-------
“You ready to go?” I asked, poking my head into the training room after practice. Allie glanced up from slicing off Bruce Beckett’s ankle tape. He was a sophomore and played JV and he was looking at the top of Allie’s head like she was an angel sent straight from heaven- until he caught me scowling at him.
“Thanks, Allie!” Bruce jumped off the table and practically ran out of the training room. Smart kid. “See ya, Connor.” I barely nodded at him.
“Good grief, Connor. Stop scaring the underclassman.”
What? Ugh. Let me tell you something about Allie- she was completely clueless. Which was a good thing for the most part. She was sweet and unspoiled and completely unaffected by her own beauty. In fact, I’m pretty sure she had this crazy idea she wasn’t pretty. Wrong. She was gorgeous. Not flashy, but in a girl-next-door kind of way with a blonde ponytail swinging down her back, wide hazel eyes, and a few cute freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“What are you talking about?”
She turned to me, her brow furrowing in that cute way it did when she was trying to figure me out.
“Bruce. You just scared the crap out of him.”
“Oh. You know how it is with the JV guys.” And usually I was above all that. I remembered what it was like being a freshman and sophomore (remember Travis Jacobs?). I made a point to not be a jerk to the younger guys and got after anyone who did. Except when it came to Allie, who was still staring at me like she wondered what was going through my head.
“You done?” Seriously, she was gonna make me squirm with that glare of hers.
“Yeah.” She tossed the wadded-up tape from Bruce's ankle in the trash can and grabbed her backpack off the chair by the door.
We walked together to my truck and I opened the door for her just like I always did. Allie shook her head like it was completely unnecessary just like she always did. Pssht. My mom may not have taught me manners, but hers had.
“You got a lot of homework?” I asked, sliding into the driver’s seat.
“Nope.”
“Wanna play?” I didn’t know how much time we’d have once this year really took off. I wanted to hang out as much as possible and that usually meant kicking zombie ass.
“Sure. But only if you promise to behave yourself,” she threatened, pointing a finger in my face.
Right.
------
Haha! Yes! There she was. With the controller in my hand, I backed to my character out of the darkened room visible on my half of the television screen and ran him down the hall. Glancing at Allie’s portion of the screen, I bit back a grin. Her character would hit the room in three, two, one-
“Allie, in there! Go in that room!”
Allie’s character raced into the room, full tilt- and woke up the witch hiding in the corner.
“Hahahaha!” I leaned over until our shoulders touched, laughing in her ear as the witch killed her character. “You fall for it every time.”
Scowling, she smacked me on the back of the head. “You suck. You know that, right?” Allie dropped her controller on the blanket where we laid on our stomachs, side-by-side, at the end of her double bed.
Just for that, I kicked her foot off mine.
“Hey!” she screeched.
You see, Allie had this foot thing. She was always messing with my feet when we played video games. She even instituted a no sock rule because footsie with socks on was apparently a travesty.
Looking injured, she attacked my feet with hers. “You owe me after tricking me...again.”
“You shouldn’t be playing footsie with me all the time. I have a girlfriend.” Allie scowled at the mention of my girlfriend, Kayla. I was just teasing her, though, because she’d been doing that foot thing since we were kids taking naps on mats in her mom’s daycare. “Besides, I can’t help myself. You’re just so damn gullible.” I laughed, and she kicked me this time.
“I am not gullible. We’ve been best friends all our lives. Heaven forbid, I actually trust you.” She nudged my shoulder, trying to make me feel guilty for getting her fake killed.
“Nah-uh. I cannot be manipulated by you anymore. I’m immune.” Allie rolled her eyes and then rolled off the bed, taking my controller with her.
“Fine, then I am done killing zombies for today.” Allie set our controllers on top of the console under her television. It was actually my console and my tv, but we never hung out at my house, so all of my games and shit were in her room.
