by C. L. Stone
He beamed, nodding. “I know you can’t come to all the games, but ...”
I blinked. “What do you mean? Why can’t I come to all the games?”
He tilted my head and smiled after me. “Well, I mean you can if you want, but there’s away games and you might be busy.”
“Everyone keeps telling me I’ll be busy. So far I’m busy with you guys,” I said.
Silas laughed, pressing a palm over his chest. “Aggele mou, you haven’t even started being busy yet.”
My mouth fell open. “It gets busier?”
He winked at me, but the biology teacher was directing our attention. I had to sit back and pretend to pay attention.
Silas sat back, but his long legs slid underneath my chair. Out of habit now, I rocked my ankles against his leg, slightly resting. This time though, Silas pressed his leg slightly back, which surprised me. I thought he wanted more room. When I pushed my foot slightly out of his way, he backed his feet up, slipping them around mine and pushed my ankles together with his legs, trapping my legs between his.
I smiled, staring blankly ahead as the biology teacher continued the lecture. Silas kept his legs around mine for the rest of the class. My heart was thudding the entire time. It felt like Silas nearly hugging me. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, which again left me guilty.
I wanted to trust them that they knew what they were doing, but I also was in way over my head. I had no idea what to do.
DATE NIGHT
Marie returned home with us, finding the car after school was over. This time it was just Kota and Nathan and I. Luke went with Victor and Gabriel. North and Silas were sticking together after school to get ready for the first game.
When we got to Sunnyvale, Marie hopped out of the car but waited for me to get out.
“I think I’m going to hang out with Danielle this weekend,” she said.
I nodded, but understood her tone. She was waiting for me to tell her what I was doing. I glanced at Nathan, who was shaking his head but I didn’t understand what he meant. “Well, I think we’ll be ...”
“Hanging around here,” Kota said over me. He looked back at Marie. “We might pop over to my house or Nathan’s for a little bit but for the most part we’ll probably stay here.”
Marie nodded like she was expecting this. She headed toward the house.
“Kota,” I said quietly after Marie was out of earshot.
He leaned close to me as we approached the side door. “If she thinks we’re hanging out here, she’s less likely to bring Danielle over,” Kota said. “I’d rather if it were going to happen that we are actually here. Maybe next weekend. But this weekend, we’re too busy. You won’t be here.”
I nodded. It made sense but it distracted me at how easily he lied to her.
When we were inside, Kota had us all sit down and do our homework in the living room.
“Let’s get it out of the way,” he said.
Nathan grumbled but started pulling books out of his bag. Kota disappeared into the kitchen to grab water bottles and a packet of crackers for us.
Homework was usually not a problem for me, but today I kept my phone out in front of me on the floor as I worked. I checked the time every couple of minutes. I didn’t want to be late to the game.
“I’m going to take that phone from you,” Kota said, not looking up from the textbook he was reading.
“I’m just checking the time.”
Nathan lunged over and snatched up my phone. “Finish up.”
I grunted, but I figured I might have been a little distracting.
When the last bit of homework was finished, I snapped my books shut and started stuffing them all into my bag.
Kota glanced up. “Done?”
“Yup.”
He grinned. “Do you want to study?”
“Nope.”
Nathan laughed, dropping a hand on top of my head and rubbing. “At least she’s honest.”
“What do we do?” I asked. I wasn’t sure how to prepare for a football game or a party.
Kota closed his textbook, stuffing it into his bag. “Can you guys do me a favor?”
I picked my head up. A favor for Kota? “Yeah,” I said. “What do we do?”
“My mom hasn’t stopped bugging me about taking you out,” he said. He looked at Nathan. “I’m going to drive over to my house. When you guys are ready, Sang, you show up at the front door. Nathan, just climb into the back seat of the car and wait.”
Nathan started laughing. “No, I want to see this.”
Kota rolled his eyes. “Please? She’s asking me all the time why I’m not taking Sang out. Now I can show her I am. Maybe she’ll calm down. If you’re there, she’ll complain it isn’t a real date or something.”
Why was he waiting until the last minute to tell us? And why did he have to make it sound that he really didn’t want to go out on a date with me at all and was only doing this to appease his mother? It made me wonder if he really wanted to go out tonight at all. It confused me more that Nathan accused him of being jealous of Silas asking me out before. There was no way he could be jealous of Silas if he didn’t want to go out with me in the first place. “Okay, I guess,” I said, feeling unsure and glancing at Nathan.
“Yes, okay,” Nathan said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll play along.”
♥♥♥
A half hour later, I walked toward Kota’s house. Nathan did his ninja thing, slipping through the yard and getting into the back of Kota’s car. He sprawled out into the back seat to not stand out. I thought he had the easy job.
I stepped up to the front door and touched the doorbell button, listening to it ring. Why did this feel more awkward than normal? Wasn’t the guy supposed to pick the girl up at her house?
Jessica, Kota’s little sister, answered the door. Her pink rimmed glasses were sliding down her nose but she adjusted them as she looked out at me. She beamed. “Hi, Sang,” she said.
“Hi, Jessica,” I responded. “Is Kota ready?”
