Rebound Boyfriend

by Daphne James Huff

  She shook her head, a tiny smile appearing.

  “It’s nothing, I can handle it on my own.” She pulled her knees up to her chest.

  “You don’t have to,” I said, coming to sit next to her. “I’m sorry I was so wrapped up in my stuff I wasn’t there for you.”

  I swallowed. This was harder than I thought it would be.

  “I needed a friend, and you were there for me, when no one else was,” I went on. “And I know you were just trying to help.”

  “I’m sorry too,” she said, her eyes filling with tears. “I’m sorry I pushed Ryan on you, I’m sorry I pushed tarot and all of that. I won’t do it anymore, I promise.”

  I shook my head. “You’re different than I am, and that’s okay. I shouldn’t try to change you to be the person I wish you were. You told me that, remember? About my dad?”

  Staci bit her lip. “I do say some pretty good stuff sometimes.” She smiled a bit wider now.

  “See, you don’t need the cards to help you.”

  She flushed. “Sammi, I really did think it meant you should move on. It was so clear there’d be someone new for you.”

  “You didn’t think maybe that someone new was you?”

  She blinked. I almost laughed.

  “You were there when Linzie betrayed me, ready to step in.”

  Her mouth twisted into a thoughtful frown. “We were already friends, though?”

  “Yeah, but not best friends. Not the way you have been the past few months. We went from seeing each other at practice and parties to seeing each other all the time.”

  “I don’t know if that’s what the cards meant…” She trailed off when she saw the look on my face.

  “They mean whatever I want them to mean,” I said, shaking a finger at her. “I am Samantha Parsons, alpha female, remember?”

  She giggled, then sighed and dropped her head back against the books behind us. “I know you don’t like that stuff as much as I do, but everyone else is so interesting and I’m so boring.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “My family, you’ve seen them, they’re so blah and normal, and there’s no drama at all.” She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “It’s like, I’m just another pretty cheerleader with a perfect life. Great. I want to be interesting.”

  I laughed. I had spent all this time wanting to seem perfect, while Staci wanted the opposite.

  “You’re plenty interesting,” I told her. “You don’t need tons of drama, or a New Age persona to be interesting. Just be you.”

  “I tried, and it didn’t work.”

  “Finn Weston?”

  She nodded miserably.

  “Was that rose on Valentine’s Day from him?”

  She flushed. “No, I bought it. I thought it would make him notice me. But he wasn’t even in school that day.”

  She reached for the bag of candy, and I quickly grabbed it.

  “Oh no you don’t.”

  I made her say one good thing about herself for every handful of candy. We emptied nearly the entire bag by the time the bell rang for the next class.

  Giggling and full of sugar, we helped each other up off the floor and made our way out of the library.

  “I just want to be as happy as you were—and are—with Jeremiah,” she said, leaning into me.

  “I’m sure we can come up with something,” I said, reaching an arm around her for a hug. “You’ll find your own happy ending that’s even better than mine.”

  As we walked to our next class, I caught a flash of glowing amber eyes from across the hallway, and I hoped Staci could forgive me this little lie.

  There was no way any happy ending could be better than mine.

  Thanks for reading!

  If you loved Rebound Boyfriend, please take a minute to leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads. Reviews are essential to an author’s success.

  And keep reading for a peek of Marlowe Junction in the early 2000’s with Leah’s Song. It’s part of the Mountain Creek Drive series, written by the same authors who brought you Varsity Girlfriends.

  Plus don’t forget to check out Game Plan, the next installment of Varsity Girlfriends, written by Kayla Tirrell.

  Acknowledgments

  I love the direction my writing has taken thanks to collaboration with MF and Kayla. We’ve all grown so much over the past two series and I can’t wait to keep writing together for many years to come!

  About Daphne James Huff

  Daphne James Huff was the least cool kid in her high school wind ensemble, but now gets to hang out with (fictional) cheerleaders all she wants, so things worked out okay for her in the end.

  Daphne works in the non-profit sector during the day talking to anyone who will listen, and spends her nights talking to no one while she writes, reads, and does yoga. Sometimes she comes out of her quiet cave to tell stories to her husband, son, and cat.

  The cat is the only one who actually listens.

  Get your free copies of her short stories at www.daphnejameshuff.com

  Daphne is the co-founder of a podcast and online community for indie author moms: www.writermomlife.com

  Chapter 1

  I was pretty sure that my brother was stealing from the neighbors.

  I was babysitting for Mrs. Stevenson down the street, and her baby Emily was napping. Through the window above the sink, I saw my younger brother, Luke, sneaking through their manicured backyard glancing over his shoulder every other second. He was headed for the shed and, while I didn’t see exactly what he did in there, he came out with a lumpy shape under his shirt.

  I sighed and turned away from the window. It wasn’t my job to worry about him, but he seemed to be taking the whole “youngest sibling can get away with everything” role a bit too seriously. With our parents so focused on our older sister, Jenn, and her obsession with getting a soccer scholarship, we two younger siblings were pretty much left to our own devices. I tried my best to do well and stay out of trouble, but it didn’t seem to matter. Luke had noticed the futility of my efforts and had decided to go in the complete opposite direction.