“Awe, come on, Alberta.” She hated it when I called her that, but of all my favorite things, riling Allie up was my absolute favorite. Her eyes shot daggers at me and her lips flattened. See? It was hilarious.
“Jerk.” She punched my arm, then shook out her hand, making me laugh.
“Good grief, Allie, you think you’d learn.” I flexed my bicep, obnoxiously patting it with my hand.
“Arrogant jerk.” She stuck her tongue out at me.
“You know you love me, Al. Don’t try to deny it.” I meant the words playfully but the smile slipped from her lips as she began putting away laundry from a basket on her floor, making me feel bad. She tried to hide by carrying a stack of folded jeans into her walk-in closet. But I knew her, something I said made her sad.
It’d been like this all summer. Of course, we hung out every day. Playing video games, working out, helping her mom with her daycare kids. After all day together, we usually ended up sort of flirting. Nothing serious, you know, I never meant anything by it (not much, anyway). Most of the time I was just trying to get her to blush or I’d say something to make her eyes widen and say ‘Co-nnor’ the way she did when she couldn’t believe I’d just said what I did.
But sometimes, she got this look in her eyes, and I knew I’d gone too far. But I could never guess what was gonna put that look on her face until after it was already out. All I knew, it made me feel horrible. Allie was my best friend. Seriously, the most important person in my life. I didn’t even know what I’d do without her. Probably die.
We tested it out one time when we were little, without really meaning to. My jerk parents thought it would be fun for me to go to this sleepaway camp the summer I was nine and Allie was seven. I made it one week without her before the camp people called my parents and they had to come pick me up. After that, I threw the hugest fit whenever they even mentioned doing anything that would take me away from Allie for more than a day or so. See? Death.
Rolling onto my back in the middle of her bed, I stared at the poster of N’SYNC tacked to the ceiling. And I knew I had to say something to make her laugh again.
“You know, Al. The school printed these posters of all the senior football players. Full size.” I pointed to her boy band poster. “I’d be happy to give you one to put up right there. I’ll even help you hang it.”
“Sacrilege! How dare you?” She poked her head out of her closet, her face a mask of feigned outrage. “How would I ever fall asleep without J.T. and his boys right by me?”
I grinned at her, trying to hide the fact that her comment kinda made me feel hot all over. Allie was always saying things like that, stuff I could totally take the wrong way. Allie’s mind may never be in the gutter, but mine usually was and now I seriously wanted to put my poster up there so Allie could fall asleep every night looking at me and not some boy band from fifteen years ago.
Not that our relationship was like that. At all. No, Allie and me- purely platonic. I mean, sure I’ve thought about it. Ever since Mrs. B pulled me aside when I was thirteen and told me she wasn’t stupid and let me know it wasn’t appropriate for me to sneak into Allie’s room through her window anymore and have secret sleepovers, I haven’t been able to think of Allie as just my friend. Since then, I thought of her as my friend and a girl. It sucked.
Plus, I used to love our secret sleepovers. See, there's this treehouse outside Allie’s second story window that allowed easy and secret access to her room. We used to have so much platonic fun, playing video games
with the sound down or watching scary movies and no one ever knew. Or at least we thought they didn't.
I wondered if Mrs. B knew I didn’t actually stop coming over until I was sixteen and it had become damn near impossible to hide my reaction to Allie and I sleeping in the same bed. Seriously, I couldn’t even tell you how tempted I was sometimes to take advantage of that stupid treehouse.
But I didn’t. I wouldn’t. Everything was ‘just friends’ (well, mostly) because you see, I couldn’t lose Allie (please see the aforementioned sleepaway camp story). What if I tried to take things to the next level? Or even mentioned it and Allie ran screaming from the room?
Connor loses Allie forever.
Not. Going. To. Happen. I just couldn’t survive that kind of world. So instead, I kept up a steady stream of girlfriends that didn’t really mean anything and spent every spare minute outside of school, football, and stupid social obligations to the popular crowd- with Allie.
