I shook his hand, nodded and blushed all at the same time because Evan was what Emma and I would have called “super hot.” And he remembered my name. My new teacher, Mrs. Portman, made me introduce myself to a class full of kids I’d never met before in my life. I’d burned red with embarrassment when all of them stared at me like I was an animal in a zoo exhibit, and I didn’t think any of them were really paying attention to the words I was saying.
“Hey, I’m Garrett.” The blond kid shook my hand next. “Don’t mind Britt… she’s a jerk.”
“Thanks,” I said. “It’s kind of weird being here. It’s really different from home.”
“Just stick with us,” Garrett said.
“We’ll make this like home,” Evan added.
And they did. For the next eight years, those two boys, Evan Mattson and Garrett Hevener, were my best friends.
CHAPTER TWO
PAIGE
Basin Lake, Washington — Present Day — November
“You warm enough, babe?” My boyfriend, Mike, has his arm around me in the bleachers at Basin Lake High. I’m kind of freezing, even after drinking two hot chocolates and sucking the body heat off of him, but the reality is that snow is cold, and there’s not much you can do about that.
“I’ll survive,” I say with an exaggerated tone, wishing I’d worn something heavier than a super thin, but super cute, fitted jacket. “You?”
“Well, you’re keeping me warm of course,” he says like it’s the right thing to say, not something from the heart.
“How about you?” I nudge Evan who is sitting on my other side. “You managing not to freeze out here?” His black pea coat is wet with melted snow, and his stocking cap doesn’t seem to be doing much to keep his reddened face warm.
He lets out a half laugh. “Rain or shine, sleet or snow, we’ve got to support our boy.” He looks out onto the snow covered football field where Garrett is quarterbacking the last game of the season and his high school career. I’m sure Evan would love to be out there too, but he’d been pulled off the team in the tenth grade for smoking pot, something I’d always considered an injustice since I was sure at least a quarter of the team had been dabbling as well.
“God, do you think they could ever put a roof on this fucking thing?” Lexi, Evan’s always annoying girlfriend says, looking up toward the snowy sky above us.
I stop myself from rolling my eyes. Lexi has her arm looped and locked into Evan’s like he’s her property, and she has a tendency to loudly complain about things that annoy her, like getting snowed on in the bleachers that pass for our open air stadium.
“Not in a horseshit town like Basin Lake,” Evan says while our classmates and hometown fans hoot and holler around us.
“You don’t think this is paradise?” Mike says leaning toward Evan and clutching me tighter in the process. Other than Garrett, Mike is Evan’s closest friend, though they’ve had their moments as of late.
“I’ll take small town life over a big mess like Seattle,” Beth, Garrett’s girlfriend and defender of all things Basin Lake, chimes in from her position on the other side of Lexi.
I’d have never imagined Beth Banks and Lexi DeNero, the two girls who stood by while Britt Morgan and Trinity Johnson made my first day of school in Basin Lake miserable, would have become the girlfriends to the two guys who’d defended me that day.
“You’ve never been to Seattle,” Evan scoffs, “so how can you denigrate a city that spawned Nirvana… Starbuck’s… and The Experience Music Project… but most importantly, it gave us Paige.” Evan nudges me back and then gives me a wink.
“I didn’t mean it like that, Mr. Trivia.” Beth stretches her neck out so I can see her clearly. “Sorry, Paige.”
“It’s okay, Beth.” She means no harm, and even though we got off on the wrong foot in the fourth grade, her being on the girl’s basketball team and me running track has given us a pretty solid foundation for friendship. “Evan is just being overly dramatic.” I shoot him a glance that tells him he’s being silly.
“Speaking of dramatic…” Evan unchains himself from Lexi and rises to his feet as Garrett makes a throw toward the end zone.
“Go go go!” Mike’s arm slides away from me as I’m on my feet now too, losing the grip on my empty cup of hot chocolate and trying not to feel guilty for letting the litter fall through the cracks in the bleachers.
“Do it man!” Evan screams.
