Keeping Score

by Shannon Stults

  “When you have to play it cool at breakfast after a night of drinking so the chief of police doesn’t get suspicious, you figure out how to get it all down and keep it down.” Logan proudly rubbed her midsection. “Carly used to call it the Iron Stomach.”

  He shook his head. “You hustled me. That shouldn’t count.”

  “Whatever. You’re just mad because my name is still clean.” She pointed to the scoreboard where Lilly had just added a letter on Cole’s side. “And you are now officially a ho.”

  “Good burn. You get that one from a ten-year-old?”

  “Nope. Unlike you, I’m clever enough to come up with that one all on my own,” Logan said. She took a small sip of water to help wash the taste of chocolate shake from her mouth as Lilly set the check between them. Logan slid it across the table to Cole.

  He took it, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. “Not sure clever is the word for it.”

  “You’re just jealous of my mad eating skills.”

  “No point denying that.” He set a stack of cash on the table. “The next challenge is yours, so I suggest you make it a good one. I wouldn’t want to beat you simply for your lack of imagination.”

  Logan rolled her eyes. Cole would be lucky if she took this thing any further. She couldn’t lose a game she refused to play, and for Logan, losing this bet was just not an option.

  *

  December—Sixth Grade

  Cole was walking to his dad’s hardware store downtown after school when he saw it. Sitting on a thick, brown limb at least fifteen feet in the air was a pink camouflage bookbag he’d instantly recognized belonged to Logan Kase.

  He’d first noticed Logan about a week ago. He was at his locker one morning when he’d heard Zach Prescott picking on a stick of a girl less than half his size. He was teasing her about her dad being a cop. Apparently, Mr. Kase pulled Zach’s dad over and slapped him with a DUI charge. Zach started yanking her books from her hands and calling her and her dad names.

  Cole was about to step in when the girl pulled her arm back and punched Zach right in the nose. She’d held her head high, not even looking sorry, when the nearest teacher dragged her to the principal’s office. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a girl that tough before.

  He’d watched her a lot after that—in the gym before school, passing her in the hallway, across the cafeteria during lunch—each time feeling this weird sense of respect. How had he never noticed her before? She looked just like any other girl, but there was something about her that said one wrong move and she’d chew some guy up and spit him out.

  It only fascinated him more.

  Cole gazed up at the backpack in the tree again. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that this was Zach Prescott’s idea of revenge for making him cry in front of half the sixth grade. Clearly, he wasn’t smart enough to know when he’d met his match.

  Cole shrugged off his coat. He’d climbed trees like this one a hundred times growing up, so getting this bag down would be easy enough. Then he could bring it back to the school’s lost and found and she’d be none the wiser.

  The afternoon breeze was cold and strong, whipping his thin shirt all around and causing a number of brown leaves to fly into his face as he started to climb. He tried to go slowly, taking one branch at a time in order to keep his balance.

  “Hey, you!”

  Cole nearly slipped. He froze midclimb and peered down over his shoulder. Logan Kase stood at the bottom of the tree, hands on her hips and long hair flying around her. She glared up at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What’s it look like?” he called down to her. “I’m getting your bag down.”

  “Why?”

  What did she mean, why? “In case you didn’t notice, some jerk put it up a tree. I’m just helping you get it down.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest. “Well, maybe I don’t want your help.”

  His mouth fell open. Seriously, what was wrong with this girl? Any other girl in their class would be grateful for the offer. Heck, they usually got smiley and giggly just talking to him. He’d never been chewed out by one before.

  Not that that should have surprised him. It had taken him all of twenty seconds to realize she wasn’t like most girls their age.

  Cole ignored her and continued to climb. His tennis shoes had a good grip, but the cold air was making his fingers cramp before he’d even made it halfway.

  There was a rustle of leaves and the sound of scraping bark beneath him. Logan was scurrying her way up from branch to branch like a thin, human-sized squirrel.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Getting my bag.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You’re gonna fall and break something. Get down and just wait for me to get it.”

