The Love Playbook

by Suze Winegardner

  “I agree.” Lexi was stroking her arm and looking out at the other people in the quad, thinking.

  “Can you talk to Mr. Hardy and ask him to warn your dad?” she asked.

  Avery slumped. “I’m not sure I can. I was totally eavesdropping. Like, I didn’t overhear it as much as press my ear to a closed door when I heard them mention Dad.” She pulled a face. “I mean, let’s save that as a last resort.” Of course she would risk getting fired for her father, but if Mr. Hardy thought that Mr. Duchamp had a point, he probably wouldn’t think twice about firing her and her father.

  “Yeah,” Lexi said. Then she pointed at Avery. “Hey, that’s why you were asking about the new guy yesterday. Damn. I thought it was because you straight-up wanted him. I wouldn’t have blamed you. I nearly swooned when he took off his helmet, all sweaty and stuff. He’s fi-i-ine.” She dragged out the last word in true Lexi-style appreciation.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Avery agreed and looked out at the sea of people eating lunch. “Dad invited him back for dinner the other night. For some reason, he seemed to think that Lucas could make the difference to the team. I just wondered if it looked like he was right. Because…”

  “Yeah, then you wouldn’t have to worry. He wasn’t awesome, I have to say. But he’s probably weirded out by moving across state. I mean, when Daddy became district attorney and we moved a couple streets away, it just didn’t feel like home for like a year. I was discombobbed for months.”

  Avery sat up. That could be it. It could just take time for him to hit his stride. Maybe he would come through for the team. Maybe this was one less thing she’d have to worry about.

  “You could ask him yourself,” Lexi said, getting to her feet.

  Maybe her dad would keep his job.

  Wait, what did Lexi just say?

  She looked up.

  Lexi was ten feet away from the table, waving over her shoulder, and Lucas was standing where Lexi had been sitting a minute ago, crumpling up a brown paper bag in his hands.

  “Hi,” he said.

  …

  “Hey,” she replied, her eyes shifting as if she were checking that he was talking to her and not someone else.

  Lucas had been sitting by himself when he noticed her across the crowded quad. He was supposed to meet Colin, but as usual, Colin’s head was somewhere else, probably. His feet started walking in her direction before he had fully formed a coherent plan in his head.

  “Uh, hi,” he repeated. Think. Think. “It occurred to me that I may have been rude to you the night before last.”

  “It occurred to you that you may have been rude, huh?” Avery said, raising her eyebrows in disbelief. “You slammed the door as I was talking to you.”

  Lucas shifted uneasily. “I’m sorry. I, er…” Yeah, he had nothing. “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyes softened as he watched her. How did she change expressions without moving her face? He just wanted to stare at her to see how she did it.

  “Do you want to sit?” Avery asked uncertainly.

  He nodded and tried to take off his backpack, but his lunch bag was still in his hand, so he hesitated and then threw it toward the trash can to the side of the bench. It bounced off the rim and fell onto the ground at her feet.

  So smooth. He sighed and went to retrieve it, but Avery picked it up and threw it effortlessly into the can.

  “Thanks,” he said as he slid his backpack off his shoulder and dropped it on the ground. Except it bounced off the edge of the table first and then tumbled to the ground.

  Avery’s eyebrows raised. “Wow.” She looked at him for a long second and then nodded to the bench. “You better sit down before you fall down,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “Are you okay?”

  He sat down, unsure of what to say to her. Especially since he bailed on her so abruptly the other night. After he’d nearly kissed her. He wished he could talk to someone—anyone—about the things that were constantly fighting for space in his brain. Maybe he could say: “I’m sorry about the other night—I just have so much to deal with right now. Trying to ensure no one discovers my real name. Trying to navigate school with no car, no computer, and no phone. Trying to get a job—but one that wouldn’t interfere with school or football. Trying to take some of the burden from my mom. Trying to make her smile again. Trying to catch a fucking ball. And then I went and nearly kissed you, and now I’m right here, and I want to kiss you again…”

  But he couldn’t.

  His brain throbbed to the rhythm of all the things he couldn’t do.

  And then he remembered Colin’s words. He looked around anxiously. He didn’t see him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t hear that they’d been seen together. What was he doing?

  Lucas unscrewed the top of his water bottle, took a gulp of water, and offered it to Avery, head still swiveling, looking for potential trouble. She shook her head, understandably, and he took another swig and put the lid back on. He started to toss it into the air and catch up. Up and catch.

  She stared at him for a second and then sighed and opened the book that she’d been reading in the car the first time he saw her. She took out a pen and crossed something out, and next to the word “Assignment” a page back, she put an “A” and circled around it.

  It was a planner, obviously. It made sense. Most of the entries from the week before had “A” written next to them. Except for one. He craned his neck. She had an A- next to Calc.

  She wasn’t as perfect as she looked.

  His gaze slid up from her planner to her face. “Listen, about the other night.” He shifted around on the bench to face her, but she didn’t do the same. “Thank you for the ride. You gave me good advice, by the way.”