  It’s not that he was a bad kid. At least, not really. We’d been kind of close, up until a few years ago, despite me being two years older than him and only one younger than Jenn. Whenever we were bored at her soccer matches, before we were old enough to opt out of them and stay home, I’d invent little games for us to play. Who could add up the numbers on the players’ jerseys the fastest. Or we’d count how many times the coach said “atta girl.”

  Once he started middle school though, he’d gotten all new friends and stopped wanting to hang out with his boring older sister. And I guess I was kind of boring to a 14-year-old boy. I was spending my summer babysitting and driving Jenn around to her different soccer practices and events. Not exactly the most fun-filled summer. What teenage boy wouldn’t rather spend their time out by the old playground lighting things on fire? At least, I think that’s what they did there. I hope so.

  I heard the doorbell ring, shaking me out of my gloomy reflections on my less than thrilling summer vacation. I hurried over before it rang again. If they woke up the baby, I could say goodbye to my quiet afternoon of rereading Pride and Prejudice and hello to a cranky baby. It would be worse for Mrs. Stevenson, too, and she had enough going on right now; like selling her house.

  The doorbell was probably the realtor she’d told me to expect. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do other than stay out of their way and remind them to take off their shoes. She was very protective of her white carpets. I couldn’t be sure but I wondered if the whole reason they were moving was because it was cheaper than replacing them all now that they had a baby. It had been a little stressful lately keeping Emily on her play mat and off the carpets.

  All thoughts of my brother, Mrs. Stevenson, and Emily the messy baby flew out of my head the second I opened the door. An absolute to die for, insanely cute boy was standing there. Dark green eyes stared at me from under a se
t of thick lashes; the first of countless stunning features on his near-perfect face. I opened my mouth to say something, but no words came out.

  “Hello, you must be the babysitter,” said the realtor loudly. She had on a bright red jacket and matching lipstick. She held out her hand in greeting. Red nails of course. I was momentarily more stunned by the overwhelming effect than by the boy standing to her left.

  “Yes, and the baby is sleeping, so please keep it down,” I said, taking her hand and finding my voice at last. I put on a welcoming smile, directing it mainly towards the boy. “And, if you don’t mind, Mrs. Stevenson asked that you take off your shoes.”

  They all came in, dutifully leaving their shoes in the entryway, and padded along the carpeted hallway in their socks.

  “I think you remember the kitchen is back here.” The red realtor led the parents into the depths of the house not lowering her voice in the least. I glared after her but stayed in the entrance, now face-to-face with the boy and having no idea what to say. I had never been this close to someone so attractive before. There was no one at school that even came close to his level of Adonis-like perfection

  “Hi,” he said after an unbearably painful awkward minute or so. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his cargo shorts, and his green Hollister t-shirt matched his eyes perfectly.

  I smiled in response, my heart beating a bit faster than usual under his intense gaze. He was tall. Not basketball player tall, but good-sized tall. His shoulders were broad but not swimmer broad. I tried not to drool over his muscled arms and calves. They weren’t the tight and wiry muscles of a wrestler.

  I’d overheard my sister talking more than once to her friends about the pros and cons of guys based on the sport they played. No surprise that she favored the so-called “perfect symmetry” of the soccer guy’s body. I personally found them too skinny. This guy would definitely not be her type. He was tall, and broad, and gorgeous. If I had to guess, I’d say he was a football player. What else could he be?

  “Don’t you want to see the house?” I said finally, cringing at my lack of creativity in this: my one chance at a first impression. Which I had probably blown anyway, with all the ogling I had been doing.

  He shook his head. He looked around, his eyes bored and not meeting mine. Maybe he hadn’t noticed the ogling.

  “They’ve been to, like, tons of houses this summer,” he said while wandering into the living room. He ran a hand through his dark hair. It wasn’t gelled like so many guys were doing these days. I liked it. “It doesn’t really matter what I think, but I wanted to get some hours logged for my driver’s license.”

  I thought back to the most recent issue of Teen Magazine and their tips for talking to boys. Find something you have in common.

  “Yeah, fifty doesn’t sound like a lot, but it took me forever to do it,” I replied, pleased with my light and airy tone.

  “You already have yours?” He looked impressed.

  “I got my permit the second I turned fifteen,” I said. Jenn hadn’t even wanted to do it until I had shown interest. Then she’d insisted she take the test a day before me, just so that she could say she had it first. She had been the first to lose it, too.

  I didn’t tell him all of this though. I didn’t need Teen Magazine to know to keep all the random thoughts in my head to myself.

  “I should be done before we move,” he said. “They promised me a car if I could do it on my first try.”

  He smiled. He had a great smile. It was like his whole body smiled. My heart gave a little jump in my chest. How was he even real?

  He asked if he could sit on the couch and I nodded. I stood awkwardly at the entrance to the room, leaning against the doorframe, with my arms held at an odd angle behind my back. There was never anything about how to stand in the countless articles my best friend Lilly and I had read over the years I now realized in a panic. It seemed like kind of an important thing to mention. I would write them a letter.

