“Okay,” Gina replied, squeezing my shoulder. “Collin, please invite your singing partner to dinner Sunday night.”
She stood there, staring at him expectantly, until the silence grew heavy. I was starting to think we’d be there until Christmas. Finally, with a sigh, Collin turned and addressed me in a deadpan voice.
“Audrey, would you like to come to dinner Sunday night?”
I immediately searched for an excuse. Anything to get out of another humiliating experience with Collin. But that was the night Lexi was going to spend with Dad and Mom had a work event. I didn’t have a good reason to decline. Plus, part of me was curious about Collin’s foster family. From what I’d seen of Ally and Gina so far, they seemed pretty great.
“Sure.” I shrugged. “Anything for a friend. Especially when he’s desperate.”
“Right.” His eyes flashed as he stared at me a moment longer, but then Gina cheered and he looked away.
“Collin will text you the address,” she said. “And Audrey, I hope you like enchiladas.”
“I love them.” I threw a weak smile at her, feeling suddenly exhausted. “Thank you for the invite.”
“See you then, chickadee.” She winked at me and then walked away.
I didn’t have the energy to hop back on this emotional carousel with Collin tonight. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and fall asleep under my warm covers. With the best smile I could muster under the circumstances, I waved goodbye to him and moved to leave.
“Audrey?” My feet froze on the pavement as I waited for him to continue. “I hope you know, I really do want to be friends.”
I should’ve leapt for joy at his words, but instead, there was a sinking feeling in my chest. Keeping my back to him, I took a deep breath. “I’d like that. Goodnight, Collin.”
“Night,” he said softly.
My feet propelled me away from the football field as fast as they could without all out sprinting. And by the time I collapsed in the driver’s seat of my mom’s Mercedes, I was a jumbled mess of nerves and anticipation. I’d just been invited to eat at Collin Preston’s house. And he wanted to be my friend.
Things couldn’t get much weirder for my senior year.
Chapter Fourteen
“Guys, I don’t want to be a sexy nurse.”
I flipped through the Halloween costumes and immediately felt like whining. Every single one was sexy nurse, or sexy pirate, or sexy kitten. Why couldn’t a girl just be any of those things without throwing the word sexy in there? It was 50 bucks for one of those skimpy excuses of a costume. If I was going to spend that much of my money from counseling at summer camp, I was going to find a costume that at least covered my rear end.
“How about a sexy crayon?” Mandy asked, tossing me a costume.
I made a face, immediately hanging it back up on the rack. “How do you even become a sexy crayon? I think the costume creators have all gone crazy.”
“Okay, so we want something cute, but not overly revealing,” Trina said, popping her dark head up from the other side. If anyone was going to find something good in here, it was her. Trina’s thrifting and scouring talents in the shopping world were matched only by her ability to sew the most hideous outfits into something fabulous. “I’ve got Charlie’s Angels, Wonder Woman, or Jessie from Toy Story.”
I sighed dramatically and threw my hands into the air. “What happened to originality? At least half the girls from school will be dressed up as Wonder Woman. I think it might be better if I just skip the party this year.”
Mandy narrowed her eyes at me, glancing around at the crowded store, as if someone was going to be offended by my dislike of super hero costumes. “What’s got you wound up so tight today? Usually, you love picking out your Halloween costume.”
She was right. This was one of my favorite holidays. I loved the theatrical bit. Playing a part that wasn’t me. Last year, I’d dressed up as Arya from Game of Thrones. She was everything I wasn’t: bold, confident, and went after what she wanted. But this Halloween felt so much different.
“I don’t know.” I leaned on the wall display of wigs, shaking my head. “This year has been such a disappointment. My parents’ divorce, my dad’s new marriage, and then the whole mascot thing. I thought working on the centennial performance would make everything better, but it feels like everything is just getting more complicated.”
Trina grabbed a purple wig from behind me and put it on her head. “Aren’t you and Collin getting along?”