“Yeah!” Mike calls out as Ben Forester catches the ball and takes it in for a touchdown.
“Garrett!” I scream at the top of my lungs, and he finds me in the crowd, waving at me before he runs toward his teammates. They’ve just won the game, in large part because of him.
Before I can even think of hugging Mike, I reflexively turn to Evan. “That was beyond amazing, right?”
He agrees by pulling me into a bear hug and literally lifts me off of the bleachers. “Sure was,” he says into my ear while I take in his familiar, clean scent.
As soon as he puts me down, Lexi is grabbing at him and throwing me a dirty look. She’s so possessive and has never understood the concept of friendship between a boy and a girl. My own boyfriend is less concerned. He doesn’t seem to ever get jealous, and he’s been pretty forthcoming about us having to break up before we go off to different colleges. It’s not very romantic, but I’ve been feeling the same way for a while now.
“That was some throw,” Mike says to me. “It’s just going to be you in grandstands watching him at WSU—lucky.”
“I’ll keep Paige company,” Evan says, escaping from Lexi’s grasp. “I’m flying back for at least three of the games.”
“All the way from North Carolina?” Beth wrinkles her brow, and there’s judgment in her voice too, like even if Evan’s family has the money for frequent plane tickets, it’s not very practical.
But practical or not, I’m counting on him to fly across the country to see me and Garrett at Washington State University. It’s the school Garrett will attend on a football scholarship and where I’ll follow my dream of becoming a teacher, but by the very skin of my teeth as long as my patchwork of scholarships, grants and student loans all pan out. But it would be even better if I could somehow convince Evan not to go to North Carolina at all and instead follow us to WSU.
As if Lexi is reading my mind or perhaps just noting the affectionate way I’m gazing at Evan, she practically throws daggers at me with her eyes, something she seems to do any chance she gets. But even the nastiest look from her doesn’t bother me anymore because I’m not the newcomer I was eight years ago. I’ve become a part of Basin Lake since then—I’m a member of the track team—some would say a star member—have joined every extracurricular club and committee that there is enough time in the day for, while also managing to keep a 3.9 grade point average. I’ve done most of these things to make myself look good to prospective schools and to get the financial help I so desperately need for college. Sure, it’s made me some friends too, but whether Lexi likes it or not, Evan is one of my very closest, and that’s not going to change.
“The perks of being rich,” Mike says to Evan with a shake of his head.
“I’m hardly rich,” Evan protests.
“You are by Basin Lake standards,” Mike says. “You have a BMW that is less than ten years old while I’m lucky if my piece of shit car can make it the hundred miles between here and Ellensburg.”
“At least you guys are going to college,” Beth muses. “I love Basin Lake and all, but I wouldn’t mind a four-year reprieve.”
“Me too,” Lexi says, now looking longingly at Evan. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave me behind.” Someone who has never met Lexi before might see this display and think she’s actually this sweet, pretty girl desperate to keep the guy she loves, even if it means guilting him into it. But I know better.
Evan turns to Lexi and very patiently says, “You’ll be okay. You know half the guys in this town are just waiting to date you once I leave.”
“Don’t say that!” Lexi punches him hard against his chest. “You’re such a jerk!” She pushes past Beth and storms her way down the bleachers.
Yes, that’s the Lexi I know, drama queen and general maker of hell for Evan.
“Lexi… I didn’t mean…” He starts to go after her, then stops and throws his hands up like there’s no point. And there definitely isn’t. Lexi could have gone to college, maybe even to North Carolina with Evan. But her grades apparently suck, and it’s easy to see how entitled she’s been with her parents. Beth says it’s backfired and that she’s going to have to work at their family restaurant and prove herself at Basin County Community College before her mom and dad will fork out a dime for a four-year school.
“You really should just break up with her,” Mike says as we start making our way to the steps.
I don’t say anything at all as I follow Beth and Evan with Mike close behind me, though I do secretly hope Lexi will fall on the slick, snowy bleachers and break her face.