  “Why? So you can tell everyone I needed a boy to help me? I don’t think so.” They both climbed higher. Shoes scraped on bark again, and Cole’s heart stuttered as he saw Logan slip and only just catch herself.

  “Be careful!” he shouted. Why couldn’t she just accept his help like a normal person? “I told you to just wait. I’ve almost got it.” He was perched on the branch just below the bag. He let go with one hand, reaching up as high as he could. His fingers brushed the bottom corner, still not close enough to grab it.

  Logan pulled herself up onto the branch beside his. “And I told you that just ’cause I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t take care of myself, Cole Tucker.”

  Logan stretched up on her toes, her fingers extended toward the pink backpack. They clamped around the bag’s fabric before she lowered herself onto flat feet.

  The bag shifted and started to fall toward her. She swayed; Cole reached out and steadied her.

  His foot slipped, and then he was falling.

  He wasn’t sure which of them screamed, the sound echoing in his ears even after he hit the cold, unforgiving ground.

  His arm was broken, the doctor said an hour later while his mom cried beside him in the emergency room. He was put in a cast once the swelling went down. By lunch the next day, almost every one of his classmates had signed it. Everyone except Logan.

  Where he’d expected to get some sort of “thank you” or “get well soon” or maybe even a “my hero” from her after practically saving her life, instead she’d spent the entire day completely ignoring his existence.

  Friends swarmed around his lunch table, sharing the story of his bravery, but Cole wasn’t listening. He was too busy glaring at the irritating brown-haired girl across the lunchroom, already planning his retaliation. Let’s see just how long she can ignore me then.

  Chapter Six

  Logan let out a breath as she pulled into her parents’ driveway. Her dad’s truck wasn’t there, which meant they were probably getting lunch or visiting with a sick church member.

  Wherever they were, she thanked God her parents weren’t home. She’d narrowly avoided the onslaught of questions like Where’ve you been? and Why do you smell like grease and stale booze?

  The first thing Logan did when she got inside was strip down and throw her clothes in the washer, hoping to get rid of the evidence from last night. Next, she ran straight to her bathroom, allowing herself only a few quick minutes in the shower as opposed to the long, hot bath she’d been craving all morning.

  Once her hair was clean and her skin smelled of fresh body wash, she cut the water off and raced to get herself dressed and her hair dried. Then Logan settled onto her still freshly made bed and pulled out her laptop.

  She opened her usual job search websites and set to work, looking for anything interesting and art related in the San Francisco area. She spent over an hour combing through the options and coming up short. Well, it wasn’t like she needed a job right away. Carly’s wedding wasn’t for another two months, and she and Jacob still hadn’t set a date for their own wedding yet. Which meant she still had some time. Something would come up eventually.

  Her phone rang and broke her concentration. She stared at it
until Jacob’s face filled the screen before she picked it up.

  “Hello.”

  “Hey, babe. I just left the hospital and thought I’d call to check in, maybe apologize a few more times for missing out on this week with you.”

  Logan grinned. “I told you it’s okay. You can’t help what happens at work. You don’t need to apologize.”

  “I’ll make it up to you,” he said, accompanied by the sounds of his Lexus starting. “I’ll be back out there as soon as I can. But with Morgan out for the next couple weeks, it looks like I’ll be taking on some extra shifts.”

  “That’s okay,” she said, trying to hide her disappointment. “You don’t have to stay out here if you’re busy. We can just do dinner or something one night when you’re free.”

  “Between mine and the extra shifts I took on, my schedule is going to be pretty swamped. I’ll try to make sure I’m free one night so we can do dinner with your parents.”

  “Great. Just let me know what day. Momma and I can cook dinner. You and my parents can get to know each other better—”

  “We can finally tell them about moving to San Francisco,” he finished for her.