“Yeah, I thought so. I was under the impression we were becoming friends. But then, last night, he basically says he only wants to be friends because he doesn’t know anyone else who plays music. It’s like I’m some last resort and he’s desperate. I’m not sure how to feel about that.”
“I thought you didn’t want to be friends with him,” Mandy said with a shrug, holding up an angel costume against her shoulders. “In fact, I think I remember you saying that he was insufferable.”
“Yeah, but that was before.”
Before we spent weeks side by side, working on a song. Before I got to see another side of him, the layer beneath that cocky, bad boy exterior. Before our epic karaoke performance at the bar where I couldn’t take my eyes off of him.
“That’s because you like him,” Trina said, picking up a magic wand and bopping me softly on the nose with it. “You want him to want you.
I wrinkled my nose and stuck my tongue out at her. “Collin and I could never be anything more than friends. He’s so...Collin. And I’m me. Plus, I know for a fact that he could never fall in love. He told me so himself. So there’s no point in even going there.”
Mandy made a face and cocked her hip. “Why does he think he can’t fall in love?”
“I don’t know. Some people can’t sing. Some people can’t drive. I guess Collin can’t fall in love.”
“Strange.” She went back to shuffling through costumes. “But that doesn’t mean you won’t fall in love with him.”
A disgusted noise escaped my mouth. They were starting to sound like a broken record. Yes, Collin and I had grown close over the last couple weeks. I liked playing music with him. And it was sort of fun to watch him play on the football field, knowing that he was my singing partner. And sure, I felt a sort of thrill every time we touched or when he looked deep into my eyes. But that was to be expected. He was incredibly hot. But we were friends. Just friends. Nothing more.
“What do you think his family’s like?” Trina pinned me with her big blue eyes. “Do you think they’re nice?”
I shrugged and examined an adult Elsa costume. That was a character I could embrace. Strong, resilient, queen of her own domain. Nothing like me.
“His foster mom was pretty cool. I guess I’ll just have to wait to find out at dinner tomorrow night. Hopefully, they like me.”
“I wouldn’t count on that if I were you.” Savannah appeared between the racks in front of me, holding a Harley Quinn costume in her claws. With a nasty sneer on her face, she looked me up and down. “They know you’d never be good enough for him.”
Rolling my eyes to the ceiling, I sighed. “Don’t you ever get tired of this act, Savannah?”
She pointed at me with her firetruck red manicure and smirked. “That’s Captain Savannah to you. And no, honestly, I don’t. But I know Collin will get tired of you. And real fast. So don’t get too attached.”
I tucked my arms around my waist, grumbling to myself. As much as I wanted to argue with her, she had a point. He had a reputation to protect. A school to run. I would only get in the way.
“Did you forget to take your Midol this morning, Savannah?” Mandy asked, stepping next to me to glare at her. Mandy never backed down. It was one of the things I loved about her.
“Ah, Amanda.” Savannah’s eyes hardened like steel. “I should’ve known that hopeless shopper was you. With man arms like that, it’s no wonder you have a hard time finding a costume to fit.”
Mandy didn’t have man a
rms. Not even close. But she was muscular and toned from all of her time spent in the gym training during the off season. I’d always envied her arms. Mandy’s eyes flared with a furious fire and she opened her mouth to respond.
“Come on, guys.” Trina stepped between them. Her beautiful face was turned down into a sincere expression of hope. “Can’t we just get along? I mean, we’re all going to be graduating together this year. Don’t you think it’s time we made a little more effort?”
“Sure.” Savannah lazily examined her nails and glanced up at Trina. “And while we’re at it, we’ll go skipping through a field of sunflowers and braid each other’s hair. Tell each other our deepest darkest secrets. As always, great ideas from Miss Daisy Sunshine. You must be a joy up at the hospital. All those cancer kids dying to hear about your silver linings.”
I’d learned how to live with Savannah’s abuse. She could use me as her punching bag all she wanted, but the way Trina’s hopeful smile crumpled at Savannah’s words made me raging mad. Enough was enough.