Evan pulls his stocking cap lower over his head and sounds resigned when he says, “Yeah, well, it’s not that easy.”
“She loves you,” Beth says, walking alongside as we start going down the steps and toward the field. “It’ll be really hard on her when you go.”
I couldn’t care less about Lexi, but I wrap my friendly arm around Beth because her future with Garrett is uncertain as well. Not that I’m privy to their private conversations, but they haven’t said much to indicate their relationship will survive Garrett moving to WSU while Beth stays here in Basin Lake, even if they’ll only be two hours apart. She’d applied of course, but she didn’t get in, and so she’s opted to go to BCCC with Lexi.
“Yeah, but this is just all high school stuff,” Mike says with a shrug. “We all have to grow out of these little romances and eventually move on.”
Evan stops, turns and looks at Mike with a fair amount of annoyance. “Move on? From Paige you mean? Way to go reminding us every chance you get that you can’t wait to dump her.”
“Dude… you know it’s not like that, and you just told Lexi she’d meet some other guy when you leave, so what the serious fuck?” Mike throws Evan a dirty look before turning to me with a pouty face, one that is begging to be forgiven, even if he knows Evan is right.
“It’s not the same,” Evan protests.
“It’s okay,” I say, not wanting to get into the weeds with this one. “I realize I’m not living in a fairy tale.” Besides, as much as Evan gets mad at his friend for not falling all over me at every opportunity or professing his love with pink teddy bears on Valentine’s Day, I’m kind of okay with things as they are. I don’t love Mike, not even in the dreamy, teenage romance kind of way, and there really isn’t any other available guy in Basin Lake that I’m even remotely interested in.
I’m Mike’s placeholder as much as he is mine. I’m thankful for the good times we’ve shared, like all the trips in that “piece of shit” car of his to Spokane. We’d go off in search of just the right shades of hair coloring for my ever-changing look, from a purple streak to full on brunette, redhead or platinum blonde. And when I decided to return to a more natural version of my blonde locks last year, conservative-looking Mike would still be down for following me around in what I decided were the coolest, hippest parts of the city.
“Whatever.” Evan says with a shake of his head once we reach the bottom of the bleachers.
“Am I forgiven?” Mike asks under his breath, apparently wanting to remain within my good graces for the time being.
“No worries,” I say and offer him the same smile I always do. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t been Mike’s girlfriend since the eighth grade, but I’m not sure it would have been better jumping from one unfulfilling boy to the next.
Garrett is gathering with his teammates and coach just beyond us on the field, and Beth moves ahead of all of us, like Garrett’s coming back from a military deployment and she has to be the first to welcome him home. Mike follows, getting swept up in the crowd while I stay back with Evan.
“Stop.” I bump my hip against his—it’s my way of scolding him. “Don’t make a big thing out of nothing, especially with Mike.”
“It is a big thing when a guy talks about you like you don’t matter,” he says to me.
“Mike is a realist,” I say. “We both are, and he’s not trying to be a jerk.”
Unexpectedly, Evan makes a sharp turn toward me and holds my face between his hands, hands that happen to be freezing cold. “Listen to me, Paige Kessel. If a guy ever hurts or disrespects you, I will personally kick his ass from here to China, even if he’s one of my best friends, okay?”
I can’t help but laugh at that while at the same time loving him for it. I grip his wrists and gently pull his hands away from my face. “Okay, Evan, but you’re totally barking up the wrong tree. Mike may be noncommittal to our future, but he’s sweet as pie.”
Evan cocks an eyebrow, making him look even more handsome than usual. “Sweet as pie?”
“Don’t…” Now I’m the one shaking my head. “Don’t make fun.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
He smirks. “Okay, maybe, just a little. But I hope you realize that when you’re at WSU, Garrett isn’t the only guy you can turn to, okay? I’m always going to be around. You can always call me, no matter what.”