  She looked up, and suddenly their faces were less than a foot apart, and he…couldn’t look away. She was really pretty. Did she know how pretty she was? Did she have a line of guys waiting to ask her out? Shit! Did she already have a boyfriend? Would she have gone out with him if she’d known him before?

  As if she could tell what he was thinking, she blinked slowly and shook her head slightly. Of course she wouldn’t have gone out with him. He sat upright, increasing the distance between them. “Do you have any more?” he asked.

  She cleared her throat. “Any more what?”

  “Advice. Coach is busy with the players he knows, and I feel stupid being new on the team and taking up his time and…stuff.” Yup. He should have practiced this.

  “But you don’t feel stupid taking up my time?” she asked. Her voice wasn’t accusatory, more genuinely interested in his reply.

  “It’s not that. It’s just… You seemed like you were happy to give me advice the other day. If that’s the case, I wondered if you had anything else that might help me get my head out of my ass?”

  She smiled at his words and tipped her head to one side as if she were contemplating. She didn’t speak for some long seconds. So long, in fact, that he was about to get up and make his escape.

  The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. “Maybe we can meet later?” he asked.

  That got a response. A real fast one. “I can’t. I’m sorry. I don’t have any time at all.” She flipped open her planner and thumbed the pages, frowning. “I work at Hardy’s, and I study, eat, and sleep, and that’s all I have time for.”

  “But you were at practice last night. So you do do other things,” he said with what he hoped was a charming smile.

  She shoved her journal thing in her bag and stared at him for a second. She really looked as if she wanted to say something more. But she didn’t.

  “Bye,” was all she said as she left him sitting there alone.

  Yup. That just about covered it. His luck, mojo, skills, and life had been swapped with someone else’s. His pity party faltered only slightly as his attention was grabbed by her skirt floating around her legs as she walked to the main b
uilding.

  The second bell sounded, and he grabbed his bag and ran to Block 23 for world history.

  Chapter Seven

  “I didn’t know what to say,” Avery wailed over the phone to Lexi. Normally, they texted each other after school, but this situation was so out-there that she didn’t feel like she could detail the whole thing over text. Even with emojis.

  “So, tell me again. What exactly did he ask you?”

  “He just asked for advice. Said he didn’t want to ask Dad, because he was new and…”

  “Didn’t want to be the needy guy. I get that,” Lexi said. Then she went silent.

  Avery knew something was coming.

  “And you just said you didn’t have time.”

  “I don’t have time,” she said, eyeing her planner.

  “You don’t have to tell me that. You don’t even have time to see me half the time. But here we are, spending—hang on a moment, let me look—twenty minutes on the phone talking about how you don’t have twenty minutes for him. Was that in your planner?”

  A thread of nervousness pulled tight in her belly. They’d spent twenty minutes on the phone? This was why she always texted. She grabbed for the planner and looked at the rest of the day. She breathed. It was okay. She could just read for a few minutes before going to bed. Or not at all. She finished her last book a couple of nights ago and still hadn’t settled on what to read next. No harm no foul. She flipped the book shut again and nudged it slowly down to the bottom of her bed with her foot. Then she grabbed it again and laid her palm on the cover as if she could absorb her whole future inside just by touching it. Just having her hand on it was comforting.

  “No, but I can pull time from—” she began.

  “That’s my point exactly. You found time for this, so you can find time for him. I mean, if you helped him play better football, that could fix your whole problem with Mr. Duchamp,” Lexi said, articulating the idea that had been rattling around her head since she said no to Lucas.

  “There’s a big problem with that, though. I don’t play football. I don’t know what it’s like to be on the field,” Avery said.

  “Your dad hasn’t played football for, like, a hundred years, either,” Lexi countered. “Check your planner again.”

  Lexi was the only person outside the family who knew why she kept planners. She didn’t only have one for this semester but also for the years that were laid out ahead of her. Not as detailed, of course, but with her goals and dreams for the next year, and the one after, and the one after that. So she wouldn’t miss anything or forget anything or be surprised by anything.

  “I’m serious,” Lexi said when Avery didn’t answer right away. “If someone asks you for help, and you can help them, you should.”

  Avery half laughed, but a cold finger of dread traced its way down her spine. Lexi was right. It’d felt wrong saying no to someone who had asked her for help. And she couldn’t help but think that if a girl had asked her for help with a geography assignment, she would have found time to help her.

  “At least do one of your pros and cons lists,” Lexi said before a muffled stream of half curses and grunts came over the phone.

  Avery opened the planner up to her pros and cons section. “What is going on over there?” she asked once the noise had stopped.

  “My comforter was eating me. And I was lying on the end so I couldn’t get out. And suddenly I was trapped and then…”

  “I got it.” Avery rolled her eyes with a grin. “You safe now? You showed your comforter who was boss?”

  Lexi sniffed. “Ah sure did.” She continued, her voice clear and un-muffled. “Anyway, the football bit is easy. You’ve been sitting on the bleachers for years watching your dad. There’s no way you don’t know your shit about football. Who’s always explaining what’s going on at the games? Why your dad is playing one guy and not the other? What the plays are? Where the players are all supposed to be? You called it that time Munchkin was out of position for the play. You saw it even before the whistle blew,” Lexi said. “This is a win-win-win. You do a good deed for someone, and you might help your dad out, too. It’s going to be good karma.”