  “Where are you guys moving from?” I asked, hoping the more he talked, the less he’d noticed my awkwardness.

  “Closer to Denver,” he said, his eyes roaming everywhere except mine. I wondered how this house compared to all the others he’d seen. It was extremely tidy. Mrs. Stevenson had spent hours making sure it looked great so it would sell quickly. They wanted to get out by the end of summer. But this was not the kind of conversation that a guy like him would find interesting. I searched desperately for another topic as the boy sighed and slumped on the couch.

  Lilly would know what to say. She was just a few houses away. I could try to sneak away and call her to see if she could “surprise me” while babysitting for some reason…

  Just then, the baby monitor on the coffee table started wailing.

  “Oops, I gotta go,” I said, springing out of my awkward stance in the doorway and turning away quickly. “It was nice to meet you!”

  If he replied, I didn’t hear him as I ran upstairs. I was mostly relieved that I didn’t have to think of something interesting or funny to say. But I was definitely a little sad that I didn’t get more time to at least try. I hesitated for a second at the top of the stairs, realizing that I was leaving a stranger unsupervised in Mrs. Stevenson’s spotless house. But he seemed trustworthy enough, and a crying baby seemed more urgent than the possibility he might pocket one of her collectible salt and pepper shakers.

  I opened the door to Emily’s room to see her standing up in her crib, clutching her blanket and sobbing her eyes out. She held out her arms to me, and I picked her up with an exaggerated “oof” that usually made her laugh. No luck this time.

  “Ohhh, sweetie pie, did you have a nightmare?” I said in my most soothing voice. She sniffed and nodded. “Well, let’s sing our ‘No More Monsters’ song, okay?”

  She nodded again, her tears starting to dry. I sang the silly song I’d made up for her weeks ago when she’d started worrying that the monsters in her books were hiding in her closet.

  Three rounds of “No More Monsters” and two of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” later, the realtor popped her head in to let me know they were heading out. I reminded her to turn off any lights they may have turned on while visiting and turned my attention back to Emily. I had been thinking how it would be amazing if the boy moved in but how much I’d miss babysitting for her.

  In the three seconds I had my head turned towards the door, she had managed to spill the entire contents of her toy box on the floor. I quickly shifted gears, and the initial thought I’d had to call Lilly and gush was replaced with the panic of needing to clean it all up before her mother got home.

  On second thought, maybe I wouldn’t miss her quite that much.

  Chapter 2

  It was the beginning of August, and I was driving my sister to a pre-season soccer meeting at school. The air conditioning in my car wasn’t working, and we were hot and cranky.

  “When do you get your license back again?” I asked for the hundredth time that summer. She had lost it the last week of school after one too many speeding tickets. The police loved to camp out in front of the high school. All it took was going 5 or 10 miles above a few times, and it was gone. I had always been lucky and avoided the speed traps.

  Yeah, lucky me, I thought. And now I have to drive her everywhere, since our parents are at work.

  She rolled her eyes and let out a loud sigh but didn’t answer me.

  “You can’t get one of your teammates to take you?” I tried instead. “Or Libby or Erin?”

  “Like you’re so busy this summer?” she spat back. I bit back a catty reply. I knew she was just nervous. This was the meeting when they voted on the captain and, while it was pretty much a given that she’d get it, she was biting her nails like she was a freshman about to play her first match.

  “There’s Lilly’s cookout tonight,” I said, trying not to pout. “Everyone from the Drive will be there.”

  “All the juniors,” she said, rolling her eyes again. This time, I
did pout after I’d stuck my tongue out at her. “And no one calls it the Drive anymore.”

  “You guys started it!” I cried.

  “Well, we stopped,” she said while pulling her curly brown hair tighter into its bun. She stared out the window that reflected back her perfectly made-up face. Since last year, she’d gone from total tomboy to glam girl. She’d gotten her lifetime crush, Ryan Davidson, to go out with her last year without changing anything. But that breakup had been really hard on her, and she’d been trying to make him jealous ever since. She was like a combination of Sporty and Posh Spice with a bit of Baby thrown in for good measure. “Go find someone else to copy this year. I’ll have too much to do.”

  I drove for a few minutes in silence, stung by her brush-off. I knew she was hurting, I got it, but did she really have to be so mean? We hadn’t been, like, best friends or anything growing up, but this summer she was being really a pain.

  “I don’t always copy you,” I said finally in a small voice. “I don’t play sports.” Not that I’d have the time, I thought to myself, between chauffeuring her around and helping Luke with his homework so he doesn’t flunk out.

  “You know what I mean,” she said. “You were in my closet again. I can’t find my Casio watch.”

  “What?!” I cried, nearly missing a stop sign, and screeching to a halt just in time. Our heads jerked forward.

  “Careful!” she said. “Please do not kill me before I know if I’m captain or not.”

  “Of course you’ll be captain,” I said while pushing the gas gingerly to avoid any more unpleasant jerks. “And I did not take your watch.” It was some fancy sports watch she used when she worked out.

  “Then who did? Luke?”