My Darling Arrow

by A. Kent, Saffron

  It’s not ideal but I make do.

  I strain my eyes and scratch my pen on the paper, telling him that I saw him last night. That it was such a shock, a wonderful surprise to see him. But I can’t understand why he’s not with Sarah.

  I ask him what happened.

  How could they have broken up when they love each other so much?

  I urge him to tell me that it’s all a lie.

  I ask him about Ben. About how upset he must’ve been to hit someone like that.

  I ask him about the fact that he’s here.

  At St. Mary’s. At my school.

  How did he become my soccer coach? How is it that he’s going to be where I am?

  How is it that I was running away from him but somehow, we ended up at the same place?

  Somehow I’m going to see him every single day now.

  And somehow I’m going to have to keep him safe from a witch called Salem.

  He is standing at the edge of the soccer field.

  His sparkling sun-struck hair is the first thing I notice about him. Again.

  Back at the bar, he had his cap on and so I couldn’t see it. But now I can.

  Even though the September sky is gray, there’s still enough afternoon sunlight that the strands are shining. They’re fluttering in the slight breeze and I have to shove my hands down the pockets of my soccer shorts.

  To curb the urge of running my fingers through them.

  While his hair is sun-struck, the rest of him is all gray.

  Gray trackpants, gray sneakers. And his signature gray gym t-shirt.

  Back when I saw him for the first time in his kitchen, he wore the same style of t-shirt. It’s not something that’s very unique, the style, but on him it takes my breath away.

  It’s loose and it flutters against his body in the breeze. That’s not the part I’m crazy about, however.

  I’m crazy about the fact that his gym t-shirts sport non-existent sleeves. There are holes where his arms go and those holes are so big and sort of hanging that you can see patches of the side of his ribs and his obliques.

  It’s fascinating. And so sexy.

  It hammers home the fact that this is real.

  That Arrow is really here, at St. Mary’s.

  The secret love of my life, my sister’s boyfriend.

  Ex-boyfriend.

  Ex.

  God, it’s still so weird to call him that.

  I shake my head and continue toward the soccer field with Poe, Callie and Wyn, who have no interest in any kind of sports whatsoever. But picking a sport at St. Mary’s is compulsory because it falls under team building exercises.

  From the looks of it, we’re kind of late because all the girls are already here, and they seem super excited and chatty.

  Well, why wouldn’t they be?

  He’s a soccer superstar and for the past two days, the campus has been buzzing with the news of him being the new soccer coach.

  Which somehow, believe it or not, has made me even more infamous.

  Some hate me because I lived in the same house as he did, which is a very weird reason to hate someone. Some offered to be my friends if I dished out dirt on him, which I absolutely refused to do. So basically, everyone hates me a little more than they did last week.

  Yay me.

  We reach the field just as someone asks the question, “Can we get your autograph?”

  Before I can figure out who said that or Arrow can even respond to it, another one jumps in. “And a picture?”

  “We don’t have a phone, idiot,” someone says.

  “So what? We can just use Coach TJ’s phone,” the second girl throws out.

  Coach TJ is the lady standing by Arrow with a clipboard. Like every other teacher at St. Mary’s, she’s stern – not as stern as Miller though – and has a tight bun. “Girls –”

  Coach TJ doesn’t get to talk because yet another girl speaks out. “I’m so sorry to hear about your injury,” the third girl says, and the mood of the group quickly changes, becomes somber. “Galaxy was so close to winning the cup second year in a row.”

  The first girl who asked about the autograph jumps in then. “Yeah, we all thought you guys had it in the bag. It was such a sure-shot deal.”

  Several other girls murmur the same thing, but I’m more focused on watching him. Watching the new Arrow.

  His reaction at the mention of his fake injury.

  I watch as his jaw clamps and his summer-blue eyes narrow for a few seconds, before his folded arms flex and his stance widens. I watch as his anger sort of flows from one part of his body to another.

  And I get this stupid urge again, to touch him.

  To touch this newly formed anger.

  “Yeah, it is,” he says in a tight but polite voice. “You think you’ve got something in the bag but turns out that you haven’t. You deal with it though.”

  I bite my lip as the urge grows.

  It grows and grows.

  I so wanna go to the front of the group and talk to him. I so wanna ask him about things.

  But I won’t.

  I absolutely will not.

  Because over the weekend, I’ve promised myself something.

  Just because he’s at St. Mary’s now where I’ll have to see him all the time, in the hallways, and on school grounds, the soccer field, doesn’t mean that I get to bother him. That I get to let myself loose and do… wrong things.

  Especially now.

  When he’s just broken up with my sister. When he’s just coming out of an eight-year-old relationship. He doesn’t need an overeager little sister to barge into his life and ask him questions like I did at the bar.

  So I’m going to do what I’ve always done, keep him safe from my witchy ways.

  “Can you teach me how to head the ball?” someone asks, breaking my thoughts.

  Just like earlier, before Arrow can answer, someone else is ready with another question and it simply snowballs from there.

