad or a sandwich but all she wants is a large, soy, no foam, extra hot, sugar-free hazelnut latte. I’m amazed so many words can describe a single beverage. I offer to treat and stare in shock when the bill is over five dollars. Five bucks for coffee?? Freaking Starbucks. They should change their name to Fivebucks.
We pull up to a gravel parking lot next to the trail and dust kicks up around the tires. We park in front of an orange gate that marks the beginning of the trailhead. I promise Kari the path is really well marked, that it’s a great beginner hike. She gets out of the car and looks around at the dusty parking lot with a frown. I meet her behind my car and she’s staring down at her bright pink tennis shoes.
“I didn’t think it would be so dirty out here.”
I look down at her feet.
“It’s just dust.”
“I know, but these are my favorite shoes. They don’t make this style anymore.”
My mind shifts to Amanda. When we were in high school, we had a secret code we used when we needed to be saved from painful social situations. Our message was always: Pork chop sandwiches. I don’t know why we called it that, or who started it, but it stuck as our emergency signal. I look up at the sky and think of pork chop sandwiches. I wonder if Amanda is looking down on us. Maybe she’ll send a monsoon or dust storm our way to cut the date short. Sometimes I like to think she can still save me.
We start walking down the trail and Kari takes a long gulp of her latte. She complains the espresso shots taste burnt. I have no idea what she’s talking about, but I nod and pretend to be sympathetic.
A half hour into the hike, things are only getting worse. Kari drank half her coffee and it’s making her jumpy. There are a few flies buzzing around and she’s constantly swatting the air in front of her face. She thinks she sees a Gila monster and screams, but I assure her it’s just a gecko. She convinces herself that a vulture is stalking us.
“Do vultures attack humans?”
“I don’t think so,” I say. “Only in horror movies.”
“Maybe it smells my coffee,” she says.
I tell her she’s safe. Vultures like good coffee, I joke. She glares at me. I switch tactics since she’s too annoyed for humor and I try to be the encouraging hiking coach. When we pass a tight stretch of trail and her legs have to touch some of the tall grass, I commend her on her bravery. When she has to duck under a fallen tree limb and scale a few rock boulders, I tell her she’s doing great. I pretend to be genuinely impressed by her adventurous tenacity.
I am so bored.
“Oh, my God, can scorpions fly?” she asks. I turn and stare back at her.
“What?”
“What is that thing?” She points down to a black bug crawling slowly across the
trail.
I tell her it’s a beetle.
“Ew, nasty. Will you kill it?”
I tell her to walk around it. “You can’t kill bugs in nature. It’s a rule.”
“Gross.” She quickly dances around it and shrieks at the same time. I commend her, once again, on being so daring. We keep walking and right now I’m more annoyed at Dylan than anyone. This is all her fault. I wouldn’t be on this worthless date if I wasn’t trying to get over her.
I hear Kari’s feet stop dragging behind me and I glance at her over my shoulder. She’s fixated on the scrubby bushes growing next to the path.
Is she delusional?
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She swallows and gasps. “Gray! I think there’s a snake in these bushes. It’s making a rattling noise.” She presses a hand to her chest and freezes. I walk towards her and I don’t hear a rattle, but then a grasshopper jumps out of the bushes and lands in her hair.
She screams and throws her coffee cup in the air. I feel like this is all happening in slow motion. Her coffee flies skyward, then flips into a skydive approach for her head. The cup misses her head, but hits her chest, releasing its contents of overpriced “burnt espresso” all over her tank top. She’s screaming and flailing her arms and running in place like she’s being attacked by a nest of wasps. I have to bite my lips together to keep a straight face.
I try to calm her down and keep yelling that it’s just a grasshopper. An older couple scoots around us on the path and the guy raises his eyebrows at me. I see pity on his face.
I rest my hands on Kari’s shoulders. She finally stops jumping and flailing and her terrified eyes meet mine. When she stops hyperventilating, I can’t help it. I laugh. I laugh so hard I have to lean over.
“You thought a grasshopper was a rattlesnake,” I say in between breaths.
And that’s when she shoves me so hard she pushes me off the trail and I barely catch myself on a tree branch before I fall down the side of the cliff. After I find my balance and my minor heart attack subsides, I glare at her.
“Oh, that wasn’t funny to you?” she says and her eyes turn from crybaby to psycho bitch in .2 seconds. She turns and stomps back down the trail, heading for the parking lot. I don’t bother telling her the trail’s a loop and it’s just going to take longer going back the way we came. I’m still trying to calm down after my near brush with death.
I’ve just discovered that dating is not only detrimental to my budget, my patience and my rare free time. It’s also threatening to my health. Good to know.
DYLAN
Cat and I sit with Miles on his front porch. The three of us drink pink lemonade and eat potato chips and hamburgers. I have so many pickles it’s giving me a stomach ache. Miles invited Cat over for lunch and Cat insisted I join them. It’s the perfect spring afternoon—the temperature is mild and the sunlight is hitting the ground at just the right angle to make the trees and flowers shine like gold. Even though hiking with Gray would be my ideal scenario, I’m content to sit back and feel the breeze brush my skin.
I’m tapping my feet to the rhythm of Cat’s guitar. The three of us are collaborating on a song we titled “Ode to Bacon.” Miles and I write the lyrics while Cat improvises the chords. It’s a beautiful moment in music discovery.
“It’s still missing something,” Cat says.
I rest my chin on my hand and concentrate. “I know. We need a verse dedicated to all the ways you can use bacon as a topping,” I say.
“Didn’t we already do that in the ‘bacon as a condiment’ verse?” Miles asks.
I lean back in my chair, thinking hard. “How about a verse dedicated to the flavor benefits of combining cheese with bacon?”
Cat crosses he
r legs and shakes her head. “I think that convolutes the message. We need to keep bacon in the spotlight. Cheese is a whole other song.”
Miles informs Cat this song could really catapult her career.
“He’s right,” I say. “Cat, you should start practicing your Grammy acceptance speech.”
The three of us are interrupted by a shout coming from the street, followed by someone slamming a car door shut.
“Kari, you’re fine!”
It’s Gray’s voice and we all turn to see what’s causing the commotion. A second later, a petite brunette in cut-off shorts and bright pink tennis shoes marches up the steps. Her white tank top is covered in brown stains. Her smooth hair is falling out of her ponytail. She’s scratching at her legs, which are streaked with red splotches.
“Fine? My legs have poison oak all over them!”
Gray stumbles up the steps behind her and she turns to glower at him. Gray’s face carries a plate of emotions: pissed off and guilty with a side of exhaustion. They don’t notice the three of us sitting in the corner of the porch.
“It’s not poison oak. I just think you had an allergic reaction—”
“And someone has precious baseball practice and can’t take me to the emergency room,” she says, her voice wavering.
Miles and I meet each other’s eyes and he gives me this look like maybe we should step in and help out.
“Come on, I have some lotion you can use for the itching. You’ll be fine.”
Miles clears his throat and both of their eyes snap towards us. When Gray notices me, any trace of guilt on his face turns to pure rage.
“What are you doing here?” he asks me, specifically, but Miles answers him. He
explains he invited us over for lunch and this, for some reason, annoys Gray even more.
What’s his problem? Does everything I do piss him off?
“What happened to you?” Cat asks the girl.
Kari huffs. “Well, it’s nice that someone here cares about my medical condition.”
I watch Gray’s face turn red and one of his hands locks into a fist. Kari bends down and runs her fingernails over her legs.
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