  Logan hesitated. “Um, yeah…maybe.”

  “Logan, you’ve got to tell them eventually. And the longer you put it off, the harder it will be later.” She could hear the agitation in his voice.

  “I know, I know. You’re absolutely right,” she muttered. “So how did your night go? It seems pretty late for you to just be getting out now.”

  “I know. It was a madhouse in there, completely slammed. I ended up staying to help a bit longer, and before I knew it, hours had gone by. I was lucky to get out when I did.”

  “Oh no. You poor thing,” she said, her eyes now scanning a very short list of art-related positions near Willow Creek just for fun.

  “Yeah, and you wouldn’t believe the crazy stuff we saw—” Logan clicked on a link for an elementary school art teacher a few counties over while Jacob relayed the details of his shift.

  After two years of these after-work calls, she’d mastered the art of pretending to listen. Jacob got so wrapped up in his own stories, all Logan had to do was mutter the occasional and well-placed oh or mm-hmm. She wasn’t completely ignoring him; she liked to think of it more as multitasking. She made a point to actively listen every once in a while, to get the general idea of the story he was telling.

  “So I ordered a CT for the guy…that’s where you scan a specific part to—”

  “Mm-hmm,” she muttered offhandedly as she read through another page of job postings. After a few more minutes of listening and searching, Logan declared this particular job search to be a lost cause. She closed out the webpage and pulled up her e-mail. She skipped right over most of them but stopped on a very promising-looking YouTube video sent by one of her sorority sisters. Before she knew it, she had gone through almost ten more videos and had all but forgotten the voice on the other end of the phone.

  “Logan, did you just laugh? Did you even hear what I said?” he asked loudly. “I had to refer the man to an oncologist who’ll end up telling him he may only have a few weeks to live.”

  Crap. Logan closed the YouTube video of hilarious dog fails. “I’m sorry. What kind of cancer did you say he had again?”

  Jacob sighed. “It doesn’t matter. It wouldn’t mean anything to you since you’re not a doctor.”

  She ignored the jibe. She knew he didn’t mean to insult her. He was tired after a long shift and had every right to get upset since she really hadn’t been listening.

  “So,” he said, his voice sounding a bit deflated, “how was your night? Do anything fun?”

  She closed her laptop and sat up straighter on the bed. “Not really,” she said, which was kind of the truth. Getting drunk and waking up in Cole’s bed was anything but fun. “Just a boring night in with my parents.”

  Now that was a lie.

  “That doesn’t sound boring at all. That actually sounds really nice.”

  “And so far, I’ve spent all day looking at job sites, but I still can’t find anyth—”

  “I’m sure you will,” he cut her off. The car suddenly got quiet as the engine hushed. “Listen, babe, I’m at my apartment now, and I’m exhausted. I’ll call you later, okay?”

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll talk to you then.”

  He yawned. “I love you.”

  “Love you, too.” The phone went silent as he hung up.

  Chapter Seven

  Half an hour after her phone call with Jacob, Logan was putting her now-clean clothes away when she finally heard her dad’s roaring truck pulling into the driveway.

  She met him at the bottom of the stairs. Marshall Kase wore a pair of khaki slacks and a soft, red polo. His dark hair was graying and thinning out at the top, and beneath his shirt sat a moderate-sized gut.

  He shook his head as soon as he saw her, wrapped strong arms around her, and muttered a short “good luck” in her ear. Then he kissed the top of her head, and then turned to go up the stairs she’d just come down. She had no idea what that was all about or why she needed luck and chalked it up to exhaustion after several hours of visiting with church members and his desire to get out of his Sunday clothes and into a comfortable pair of jeans.

  Logan found her mom in the kitchen. Cindy’s hair was a thick, straight curtain of graying brown that fell just past her shoulders. She was a thin woman, had been all her life, despite her love of beer and having carried a child for nine months. She still wore her pale green dress while she put away groceries. No doubt she’d had to stop at the store after promising some people a few more of her famous apple pies.

