“Ellllll,” Jodie whispers. “You need to at least make out with this guy.”
“Jodie!” I bark, then lower my voice. “He has a girlfriend! And he’s not even my type.”
Jodie rolls her eyes. “Except he is. He’s hot. Every girl likes a hot guy.”
“Then maybe you should like him,” I say.
“No, I’m fully devoted to pining over Joaquin, the new guy at work. Besides, you’re bright red right now, so I think you know exactly what I’m talking about.”
I don’t get to argue with her because Luke has reached us. I notice he’s carrying a golf umbrella. “Fancy seeing you here,” he says.
“I thought you were going out with Greta tonight?” I say. I can feel my face get even hotter when I say Greta’s name.
“She ended up going into the city to meet up with some of her snowboarding friends from Canada. She told me it’d be a lot of shoptalk, so I stayed home,” Luke says, his face totally neutral. “But at least I get to see the game now.”
“You should totally sit with us,” Jodie says smiling at him.
“Unless you’re meeting friends,” I say. “No pressure.”
“No,” Luke says, “I was actually hoping to run into you!”
Jodie kicks me, but she distracts Luke from seeing it by scooting down our bleacher, dragging me with her and opening up a seat for him on the end. Next to me.
“Oh,” I say, “Luke, this is Jodie.”
Luke sits down and his smile broadens. “Nice to meet you. Are you a big football fan?”
“Ha, I’m not the biggest sports gal, but I do anything for a friend,” she says, elbowing me.
“She also can’t turn down seeing guys in tight pants,” I say, starting to giggle, and Jodie shakes her head.
“Just because Joaquin was wearing those tight jeans that day doesn’t mean I was checking out his butt. I am many things, but a silent sexual harasser is not one of them.”
I’m kind of relieved I have Jodie on the defensive, thus momentarily preventing her from going on the offensive with me. I turn to Luke. “She has a crush on a new guy she works with at Retro Mania in the mall, but she can barely talk to him,” I say.
“Why not?” Luke says.
“I just never know what to say. I don’t have a lot of experience with guys,” Jodie says with a shrug.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” Luke says. “Like, you’re doing a great job of talking to me. Don’t sell yourself short.”
Jodie’s brow furrows. “Really?”
“Really,” Luke says.
Jodie sits up straighter. “Okay, maybe I’ll try tomorrow.”
This crazy warm feeling grips my heart then and I smile gratefully at Luke. He winks back in return.
* * *
The game is pretty close. The score seesaws back and forth between us and Lawndale, and by halftime, Lawndale’s up 17–14. The wind has really kicked up and the smell of rain is in the air. I wonder if they’ll get the whole thing in before the monsoon hits.
I’m impressed at how well Jodie and Luke are getting along. Within ten minutes, they realize they both love Saturn Quest, this Netflix comedy/sci-fi show. Jodie tells Luke it’s her dream to write for a show like that, and Luke tells her all about BMXing and how I’ve seen him train.
“Why didn’t you tell me you interviewed him?” she says, elbowing me, then jerking her thumb in my direction. “She’s so mysterious, this one.”
I’m about as mysterious as a toothbrush, but I’m kind of amused that Jodie is painting me as a lady of intrigue. Maybe let Luke think I’ve got some deep secrets or something.
“And she’s one of the funniest people you’ll ever meet,” I say, jerking my thumb in Jodie’s direction. “That she thinks Joaquin wouldn’t be into her is crazy.”
“So, when did this Joaquin dude first catch your eye?” Luke asks, and Jodie launches into detail about how Joaquin started at Retro Mania three weeks ago and how he seems almost impossibly shy. Luke ends up giving Jodie tips on how to talk to him, and even this old guy sitting behind us, a football player’s grandfather, weighs in with, “Sometimes, all it takes is a smile.”
After that, Jodie high-fives the old man whenever something good happens during the game.
When the RHHS band takes the field for the halftime show, Jodie stands up. “Anyone want a soda?”
“I’m good,” I say, also standing up, “but I’ll come with you.”