“You know, you used to be a lot nicer,” I snapped. “Grandma Ivy would’ve hated to see you like this.”
Something changed in Savannah. Her posture became stiff and her face rigid with hate so potent it almost stung to look at. “You have no right, no right to talk about Grandma Ivy.”
I stuck out my chin. “She was my Grandma, too.”
“Yeah, and we all know you were her favorite. No need to rub it in.”
Her reply made no sense. Never in my life had I considered myself Grandma Ivy’s favorite grandchild. Heck, Savannah and I both used to spend summers at her house. We’d play on her grand piano, look through her costume jewelry, bake cookies together. Grandma had loved us both equally.
When she’d passed, Grandma had left me a pearl necklace that I kept locked away safe under my bed at home. Sometimes, I would take it out and hold it, remembering those times. Wondering where it all went wrong.
Savannah’s brown eyes still threw daggers my way, but she retreated a step and hung her costume back on the rack. “I’m bored of this little interaction. Have fun picking out your hideous costumes.”
She stormed off, cutting a striking figure through the crowd of young kids gushing over their costume selections near the cash registers. I let out a huge breath of air, feeling at once relieved and confused.
Savannah had never made that kind of accusation before. Part of me wondered if somewhere in there was the root of her hatred toward me. But for the life of me, I couldn’t understand it. Grandma Ivy had passed away years ago. Why was she still holding some kind of twisted grudge?
“If you don’t knock her down a peg or two by the end of the year, I swear I’m going to poke holes in those water push-up bras of hers,” Mandy growled next to me.
Picturing that made me giggle, cutting the last of the tension Savannah had left. Trina joined in the laughter and eventually Mandy did, too. We were all holding our splitting sides. It wasn’t until Trina gasped and picked up a costume from the bottom rack did we finally come to our senses.
“Oooh, look.” She held up a bag. Printed on the front was the image of an alluring woman in a gray bodysuit with striped tights and a black mask. Above the image were the words Sexy Raccoon. “It’s perfect!”
I was pretty sure I’d never given anyone such a disgusted look in life. Mandy and Trina both started laughing again when they caught a look at my face.
“Not even in a million years,” I growled. “Put that thing down.”
“I think I’m going to buy it.” She smiled down at the package. “I’ve got a few alternations in mind. Once I get my hands on it, it’ll look awesome.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “Go ahead and waste your money. I won’t be wearing that in this century or the next.”
“We’ll see,” she said in a dreamy voice, walking off toward the next rack of costumes.
Mandy draped her arm over my shoulder and giggled. “Face it, you can’t stop her. She may be deceptively sweet, but she can be just as stubborn as the rest of us.”
I couldn’t argue with that. Trina had her ways of getting what she wanted. She was just better at convincing people it was what they’d wanted in the first place. Especially when she flashed those big, blue doe eyes.
“I’m not worried,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve got enough to worry about with the dinner tomorrow. What if Savannah’s right? What if Collin gets tired of me? I really like making music with him.”
“He won’t. And even if he did, he would be crazy stupid not to want to be your friend.”
Mandy’s words didn’t ease the nerves doing a tap dance in my stomach. As much as I tried to tell myself that I didn’t care, the feeling just wouldn’t go away. I didn’t want to be disposable. I’d experienced enough of that in the past year to last me for a lifetime. If that was how Collin saw me, I had to protect my heart.
It was yet another reason to get this song over with — and as soon as possible.
Chapter Fifteen
My mom was the most embarrassing mom of all time. It was official. She hadn’t allowed me to go over to Collin’s house without a hostess gift. As if a seventeen year old knew what that was. So she’d picked up some designer soap bars, packaged them in a fancy basket on a bed of crimped pieces of colored paper, shoved them in my hand, and driven me over to his foster parents’ home.
I stood on the doorstep of a Victorian style house with rotting eaves and toys littering the lawn, not really wanting to ring the doorbell. Mom couldn’t have been serious about me bringing Gina a basket of soap. If I moved fast enough, I could hide it behind an overgrown bush nearby. But that idea went up in smoke the moment the door sprung open and Gina’s beaming face appeared.