I sigh. It’s moments like these that I wonder about Evan, wonder about what might have been if I’d asked him to the “girls ask boys” dance in the eighth grade instead of standing idly by as Lexi DeNero did. I’m not sure we’d have come out of it as anything more than friends, but maybe I could have at least stopped Lexi from digging her miserable claws into him. She doesn’t deserve to be with a guy who is as cute, funny and intelligent as he is.
“I’m going to miss you,” I say, rubbing my cold lips together and trying to imagine what life will be like in seven months when he goes to North Carolina, when I’ll be lucky to see him every few months instead of almost every single day at school.
“It’s definitely not going to be the same,” he says, training his gorgeous green eyes on me. He’s looking all intense and serious, and those are the last things I want to feel on a night like tonight when we should be celebrating and not thinking about being separated by thousands of miles.
I expect him to say something funny to lighten the moment, but instead he leans toward me, taking me by surprise, so much so that I nearly forget to breathe. His eyes and lips move closer to mine, and my heart sprints, nearly thumping out of my chest, and I think that maybe right here in the open, Evan Mattson is going to kiss me.
“You guys saw that?” Garrett’s voice interrupts us, snapping me away from Evan. I throw my hands to the back of my head, running them down the loose bun my hair is in before I grab onto my scarf and tug.
Garrett, out of breath, sweaty and with matted hair, notices something. I can see it in the way he tilts his head to the side and looks from Evan and then to me. But he appears to dismiss it just as quickly with his arm around Beth who looks halfway between deliriously happy—for the arm—and devastated—because said arm might not be around her next November.
“Dude!” Evan acts like nothing at all just happened and grasps his hand into Garrett’s, giving him a half guy hug and patting him on the back. “Basin Lake will be shit without you next year.”
I catch my breath and say, “You were great,” to Garrett before releasing the death grip on my scarf and giving him a full on hug, ignoring the dirt and sweat after a game like I always do.
“Celebration at Minnie’s?” Mike says, appearing behind Garrett like he’d been lost in the crowd and is just now being spit out.
“I kind of stink,” Garrett says.
“You always stink,” Evan replies with a laugh.
Then Beth goes into a long explanation of how she promised Mrs. Parks, one of our old elementary school teachers, that she’d babysit tonight, of all nig
hts, so Mrs. Parks could do some painting without her kid interrupting. I decided that this very child was the spawn of Satan when I’d had the misfortune of babysitting him.
“Join me?” Beth asks Garrett.
“Well…” Garrett begins, appearing to mull it over, his inability to just say yes causing a scowl to form on Beth’s pretty face.
This waiting around and deciding on what we’ll do makes me long for simpler times when it was just Evan, Garrett and me and no significant others to get in the way of our plans.
With everyone being so noncommittal, I say “I’ll go with you,” to Mike. Being his girlfriend, it should be obvious that I’d be joining, but as Evan has said, Mike has been a little loose with the countdown until our relationship ends. I’d like him to remember I’m capable of cutting the cord sooner rather than later and letting him go to Minnie’s all by his lonesome.
“Okay… well one is in.” The skin around Mike’s eyes creases minutely, and he looks slightly relieved that even if everyone else bails, he won’t have to go solo to the diner just off Interstate-90 that’s frequented by truckers. He calls the greasy spoon authentic Americana, and we all just go along with him because it’s slightly more exciting than going to the same boring restaurants in town or getting stuck at DeNero’s, the Italian place Lexi’s parents own.
“I’ve got to find Lexi first,” Evan says gloomily. His hands are stuffed in his pockets while his eyes dart around like he’s hoping she’s hiding in plain sight, but Lexi wouldn’t make it that easy—she wants him to have to chase her down. When his intense eyes lock on mine, I feel a momentary pulse of excitement, but in the next second he pulls his gaze away, sighs and continues a visual search for Lexi.
I don’t know how he puts up with her. Mike once told me he figured the attraction was due to her being a gymnast and her ability to contort into all sorts of positions, along with potentially having what he called a “magic pussy”—it was a concept, and visual, I just wanted to forget.
Between the Boys (The Basin Lake Series Book 1) Page 2