“No, I can handle this,” Jodie says cheerfully. “I saw where the snack bar was when we came in.”
She is so doing this to give Luke and me alone time. I know her too well.
“Okay,” I say, blinking hard at her.
“Luke, you want anything?” she asks innocently.
“Well, if you insist,” Luke says, fishing some cash out of his pocket and handing it to her. “Can you get me a Coke?”
She waves the money off. “It’s the least I can do for all the boy advice you’ve given me,” she says, making her way up the bleachers.
“She’s awesome,” Luke says. “You guys are a lot alike.”
“In some ways, we’re like twins,” I say. In other ways, I want to kill her.
“You guys been friends long?”
“Since the fourth grade,” I say. “It’s going to be weird next year, when we’re at different colleges. I mean, being at two different high schools is hard enough. But I guess if we could survive middle school together, we can survive anything.”
“That sounds heavy,” Luke says, his eyes full of concern.
“Oh, it was nothing life-threatening. I just got picked on a lot in middle school, and Jodie got picked on for sticking up for me.”
“Really? You?” he says, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “You’re so … What did they pick on you for?”
I’m so what? I want to ask, but I jump right in with the scoliosis saga.
Luke narrows his eyes. “Why would anyone bully somebody for something like that? God, if I had been at your school…” But he doesn’t finish his thought.
“So were you always defending your classmates like some kind of superhero?” I ask teasingly.
“Uh, not really. It was weird. My dad died when I was in the sixth grade, so after that, it was like I didn’t care about anything. I think I was popular before that, but after, I didn’t give a crap anymore. Thankfully, my real friends stuck by me, because I was a bit of an ass to people for a while. Not in a teasing way, though. I just couldn’t deal with anything and I got pissy easily.”
“But that’s totally understandable. You were coping with a loss.”
Luke manages a small smile. “I think a lot of people thought I hated them when I didn’t. Man, I was a charmer back then.”
“I have to admit,” I say, laughing. “I thought you hated me when we first met…”
“Oh, god!” Luke says, looking alarmed. “I didn’t mean—”
“… but I realize now that you were just joking around. I was being too much of a bundle of nerves to figure that out back then.”
Luke sighs. “Well, I’m going to admit that I thought you were a bit like Brynn at first, because you were always hanging out with her. But I saw that look on your face when she bitched me out the first day of school. You looked like you wanted to punch her.”
“I did! God, she was so rude to you. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to defend you.”
“You didn’t have to,” Luke says with a shrug. “I swear, that look on your face was enough.”
“And then we kept almost knocking into each other,” I say, giggling.
“Yes! And you seemed so flustered and frustrated with me, like I was doing it on purpose or something.” He raises an eyebrow.
“Sorry,” I say, covering my face with my hands. “I was a little, uh, edgy.”
“Don’t sweat it. It was kind of cute.”
It’s like everything stops as the word “cute” hangs in the air. What did he mean by that? That the situation w
as cute? That I was cute? His ears are suddenly red and he goes on with, “And now here we are enjoying a football game together.”
“Amazing what a difference seven weeks makes,” I say, though I’m still stuck on the cute thing.
“Indeed,” Luke says. We’re kind of staring at each other and then we both seem to realize this and look away at the same time. We’re sitting with our hands resting on the bleacher, and if this was a TV show, and Luke was single, and I was interested in him, this would be the moment one of us reached over to take the other’s hand. Instead, we both stare straight ahead and watch the band exit as the cheerleaders take the field.
“So much junk food, so little time,” Jodie says, coming back with two Cokes and a bag of M&Ms. When she sits down, she shoves me, pushing me closer to Luke.
I shoot her a “seriously?” look, but she just bats her eyelashes. Luke can’t slide over any farther because he’s on the end, so now we’re practically sitting shoulder to shoulder. It’s extremely hard to put the cute comment out of my mind when we’re in this position.