  She gave Logan a small smile.

  “Hey, sweetie. You were up and out awfully early this morning. We missed you at church,” she said, not looking at Logan as she busily put the butter away in the fridge behind her.

  Logan grabbed the flour and sugar from the counter and carried them into the pantry closet. “Yeah, Carly wanted me to check on some wedding stuff while she’s still out of town. So I decided to get an early start.” She kept herself from making eye contact. She couldn’t even count all the times she’d gotten away with stuff like this over the years, and she’d become quite good at it. Of course, this would be the last time she’d have to if she just told Cole where to stick his stupid bet.

  “Oh, that’s nice. So then you weren’t out all night, God knows where, after getting drunk at Wade’s?”

  And then sometimes it didn’t matter how good a liar she was. Logan turned around to see her mother practically seething. “That…may have happened also.”

  Her mother slammed her hands down on the counter. “Logan Brynn! You can’t keep it together just one night?”

  Logan’s tongue felt heavy as lead in her mouth. No wonder her daddy had escaped upstairs without so much as a word. After twenty-five years of marriage, he knew better than to hang around when her mother was on the warpath. “Momma, I can explain.”

  “Oh, good!” her mother yelled. “I would love to hear your reasons for sneaking out and getting trashed your first night back in town. And with that boy no less!” she spat.

  “How do you even know about that?”

  “Well, apparently, Judy Carmichael saw you two there last night, thick as thieves, and told the entire Methodist church this morning at service. And you know how they like to gossip.” She huffed. “It wasn’t long before word spread to the Baptist and Presbyterian congregations, too. And now it’s all over the whole town.”

  Logan fought to hold back her snort. Only Judy Carmichael would admit to being out at the town bar the night before worship service.

  Her mother scowled. “I swear Pastor Joe was staring me down in service this morning.” She took the eggs in her hand and spun around, shoving them not so gently into the fridge. “I would say I’ve never been so humiliated in my life, but then hearing about your latest escapades from appalled church members was a regular occurrence before you left for
school. I suppose I should be used to it by now.”

  “Momma, it’s not that big of a deal. I just went to get one drink. I didn’t even know he would be there.” Momma’s lips parted, but Logan held her hand up. “Yes, admittedly, things did get out of hand. I shouldn’t have let him talk me into all those drinks. But, Momma, it was the last time, honest—”

  Her mother’s hands clenched. “You say that every time, and I am tired of hearing it.” She laid her palms flat on the counter, her shoulders tense. “I thought you were done with Cole Tucker.”

  “I am, Momma.”

  “You know,” she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose between her fingers, “some mothers dread the day their little girl gets married. But I swear that day cannot get here fast enough. For whatever reason, Jacob makes you better, and that is exactly what you need to be. Maybe when you’re married to him you can finally get past all this nonsense and settle down. Be the girl you were supposed to be all these years.”

  Without another word, Momma stormed out of the kitchen. Seconds later Logan heard feet stomping up the stairs and down the hall followed by a door slamming.

  Her mom was furious, but Logan didn’t care. Instead, she made her own flaring exit as she forced her way across the kitchen and out the door to the garage. In only a minute, she was in her truck and barreling down the narrow gravel road. Already, the familiar roar of the engine was calming her anger.

  Why did she even try to explain that she hadn’t meant for it to happen? It didn’t matter to her mother. Just like it didn’t matter how well Logan had done over the last couple years, how hard she’d been trying to be the lady her mom expected her to be. Why even bother? She would never be the daughter her mom wanted.

  It was all Cole Tucker’s fault. It was like a superpower he had, convincing her to do stupid things. Like tossing back shot after shot as if they were old friends. So what if she’d told him she wasn’t that girl anymore? He wouldn’t take no for an answer, didn’t care that she was trying to do better. He didn’t care about anyone but himself.