“Yup,” she said, and she opened the door further, leaving it for me to close as she did a half skip off into the house. “Kota! Sang’s here.”
I closed the door behind me and turned around to find Erica appearing from around the corner of the hallway. She smiled at me, coming down the hall with her arms opened up for a hug.
“Hey girl,” she said. She never wavered, hugging me and air kissing near my cheek. I did my best not to stiffen. “Glad you’re here. I think he was getting nervous you wouldn’t show up.”
I grinned. Kota was nervous? “I’m here now,” I said.
“Kota?” Erica called into the house.
“I’m right here,” Kota said, coming from around the corner of the living room. He’d changed from his school uniform to jeans and a green polo shirt and a blue zipper hoodie with a Nike logo. He paused, looking me over in the same short dark skirt and pink blouse I’d worn earlier to school. “Are you going to be warm enough?” he asked. “It’s supposed to get chilly tonight.”
“No, silly,” Erica said, patting him on the arm with her hand. “If she gets cold, you’re supposed to give her your jacket. And maybe wrap your arm around her. And maybe kiss her or something.”
“Mom,” Kota said, groaning.
“What?” Erica said, grinning after him. “I’m your mother. I’m allowed to pick on you about your first date.”
My head rocked back and my mouth parted in surprise. This was Kota’s first date? Or what she thought was his first? Suddenly I was embarrassed at the ruse we were putting on. I didn’t want to lie to her any more.
“We should get going,” Kota said. “We want to get good seats.”
“Wish North and Silas luck from me,” Erica said.
Kota approached the hallway. He tucked his head toward me. “Sorry,” he whispered, and straightened again. “Do we have everything?”
“Wait a second,” Erica said from the living room. We turned just in time to get a bright flash in our e
yes. Erica pushed the camera’s button again and another flash went off. “Kota, put your arm around her.”
Kota grunted, but shoved an arm around my shoulders, clutching around my collarbone. “Hurry,” he said.
Erica flashed another picture. This time I thought enough to smile for it. “There,” she said. “That’s better.”
“Can we go now?” Kota asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“We’ll be back ...” Kota paused, checking his watch as if trying to figure out a time to estimate.
“If you’re back before midnight, I’ll skin you both,” she said. She waved us off. “Make him buy you dinner, Sang. I’ll see you later.”
Kota shook his head, rolling his eyes and opened the door for me.
I was still giggling when we got into Kota’s car.
“It’s not that funny,” Kota said, starting up the engine.
“What’s funny?” Nathan asked. “Can I get up yet?”
“Wait until we get out of Sunnyvale,” Kota said as he shifted the car into reverse.
“Erica took a picture,” I said.
“Holy shit,” Nathan said. “I want to see.”
“Later. It’s on her camera. Knowing her, she’ll probably get it framed.”
“We need a picture, Peanut,” Nathan said. “We need a Honey and Peanut picture. We need a camera. Let’s stop and get one.”
“You’ve got a phone,” Kota said.
“Oh yeah. We’ll do pictures tonight.”
Kota glanced out his rearview mirror. He sighed. “Looks like we have a friend following us.”
I glanced back, spotting a car sliding out of Sunnyvale. There was a car between us but as Kota turned onto another road, the car followed. “Kota...”
“This is getting annoying,” Nathan said. He sat up, scooting into the back seat. “Doesn’t this guy have something better to do?”
“It’s no big deal,” Kota said. “We’re on our way to the football game. If he wants to follow us, he’ll have to sit through the whole game. Although if he starts to follow us to this party, we may have to cancel.”
My eyes stayed on the side mirrors. At a particular turn, I caught the tint of the paint on the car. “It’s not the same car as before.”
Kota checked his rearview. “It looks the same.”
“This one’s a dark gray. The other car was like a really deep blue, almost black. It’s the same model but not the same color.”
“Are you sure?” Nathan asked. “It was getting dark yesterday.”
I turned in my seat, glancing out the back window to see it with my own eyes instead of through the mirror. Sure enough, the color was off. “Yeah. It’s a different color.”
Kota flicked his eyes back and forth from the rearview mirror to the road. “She might be right. The tires are a little different.”
Nathan groaned, and slipped a hand through his reddish-brown hair. “So there’s two guys or one guy with two of the exact same car?”
“It might be how he’s been able to stay up all night several nights in a row,” Kota said. “Because there’s two people keeping tabs on our street.”
“So Mr. Hendricks has more than one person trying to follow you guys?”
Kota flicked his eyes back and forth again. He started to relax, sitting back a little and a soft smile started to emerge. “Good.”
My eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Good? How can you say that?”
“The more people he has, it’s more than likely someone will screw up. We’ll be able to figure out who Mr. Hendricks hires, and why, and maybe they know something about why Mr. Hendricks is eager to get us out of his school.”
I kept an eye on the car, not willing to share his enthusiasm.
DOUBLE DATE
At the school, the parking lot was already starting to fill up with cars. Our tail passed us when Kota turned into the parking lot. He wasn’t going to join us for a football game. It would have been too easy for us to get close in a crowd.