Thankfully, the football teams return to the field, and the RHHS team is visibly psyched up. The players sprint out, jumping and punching at the air. I see Rashad and a bunch of other players motioning for the crowd to get louder, and the roar that ensues gives me chills.
The game is really tight after that, but in the fourth quarter, Ringvale Heights manages to score a touchdown, putting them ahead 20–17. There are only three minutes left in the game, and that’s when the rain starts.
“Uh-oh,” Jodie says, noting the giant drops that are plopping on our ponchos. Umbrellas start popping up, and Luke raises his. “You guys want to get under?”
“Ooh la la. What will people think?” Jodie says.
“That I’m a very smart man who figured out how to get two lovely ladies close to me,” Luke says, laughing. “Or that we’re staying dry.”
I’m more worried about what Greta would think, but the rain is starting to splatter on my glasses, so I scoot as close to Luke as possible. And Jodie scoots closer to me, which makes my right arm smash into Luke’s left arm. Since he’s holding the umbrella with his left hand, I can feel the muscles flexed under his long-sleeved shirt. A heat suddenly surges through my right side and I pray he can’t feel it.
The rain starts falling in sheets then and the field is muddy in a matter of moments. No one in the crowd leaves, and as the rain falls harder, it just makes everyone louder. It’s kind of awesome.
With about a minute left in the game, Lawndale gets very close to the RHHS end zone. At this point, everyone’s standing and yelling and looking like drowned rats, but no one seems to care. Even Mrs. Gillroy and her husband are on their feet, drenched and screaming.
As the seconds are counting down, Lawndale has one last chance to score—they are now on the five-yard line. I wonder if the winds, now blowing the rain under Luke’s umbrella, can somehow hold them back. There’s an electricity coursing through the bleachers and everyone is screaming and I don’t want to think about what might happen if this moment ends badly.
The Lawndale quarterback reaches back to throw and I see his target, this guy who is wide open in the end zone. This is it, I think, this is where we lose the game and have to leave dejected and soaking wet in the rain. But out of nowhere, just as the quarterback releases the ball, Rashad comes flying around, jumps up, and swats the ball down, just as the last second ticks off the clock.
The crowd leaps up as one and it seems like thousands of arms are flailing in the air. It’s a wave of humanity and umbrellas.
“Rashad!” I scream, jumping in place. “Ohmygod!”
Luke is jumping too, and bellowing “Yeah!” in a way that makes him seem really dude-like. Jodie and the old guy behind her are high-fiving the bejesus out of each other. It’s total mayhem in the bleachers with everyone celebrating. It’s amazing. I’m soaking wet, I can barely see out of my fogged-up glasses, and yet this is the most thrilling thing I’ve ever been a part of.
Rashad was right. I should’ve done this a whole lot sooner.
* * *
“That was so much fun,” Jodie says for the fourth or fifth time as we shrug off our ponchos in my bathroom. “Never in a million years did I think I’d be that into a football game for a school I don’t even go to.”
“We can totally go to another one, if you want.”
“I’m in. Especially if Luke is there to be my love guru again,” she says.
I feel my face grow hot at Luke’s name, so I throw a towel at Jodie before I start peeling my socks off. They are so wet, they are stuck to my feet like a second skin. It’s kind of funny that the game was so intense, I’d forgotten about my hatred for wet shoes and socks until this moment.
Jodie snaps her fingers. “I just realized who he looks like. That old picture of Almanzo Wilder you drew in fifth grade. For that Little House book report Mr. Irwin made you do!”
“Huh?”
“Stop feigning ignorance, Mary Ellen,” Jodie says. “That thing hung on your wall for like four years.”
“Because it was the best thing I’ve ever drawn,” I say, hating the defensiveness that’s creeping into my voice.
“No, it’s because you deep down had a crush on the book version of him. And when you found out what he looked like in real life and that he didn’t resemble your picture, you were legitimately pissed off. I remember it well,” Jodie says, totally delighting in this.
I try to force a recollection of that picture into my mind. I’d thought Almanzo would be broad-shouldered, a little scruffy, but not too beard-y, with golden-brown hair and blue eyes. Okay, so maybe if you take away the suspender pants and add a tattoo you might get something close to Luke.