  “I read somewhere that Real Madrid has been eyeing you. Will you be traded to play in the European League next season?”

  “Have you met Messi? What about Beckham?”

  “Yes! Have you met Ronaldo?”

  “How much do you bench-press?”

  “Can you bench-press me?”

  This generates a lot of laughter until someone asks, “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  At this, I stiffen.

  My eyes go wide and my lips part as I once again watch anger move from his cheekbones to his shoulders. A shadowed look passes through his eyes and I remember my sister’s words.

  He was upset…

  My witchy heart starts to pound and pound as his anger reaches his teeth and he clenches them once before throwing out a smile.

  A practiced half-smile that I’ve seen so many times on TV.

  “Soccer takes up most of my time right now,” he replies, giving his standard answer. “So I’m not looking for a relationship.”

  Yeah, that’s what he usually says.

  Soccer is my life right now.

  Or I’d rather not talk about my personal life but I’m happy to talk about the game.

  He’s always kept his love life under wraps.

  Mostly because soccer really is his main focus and he wants to be known for only his game and nothing else. And secondly, because when Arrow joined the league, Sarah was still in college and he wanted to protect her from all the gossip and paparazzi.

  See? It’s so, so hard not to love him.

  Why does he have to be so good and dependable and so fucking protective?

  I’ve never seen anyone like that in my entire life.

  No wonder my sister fell for him, and no wonder I fell for him too.

  But anyway, that’s his standard answer. However, a second later, he digresses and adds, “But who knows? Things can happen. I’m actually finding out that it’s great to roll with the punches
.”

  Then, he smirks at the end of his answer. At the end of ‘roll with the punches.’ And I fist my hands because when has he ever rolled with the punches? When?

  He’s such a fucking planner.

  Such a fucking rule follower.

  Not to mention, why’s he smirking like that? I mean, as much as I hated that he smirked at that girl in the bar, I now understand that he did it because they were making out or whatnot.

  He was smirking at me – I remember that very clearly as well – because he was playing with me, trying to distract me from the truth.

  But why is he doing it here?

  Is he freaking flirting?

  I don’t get to dwell on it because after he’s given that bizarre answer, he goes on to answer all the other questions that the girls have asked him. With the same smirk on his face.

  And I don’t like that.

  I don’t like that at all.

  He’s flirting, isn’t he?

  He’s freaking flirting with the girls and my legs are itching, itching to go and put a stop to it. And I can’t because I promised myself that I’d stay away from him.

  Besides, I have no right to be jealous, do I?

  I didn’t have any right to be jealous back at the bar and I don’t have any right here, either.

  In fact, I have even less of a right now.

  He’s not my sister’s boyfriend anymore – for stupid fucking reasons, if you ask me – so it’s not as if I can be jealous on her behalf.

  Technically, he’s free to flirt, to kiss, to do other things with whomever he wants and it’s none of my business.

  None of your business, Salem.

  But Salem is stupid, okay?

  Salem is a freaking idiot who has a super secret love for this flirting, smirking guy whose gym t-shirt is fluttering against his muscular body in the breeze and whose lips are so fucking gorgeous that I just want to die right here.

  And before I can stop myself, I’m walking away from my friends and breaking off from the crowd. I walk around the huddle where the girls are still simpering, glaring first at Coach TJ because seriously, shouldn’t she put a stop to this?

  Are we here to play soccer or have an impromptu Q and A session?

  The second target of my glare is Arrow himself, the coach. With sun-struck hair, glittering blue eyes and golden skin, he wears his title well.

  The Blond Arrow.

  “I thought we were here to play soccer,” I say, loud and clear, effectively putting an end to all conversation and laughter.

  My sudden appearance has jarred everyone. They weren’t expecting me or my curt words. I can feel their astonished and antagonized stares at my back. I can even feel Coach TJ looking at me with a glare of her own.

  But I don’t pay them much mind because my eyes are glued to him, and his are glued to mine.

  But then, he breaks our connection and his eyes move down.

  They go to my nose first, then my lips, followed by my throat.

  I swallow and he watches it.

  I take a deep breath and he watches that too, studying my soccer uniform issued by the school. He studies my white t-shirt, my mustard-colored shorts. My knee-high socks and finally my soccer cleats.

  He stares at them a beat like he did the other night when he gave me that hint, before lifting his eyes back up to my face and murmuring, “We are.”

  “So, why aren’t we?” I ask, injecting all the fire in my tone even as my heart pounds under his thorough perusal.

  From the corners of my eyes I see Coach TJ trying to say something, probably to set me straight, but Arrow beats her when he drawls, “Because we were waiting for everyone to arrive.”

  Okay, so I guess we were a little late arriving on the field.

  I should probably acknowledge that. Especially after what he said the other night about being punctual.

  But I don’t.

  Instead, I raise my chin. “Well, we’re here now. All of us.”

  He runs his eyes – I swear, they’ve become dark, darker than they were a second ago – down my body once again and I have to fist my fingers.

  “So I can see,” he says finally after he’s done studying me for a second time.