“Audrey!” She swept me up into a hug, nearly upending the basket my mother had put together so carefully. “Welcome to our home.”
“Thanks.” I winced and held out the basket. Time to remove the band-aid. Get it over with. “This is for you. My mom said to tell you these are organic, allergen free, and I think she said they’re edible, too.”
Gina’s eyebrow arched as she took the basket from me and picked up one of the soaps. My face flushed, and I wondered why I hadn’t just stayed home and pretended I’d come down with hepatitis.
“These are lovely,” she said, smiling back up at me. “Thank you. But I think I’ll just have to take your word on the edible bit. Come on in. Collin’s in the kitchen, making dessert. He’s a wiz when it comes to Napoleons. I swear, that kid is the reason I can’t fit into any of my jeans anymore.”
That tiny new tidbit about Collin was surprising. So the guy could throw a ball, play a guitar, and bake decadent desserts? What couldn’t he do?
“Collin, your girl’s here!” Gina called, leading me toward the kitchen.
I shook my head and turned to argue with her about that title, but we’d already arrived in the large, open kitchen with an eclectic array of copper pots and pans hanging from the ceiling. Collin looked up from where he was bending to pull a pan out of the oven and cussed.
The image of him wearing two oversized flowery oven mitts nearly made me burst out into giggles. I was definitely seeing a whole other side to him. His resulting glower at Gina was priceless. I pressed my fingers to my mouth and held myself together.
“Seriously, Gina?” He asked her, yanking off the mitts and wiping the back of his hand across his forehead. “There’s a reason I don’t bring friends over here. You’re going to kill my reputation.”
“Fine, but watch the language, boy,” she said, smiling and shaking a finger at him simultaneously. “You know the rules around here.”
“Sorry.” He winked at me and smiled. “Gina and Tripp have all kinds of rules. It’s basically a dictatorship around here.”
“A dictatorship of love,” she shot back, going to sniff the pan he’d removed from the oven.
While they playfully bickered, I leaned back against the kitchen counter and took a moment to
look around. Their home was spacious, although a bit shabbier than my apartment. Photo frames hung everywhere, kids smiling in every shot. I recognized Collin in a few. Ally in some others. The fridge was covered in homemade art and report cards. A large dining table with bench seating stood just beyond a breakfast bar and was already set for seven people.
Gina rushed toward the table with a pitcher full of water and began to pour drinks. Collin moved in beside me, close enough that our shoulders brushed. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I tucked my hair behind my ear and ducked. My heart was still smarting from our conversation two days ago, but I couldn’t deny that even in that short amount of time, I’d missed him.
“Listen, I apologize in advance for what happens tonight,” he said in a low tone. “I have no control over these people. They’re determined to ruin me.”
Despite his warnings, I could hear a very strong affection in his voice. He obviously loved Gina and the rest of his foster family. It was easy to tell. Just standing here in this kitchen, it was clear that this was a home filled to the attic with love. It left me with a warm, fuzzy feeling that wrapped around me like a warm blanket.
The sliding glass door to the backyard opened and at once, four people spilled in. The first was a tall, lanky man with a surprisingly bushy mustache and shiny bald head. He was followed by a little girl with tightly braided black hair, who looked about eight, and a similar aged boy with a shock of fine blond hair. Ally brought in the rear, waving and smiling at me as if I were her long lost sister.
“Right on time,” Gina said as she carried the tray of enchiladas to the table. Reaching up to the balls of her feet, she kissed the bald man while the two younger kids groaned and slapped hands over their eyes.
“That’s Tripp,” Collin explained. “And my little foster siblings, Diamond and Peter.”
“Hi. I’m in third grade,” Diamond said, bounding over to tug on my hand. “I like dinosaurs and elephants. You’re pretty. Come sit by me.”
Dare You to Kiss the Quarterback (Rock Valley High Book 1) Page 10