But I can’t admit that to Jodie if I have any hope of moving this conversation along.
“Because it was how I pictured him,” I say, forcing what I hope sounds like a casual chuckle. “You read a book, you have a certain idea of how things should be. Like how you thought Goron the Magnificent from Enchanted Chasms was supposed to be way more goth than the guy who played him on the TV show.”
“Oh, don’t even get me started about that,” she says with a huff, and I think I’ve finally distracted her. But then she goes on. “Anyway, there’s, like, a definite chemistry between you two.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, my heart suddenly pounding.
“I’m just asking you to admit you think he’s hot,” Jodie says, folding her arms.
There’s no getting out of this one, what with my face betraying me at every moment lately. “Fine, he’s cute,” I say, busying myself with yanking off my other sock. “But you can think someone’s attractive and not, like, want them.” There. That’s logical.
Jodie rolls her eyes. “Come on, El, you guys definitely have a vibe going on.”
“Well, vibe or not, he has a girlfriend,” I say, becoming annoyed. “There’s no reason for me to think of him beyond that.”
Jodie stares at me for a moment, as if she’s debating what she’s about to say. “I’m just going to say this once: He only came to the game because he knew you were going to be there. Girlfriend or not, you’re on that boy’s mind.”
I know Jodie’s probably only saying this in the hopes that it’ll put me over the Hunter hump for good, that she hopes I’ll move on. But I’m suddenly horrified by something. If I am on Luke’s mind, how does this make him any better than Hunter? And what if that makes me the Brynn in this situation?
It takes me a long time to fall asleep that night, but Jodie snoring on the air mattress next to my bed has nothing to do with it. All I can think about is if this makes Luke a bad person. If it makes me a bad person for enjoying his company and thinking he’s … hot. So around 3:00 a.m. I make the decision to just not think of Luke like that anymore. He’s strictly my classmate now. Satisfied with my new stance, I finally drift off to sleep.
So, of course, that’s when I have my first Luke sex d
ream.
CHAPTER 15
It’s kind of hilarious that I once thought the hardest part about home ec was having to see Brynn and Hunter grope each other. Because that has absolutely nothing on having to stand right next to the person you’ve been having sex dreams about.
Yes, dreams. Plural. As in, the harder I try to push Luke from my mind, the more he pops up shirtless and kissing me and, uh, doing other things in my dreams, which I’ve been having for over a week now, almost every night since the football game.
It’s really, really uncomfortable. I mean, not during the dreams. That’s surprisingly (and distressingly) fantastic. But seeing him in class? Total dilemma.
Today, for example, we’re baking scones, and watching Luke’s hands work at the dough is making me sweat a little. I’m on dish duty with A.J., so I turn the water on cold in an effort to cool off a little.
“Excuse me, I gotta get a little more flour,” I hear Luke say, and before I know it, he’s squeezing behind me to get to the pantry. His elbow grazes my back and I jump about ten feet.
“Holy crap, Agresti,” Luke laughs. “You’re seriously ticklish.”
I just laugh nervously and leave it at that. Because all I can think about are his seriously defined pecs (at least they are in my dreams, and they look like they could be under his wrinkled Wawa T-shirt) and him kissing my shoulder like he had in the previous night’s dream.
I wonder if it’s odd for a virgin to be having sex dreams. I mean, I never had them about Hunter, which is strange considering he’s the only guy I’ve ever kissed and, uh, done a few other things with. I also wonder if it’s odd for me to be thinking of it as much as I have. And if this makes me some kind of tramp, considering Luke has a girlfriend.
But the dreams did give me comfort about one thing: It probably means I’m only attracted to Luke physically, and it should be easy to keep shallow feelings like that to myself and get over it quickly.
At least, I hope.
“Uh, Ellie, you’ve been rinsing that bowl for like five minutes,” A.J. says.
The Secret Recipe for Moving On Page 14