And, for now, I wouldn’t let on that my mind had gone down completely inappropriate paths, because she was smiling at me again. Instead I asked, “How do you feel about physics after your first day?”
And all was right with the world as she launched into a detailed description of the huge homework assignment Richardson laid on her class the first day (but wasn’t due until next week, she reassured me, since we’ve been playing video games for three hours). See? That’s what happened when I kept my non-platonic thoughts to myself- Connor still had Allie.
Save Me
Joie
With sweating palms, I rang the doorbell to the house across the street. It had been more than three years since the last time I stood on this porch. Back then I never rang the bell or knocked, instead walked in knowing I was as welcome there as if it were my own house. But that was a long time ago. Things have changed since then. Or maybe they haven’t as much as I’d like to think. Either way, desperate times called for desperate measures and I was desperate.
Mrs. Lewis had finally given me the go-ahead to start preliminary stages of production for the play I’d written. The play was my ticket out of here. The only problem- there hadn’t been a dramatic production at my high school in over a decade. It had taken some serious effort, and by effort, I mean begging and pleading, to find a teacher willing to sponsor the play and participate as the resident voice of authority over the newly formed drama club, of which I was currently the president and only member.
And so here I was, at the house across the street. Because everyone knows any great production needed a celebrity. And Cole Parker was the closest thing to a celebrity our little town could claim.
“Joie! What a surprise!” Mrs. Parker greeted, a furrow forming between her brows even as her lips curled into a happy smile.
“Hi, Mrs. Parker. Is Cole home,” I asked, nerves shaking my voice.
If possible, Mrs. Parker’s smile widened. “Of course, he’s up in his room. Should I call him down or do you want to go on up?”
“Oh, no. I can go up.” I glanced up the stairs. “Are you sure that’s okay?”
Mrs. Parker placed a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sure. It’s good to see you, Joie.” She gave me a sad smile. She had no idea why I stopped showing up on her doorstep and for the first time, I felt bad about it. Not just for my own sake or Cole’s, but for this family who had been as much mine as his. Before I could talk myself out of it, I gave Mrs. Parker a quick hug.
“It’s good to see you.” She squeezed me tight when I would have pulled away, holding on for a few seconds more.
“Go on up. He’s supposed to be doing homework.” Mrs. Parker’s expression turned jokingly sour. “But he’s probably watching SportsCenter.”
I laughed, because even though I hadn’t talked to Cole in a long time, I felt certain she was right. Taking a deep breath, I placed my foot on the first step leading to the second story of the Parker’s home. Memories pulsed through my mind with each one. Cole and I as little kids, sliding down the steps in slick sleeping bags. Picnics on the landing with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and grape Kool-Aid. Building castles and spaceships with Legos in his room for hours and hours until his mom called us down for dinner. Forcing him to play house after his sister, Macy, was born, pretending she was our daughter. Ha. Maybe I could use that one as blackmail.
Too soon, I stood in front of his door. Taking a deep breath, I slid my damp palms down the thighs of my bootcut jeans. From inside the room, sports commentators discussed the likelihood of some college basketball team making it into the tournament next month. I could picture Cole easily in my mind. Just because we hadn’t spoken in years didn’t mean I hadn’t seen him as recently as a couple of hours ago. In fact, I’d seen him not thirty minutes ago when he pulled his beat up old Camaro into the driveway out front. I’d given it that long before coming over, so he’d have time to shower and eat.
Cole would be reclined on his bed, books strewn around him. He was a good student and would get his homework done, even with SportsCenter on. His dark brown hair would probably still be damp from his shower and he’d smell like Acqua Di Gio. He’d started wearing it before- well, just before. And he’d be wearing some kind of Cambridge High garb. Sweats and a t-shirt. If I was a betting girl, that’s what I’d gamble on. Not that Cole was predictable, except when it came to school spirit.