  And for some reason I feel like…

  I feel as if he was doing all this flirting on purpose. To provoke me and make me march up to him like I did in the bar the other night.

  But that’s stupid, right?

  Why would he provoke me of all people?

  So I try to be sensible, sort of, and ask, “Can we play now?” But for some reason, I can’t stop myself from adding, “I thought punctuality was one of the cardinal rules around here.”

  And then, he does something that I swear I’ve never seen him do in the past eight years that I’ve known him. Not to the cameras, not to Sarah, not to that girl even.

  He licks his lips.

  It’s not even a full lick or an obvious lick or anything. It’s simply a slight peek of his tongue followed by a little swipe of his lower lip.

  It makes him look so… wicked, so provocative.

  So opposite of how I’ve known him that I have to actually do what he did. I have to actually lick my own lips like a moron to believe that it happened.

  “Yeah, it is,” he says, nodding slowly, his arms still folded across his chest. “Although I had no idea you cared about them. The rules.”

  I shift on my feet, trying not to think about his lip-licking. “I do.”

  “You do, huh?”

  “Very much.”

  “Well then, this place is having a tremendous effect on you. Because I can’t seem to remember a time when you were so enamored by them.” He pauses and adds, somehow saying the words in italics, “The rules.”

  Something about that makes me narrow my eyes at him. “That’s because you never paid me any attention before. Since you’ve always been so busy with soccer and other things.”

  I don’t know why I said that. There’s no possible explanation for it, for why I’d goad him further like this.

  But now I have and he takes the bait.

  He takes it with his whole body in fact. He cocks his head to the side and widens his stance as the corners of his lips twitch. For some reason I think it’s from both surprise and amusement.

  “I didn’t, did I?” he murmurs, shaking his head as if at himself.

  “No, you didn’t.”

  He hums, his eyes all sparkly and intense. “I am now though, and correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t I see you at a bar recently? As recently as last week, around midnight. Blatantly ignoring all the rules you claim to care so much about.”

  Holy… What?

  My eyes go so wide, so fucking wide at this, that I’m surprised they haven’t popped out of my head.

  Did he really, actually say that? Loudly, no less.

  Yeah, he did because there’s a sudden outbreak of gasps and murmurs around me.

  That… that jerk.

  I can’t believe I’m using that word in context to him, to Arrow.

  But God. God.

  Does he have any idea how much trouble this can get me in? This is not a joke.

  It looks like he does. He does know this isn’t a joke and he has every idea about how much trouble this could get me in because the jerk is smiling.

  Well, more like a lopsided, amused sort of smile that he’s kind of trying to hide by scratching the side of his mouth with his thumb. And by ducking his head in a way that his stupid, sexy jaw catches the afternoon sun.

  And his slight stubble glints.

  Glints.

  The jerk is glinting and I’m watching him like an idiot.

  Say something.

  I fist my hands at my sides and clear my throat. The whole crowd quiets down to listen to what I have to say and I swear to God, if I get out of this alive, I’m going to kill him.

  I’m going to kill the guy I love.

/>   But I let out a laugh first – nervous and completely fake, glancing at Coach TJ from the corners of my eyes; she’s glaring at me. “You’re kidding, right?”

  I laugh again and his lopsided stretch of lips turns into a full one as he watches me grapple with the situation he created.

  “Am I?”

  “Yeah, you are,” I continue. “But I’m afraid there’s a problem in your stupid joke.”

  “Oh, is there?”

  “Yes. Because I can’t go anywhere off campus, let alone to a bar. I don’t have the privilege yet. Besides…” I narrow my eyes at him and repeat his words from that night. “Lights out at nine-thirty, remember? That’s the rule and even I wouldn’t dare to break it my very first week at St. Mary’s.”

  Something crackling passes through his eyes. “Is that what the rule is?”

  “Yes. Maybe you should read the rule book.”

  “Maybe,” he replies lazily. “Or maybe I should just ask you. Since you’ve become such a model student.”

  I purse my lips at his sarcastic comment. “So I was here. In bed. Where I belong.”

  I think I spoke too many words and gave too much of an explanation, and now they’re going to catch me.

  They’re going to take away all my privileges – however basic they might be – and probably even shut me in a room so I never ever sneak out again.

  All because this jerk is having his fun with me.

  But then I hear him drawl, “Well, now that you mention it. It wasn’t you.” My body unclenches and he looks me up and down again. “The girl I saw had messier hair, I think. Poutier lips too. You’re right.”

  It’s a wonder I can talk after that ‘poutier lips’ comment but I do. “Apology accepted. Now you know.”

  “I didn’t apologize.” Then, “I would’ve loved to see that though.”

  “See what?”

  “You.” He dips his face and lowers his voice. “In bed.”

  I don’t know what’s happening. I don’t know what he’s doing or trying to do. I don’t know why he’s saying these things.

  The most bizarre, breath-stealing things ever since he came back from LA.

  “You want to see me in b-bed?” I ask with dried throat and swollen tongue.