Kota spotted Silas’s blue sedan in the lot and parked next to it. When we got out, the sun was already starting to set beyond the tree line. I could feel the coolness Kota had mentioned settling in and almost wished I had brought a jacket.
“Come on, Peanut,” Nathan said, finding my hand to hold. “Let’s go get a seat.”
“We’ll have to buy tickets,” Kota said.
This surprised me. I’d never been to a school event but I didn’t imagine having to pay for a ticket. For some reason I assumed it would be free.
We followed the crowd flowing toward the football stadium on the other side of the school grounds. It was odd seeing Ashley Waters in the near dark. The place, surprisingly, looked even more gloomy than it did during the day, which didn’t seem possible. The school almost appeared asleep, with only a handful of lights on inside.
When we made it to the sidewalk that guided the way to the stadium, Nathan held my hand and walked on my left, and Kota stood arm to arm with me on my right. I was tempted to reach for his hand, too, but felt awkward doing it while Nathan was holding my hand already.
Still, I didn’t want to leave him alone. Kota was my friend, too.
In the darkness between overhead lighting while we walked the path, I slipped a pinkie toward his, brushing against it.
It seemed to be all he needed. He hooked his pinkie with mine, holding strong to me next to him.
We walked together like that until we approached the booth where we had to get tickets. There, Kota let go, reaching into his pocket for his wallet and paying for three passes.
“When’s homecoming?” Nathan asked after we left the booth and started toward the gate that lead to the already lit up stadium. “When are we going to take her to that?”
“I think you have to ask her to that first before you assume she wants to go.”
Nathan laughed, shaking his head. “Let’s find out when it is. Hopefully we’re not working.”
My heart thundered. They were already planning future dates and I hadn’t been through this one yet! And this wasn’t even a date! Or was it? They were confusing.
We approached the entrance, and I fell back behind Nathan when Mr. McCoy appeared at the gate, apparently put in charge of checking tickets for the evening.
Kota positioned a soothing palm against the back of my neck, urging me to step up next to him. “You’re doing nothing wrong,” he whispered to me.
Nathan’s grip on my hand tightened, and Kota held on around my neck as we stepped closer as our turn approached. Mr. McCoy was barely glancing at faces. When we arrived at the gate though, he paused, glancing at me, and then at the boys on either side.
“Two dates tonight, Miss Sang?”
“Yup,” Nathan said, as if challenging him to say anything further about it.
Mr. McCoy’s eyes shifted over my clothes but he grunted and ripped our tickets, handing back the stubs. There was nothing he could do, I knew. My clothes fit into the regulations. He couldn’t leave his post and there were too many people.
It didn’t stop the deep shiver in my spine from escaping.
“You’re fine, Sang,” Kota said again in my ear, letting go of my neck to go back to holding my pinkie with his.
It was over with for now. At least I knew where Mr. McCoy was. It had escaped me that being a school event that Mr. Hendricks and Mr. McCoy would be here tonight.
As we got closer to the stadium seats, my own hands in the guys’ tightened. I bristled at the number of people already filling in the stands. Most were sitting as close as possible to the fifty yard line. Kota scanned the bleachers, pointing to a spot in the middle of a section closer to the scoreboard. We picked a spot in the middle. For now, our section was mostly empty.
“If it doesn’t get too crowded, they might be able to see us out here,” Kota said. He settled into the seat. I fell in next to him and Nathan slid in close to me on the other side.
My skin electrified with the crispness in the breeze and the exci
tement of being out of the house with the guys. I didn't have to worry about my stepmother finding out, and while I felt guilty about why she wasn’t able to, it felt amazing to know that for right now, I was almost normal. I was out with friends on a Friday evening.
As more people filled in the seats, I was absently staring out onto the field. I was eager to see Silas and North play. I ruffled my fingers over the blue and pink wrist band that Silas had given to me.
There were screechy announcements and people started walking over the field. The attention on our side of the stadium turned to the oncoming game.
When the football team finally entered the field, I stood up, trying to spot Silas and North. Kota and Nathan stood next to me, scanning the players.
“Right there,” Kota said, pointing.
Since they were all wearing the same uniforms, it was hard to tell even with him pointing. Eventually my eyes focused on Silas’s olive skin and dark hair, and next to him was North. If they had their helmets on, it would have been impossible to find them. I was excited for them, but we were so far away. I wasn’t sure they would know we were there.
“I wish we could get closer,” I said.
“Let them get through this beginning part,” Kota said. “When they get ready to play, we’ll see if we can’t go down and wave to them.”
The other team lined up on the field alongside the Ashley Waters team. At first, I thought maybe they were only presenting the opposing team’s star players. When no one else joined them, and no other players stood on the opposite side’s benches, it stunned me.
“How come our team has so many people?”
Nathan turned to me. “What?”
“Our team has like a hundred people out there.”
“A hundred and twelve,” Kota said quickly.
“And the opposite team has...” I started counting off.
“Fifty seven,” Kota replied before I could finish counting.
I grinned. He was quick. “But why do we have almost twice as many players?”
“Our school is bigger,” Nathan said. “More people in the school, more people on the team.”