Come on, Joie. You can do this. But I wasn’t entirely sure I could. He’d caught my eye a few times since well, then, and I’d seen it in his eyes. The confusion. The anger. Emotions he attempted to hide behind a mask of indifference. Every time, I turned away from him as quickly as I could. It was fine. He didn’t need me. And I didn’t need him. He had his football team. His basketball team. The love and adoration of the whole school. What did it matter he didn’t have small, insignificant me? It didn’t.
And me? Well, I had my writing. My plans. My goals. And as soon as I could- I’d be out of here. At the beginning of this year, my senior year, I’d begun a countdown. One hundred and five days and I would graduate. Another ninety-two before classes started at USC, the top-five school for performance arts that was the furthest from my hometown of South Bend, Indiana. And that was why I was here, in the one place I swore I’d never be again. Because I needed my play to be a success if I was ever going to leave this place. And I needed Cole to do it.
I raised my knuckles and knocked on his door.
Cole
“I’m doing my homework, I swear, Ma!” I shouted, scrambling for the remote buried in my comforter and pushing the mute button. Damn! Where was my Calculus book? Grabbing it off the floor, I opened to a random page. Notebook? Check. Where was that pencil? There.
“Cole.”
I froze. I knew that voice. An aching pain sluiced through my body. What was she doing here? And why in the hell had my mother sent her up to my room? Jumping from the bed, I threw on a Cambridge High t-shirt. If I was going to see her, it wasn’t going to be bare-chested. She knocked again.
“Cole. Please. It’s me.”
Like I didn’t already know. Pretending I wanted to check the mirror for...something, and that I wasn’t too chicken to open my bedroom door, I studied my reflection. I took a second to wonder what Joie saw when she looked at me these days. If she looked at me at all- the way I looked at her.
I’ve tried not to over the years. Not to notice the way she’d grown a couple of inches since middle school. And that even with the extra height she still didn’t come up passed the middle of my chest. I didn’t notice the way she’d grown out her long chocolate brown hair until it reached the top of her round bottom, which I also didn’t notice. I didn’t even notice when she sat by herself in the school cafeteria or when she walked home alone after school. I especially didn’t notice when she sat at the window in her room, her gaze straying toward mine every now and then. I never saw that.
Come on, man. Get it together. Rolling my shoulders, I tried to psych myself out, jumping up and down a couple of times and jabbing the air in front of me,
practiced breaths puffing out of my mouth. If I was going open that door, I better get my game face on.
Chapter 2
Joie
Just as I was about to give up on Cole ever answering his door, it swung open. Seeing him in sweats and a Cambridge High t-shirt almost made me smile. Had I called that, or what? I didn’t smile though. Instead, I stood, rooted to the carpet outside his room, intimidated by the cold, impassive expression on his face, trying not to be affected by the scent of him washing over me.
“Hey.” I wanted to roll my eyes at myself but refrained. My first words to the boy in years and I open with ‘hey’?
“Hey,” he replied, not giving an inch. I expected no less. I knew this wasn’t going to be easy.
“Can I come in?” I gestured to his room.
Cole didn’t answer for a moment, just continued to stare, his clear blue gaze piercing my armor against my will. I would need to shore up my defenses- and quick. I pushed my thick-rimmed glasses up the slick bridge of my nose. They slid back down.
Cole’s lip twitched, and his eyes sparked with the first sign of emotion I’d seen since that day. I fought the urge to remove my glasses and wipe them and my nose with the cuff of my sleeve. I lifted one brow, challenging.
He let out a long sigh. “Yeah, come on in.” He opened the door wide and stepped to one side allowing me to pass through the opening.
Emotions slammed through me as I crossed the threshold. Joy. Pain. Nostalgia- bittersweet memories. The ache of missing this place- missing him- threatened to crush me right where I stood. I didn’t know if I could do this. I wanted to run. My gaze darted around the room, trying to find a safe place to land.
The Perks of Hating You ( Perks Book 2) Page 21