  Maybe Lexi was right. And she had thought about karma when she’d asked the universe for Lucas to come back and help her.

  “Wait, what’s the last win?” Avery asked, avoiding agreeing with her.

  “The fact that he could very well be the hottest guy in school.” Avery could hear her glee behind the words.

  “Oh God. I didn’t tell you. I drove him home from dinner, and I swear, we almost kissed. At least, I don’t know what happened, really. I’d got my friendship bracelet caught on his sweater…”

  Lexi cackled. And then laughed more, and more, until she was squealing in gasps down the phone.

  Avery waited patiently.

  “Oh, honey. I can’t tell you how tickled I am that the friendship bracelet I made you nearly got you kissed! It’s like I booby-trapped it for you! Hey. Maybe I should make more. I can call it the BoyTrapper. I wonder if I should trademark that—”

  “Do you want to hear the rest of the story, or do you want to gloat a little more?” Avery asked with fake impatience.

  “Sure, sure. Go ahead. You were stuck on his arm?” Lexi encouraged.

  “Well, it was weird. We both tried to free me, and then our faces were like really close and…” She stopped. It just sounded too lame for words. Also, she hadn’t been kissed for so freaking long that maybe she’d misread the whole situation?

  “And?” Lexi prompted.

  “Urgh, I don’t know. Maybe it was nothing. Well, nothing happened, anyway. And he acted this afternoon like nothing had happened, so…?”

  “So are you going to help him?” Lexi asked.

  Avery took a moment to compose a mental pros and cons list.

  Pros

  Helping someone.

  Might help Dad keep his job

  It’s true—he’s totally hot.

  Cons

  Takes up time I don’t have.

  Except I probably do have a bit of time.

  Damn. “I mean…I guess. Maybe for a couple of weeks I can stop reading before bed and put those twenty minutes somewhere else in the day.”

  “Your nighttime reading is thirty minutes,” Lexi pointed out, knowing her planner as well as Avery did herself.

  “The extra ten minutes will give me time to get home or whatever. It’s buffer time.”

  “Buffy time?”

  “Buffer…never mind.”

  They hung up, and Avery flopped over onto her back and stared at the ceiling. So a couple of things were settled. They definitely hadn’t nearly kissed in the car. That was her overactive imagination, clearly. And yes, she was going to have to find him the next day and tell him that she’d help him. That was all. It was good. If he improved his game, her dad could keep his job. It really was a win-win. Okay, it was a win-win-win.

  But she wasn’t going to think about the kissing thing, no matter how hot he was. It didn’t happen, and let’s face it—he ran off afterward. Helping him would just be about helping her father. That was all.

  That. Was. All.

  She flung herself over onto her stomach. That was all, she silently repeated.

  Chapter Eight

  Avery paced up and down in front of Lucas’s locker. She’d had to ask four people which one was his, so she was already anxious. The fact that she was looking for Lucas would be all around the school by lunch. She knew she was attracting stares, but that was nothing unusual. She’d been attracting stares since Mom died. No words, just stares. She understood. People who’d had no experience of death wanted to look and see what it looked like on her face. And those same people had no idea what to say to her. She got that, too. She still had no idea what kind of words would have made her feel better.

&
nbsp; Anyway, the bottom line was everyone was staring, and she didn’t know what to do with that. She definitely didn’t want anyone to think she was chasing him or, worse, dating him. Especially her teachers, especially her father. After her mom died, they’d all put so much work into ensuring Avery’s future was a straight line from the hallway she was standing in to a Ph.D. in medicine.

  Damn it, where was he? She could carve out twenty minutes in her planner, but she wasn’t going to turn up late for class for him.

  Not for him. For my dad.

  Her gaze was fixed on the huge double doors at the end of the hall when he sauntered in, eyes on the ground. He didn’t see the other girls looking at him as he walked by. Avery did.

  She also saw his muscles move under his jeans and his thin T-shirt. There was ink under that T-shirt—at least it kind of looked like it when he moved. For a second, all her rehearsed lines fled her brain. And then he looked up, and as his gaze met hers, her entire brain hiccuped.

  Damn Lexi for putting the thought that he was the hottest guy in school into her mind. Now that was all she could see. She rolled her eyes at herself. But her butterflies paid no mind to her eye-roll.

  And then she blinked hard. Lucas seemed to slow down, the football player moving in slo-mo down the hall. Her stomach tightened, and bells rang in her ears. Then he was right in front of her.

  “Good morning?” he asked, making a play to get past her to his locker.

  She looked around. Oh. She suddenly realized why everyone else had disappeared. The bell was echoing through the school.

  “Sorry about yesterday,” she said baldly. “I went home and shifted some things around, and I do have time to help you—if you still want me to.” She pulled the muffin she’d picked up for him from behind her back. “Sorry I blew you off.”

  He took it and turned it around so she could see the huge bite she’d taken out of it to calm her roiling stomach while she was waiting for him. He raised his eyebrows in question.