by Dee Lagasse
Smooth. Real fucking smooth. He doesn’t even know my name yet and I’ve already made myself look crazy. Good job, Hollis.
“I guess I don’t have to introduce you to my sister,” Davis’s laughter bellows from behind us. “I still don’t know how you guys didn’t cross paths when we were kids.”
“Well, actually, we haven’t been introduced yet,” New Dude chuckles, his hands still on my arms.
Awkwardly stepping back, I stick out my hand, stammering something about being “sorry again” while Davis goes around introducing New Kid, who, as it seems, does have a name and it’s not Barry Allen or Clark Kent, so he’s not The Flash or Superman like I assumed.
It’s Chase…
Chase Merrimack.
Gah. Even his stupid name is perfect.
With the same amused smirk he started off with across the gym, he takes my hand into his. Holding it for longer than necessary, he chuckles while giving me a gentle shake. Without realizing, my eyes trail up and linger over his bicep. As if I suddenly have no control over my actions, I just stop. Distracted by the muscles causing his shirt sleeve to pop up, I make no effort to pull my hand back, even after Chase stops the shaking motion between our hands.
My hand still in his and my eyes on his arm, he clears his throat just loud enough to get my attention. Quickly pulling my hand away, I only stay in front of him long enough to see his slight smirk turn into a full, cocky smile.
Squeezing myself between the comfort of Ellis and Cole, I focus on an empty space across the gymnasium. Taking advantage of the few seconds of silence I have, I start counting to ten in the three different languages I know. A failed attempt to calm my racing heart and twisted nerves. There is no way Ellis, Cole, and Kinley missed the disaster that just happened, so it won’t be long until they’re interrogating me.
“What. Was. THAT?!” Kinley whisper squeals, as if on cue, looking around the front of Ellis to me.
“A better question would be who is that?” Cole asks from the other side of me.
“That is Chase Merrimack,” I shrug, attempting to play it off like it’s no big deal.
If I make it a big deal, I’ll never hear the end of it from them. Especially considering I’ve never showed any blatant interest in a guy before. I mean, not to say I didn’t have little crushes here and there, but nothing worth ever mentioning to the girls.
They don’t need to know my stomach is in knots, or that my heart feels like it’s going to beat out of my chest. They also don’t need to know that right now, it’s taking every ounce of willpower I possess to fight the pull to be near him. Instead of sitting on this bleacher with my friends, I want to be over with the guys, finding out everything I can about the boy who just came out of nowhere.
“Yeah, we got that. But, I’ve never actually seen you obviously check out a guy,” Ellis states, making no hesitation on calling me out. “And you were not hiding the fact that boy got your attention, Cousin.”
“I need to go line up because they're about to choose teams,” I say, sidestepping her and the looks I’m getting from Cole and Kinley. “See you after class, slackers.”
The two gym teachers, who happen to also be my soccer coach and the boys’ football coach crack themselves up when they choose me and then Davis for team captains. My brother and I both make our way to front of the group. Laughing, I flex at him and he cocks his eyebrow, upping the ante by saying, “Loser does the other one’s chores for a week.”
Turning to face the twenty or so teenaged boys, I feel like I could throw up. Playing with “the guys” has never made me nervous before. Even though it drives me crazy, I know they all take it easy on me. And normally, I’m one of the first ones off the bench when teams are chosen, especially when we play soccer, which we’ve been playing for the last week.
It comes with being the only starting sophomore on the school’s girls’ soccer team. Athleticism is just something my family was gifted with, I guess. My dad put me in the city’s soccer league with Ellis when I was in kindergarten. Ellis didn’t make it through the first season; I fell in love with the game and have been playing ever since.
City league turned into playing on a travel league, which turned into my trying out and playing for the middle school team and then the high school team. Since the school team only plays during the Fall, I played indoor in the Winter and went back to the travel team every Spring. After spending most of my freshman season on the bench last school year, it just worked out that my coach for the Spring travel team is one of the assistant coaches for the school team. She got the right people to see a few games and I started playing midfield on the school’s team during our first game last week.
A loud collection of shrieking snaps me out of my daze. While I kept walking to the middle of the gym after our shit talking back and forth, my brother had, apparently, held back and finally asked Kinley to be his rally girl. Despite the fact we all knew it was coming, I was just choosing not to give the fact that my brother and one of my closest friends were slowly becoming a thing any added attention. I’m happy for the two of them, but it’s still weird.
With half the gym making a spectacle out of Davis and Kinley, only I notice Coach Lavoie quickly tossing Chase a practice jersey and then Chase dropping it on the empty bleachers behind the crowd. Dressed to participate in class, no one would suspect that Chase is a member of the football team. The second he steps out of this gym, presumably in a dress shirt and tie, it’s over though.
Just like that, Chase Merrimack became one of the four most sought after sophomores. With Kinley getting Davis’s jersey and officially becoming his rally girl, the pressure would be on for Travis, Kenny, and now, Chase to choose theirs.
So much for getting to know him, ever. He’s going to have the attention of half the fucking school before lunch time.
When all the craziness of giving his jersey to Kinley subsides, Davis makes his way over to me, scrunching his nose as I shake my head. Without skipping a beat, he calls out Chase’s name. Pointing to Kenny, I flash a wide smile and say his name. My brother will pick my cousin next, so I have a whole thirty seconds to come up with my game plan.
“You’re going down, Davis Capparelli,” Kenny laughs, pretending to glare at my brother, before laughing hysterically and high-fiving me before taking his place to the left of me.
After Travis, my brother will choose his teammates based on athletic ability. It makes sense why he would choose to do that. In theory, you want to win the game. I have a different plan for today though. Sure enough, Davis picks Travis for his team and then all eyes are on me.
With my second pick, I choose Adam Harper. By lame high school standards, he’s probably the nerdiest and least athletic kid in the entire class. Every single week he’s one of, if not the last, kids chosen for teams. Not today. As much as I would love to not have to do dishes for a week, I would gladly have to the trash for a week if it means that even if just for this class, I made someone’s day easier.
Confirming my suspicion, Davis picks Tyler Douglas next. Tyler’s a dick, but he plays soccer for the boys’ division of the travel league I play for. There’s no way Davis picked him because he thought he would add to the team in any way other than getting points for them.
Davis and I go back and forth until every person is chosen. Like I assumed, my brother picks each of his teammates by their athleticism, so I do the opposite. As I call out each of the names of the boys who are usually last on the bench, I have to continuously remind myself not to look over at Chase. Not that he’s making it any easier on me as he watches my every move. The few times I do look over, his curiosity is written all over his face. Like, I puzzle him or I’m not who he expected. Which is crazy because we know absolutely nothing about each other.
As soon as everyone is assigned to a team, Davis and all the boys on his team start taking their shirts off despite having more than enough green and yellow mesh pullover pinnies for everyone to put on differentiating the teams. Damn show off
s.
“Guess we’re playing shirts and skins,” I say, dramatically rolling my eyes at the group of now half-naked boys as Kenny and I lead our team to the cart with soccer balls, goalie gloves, and the orange cones to set up goals.
Being team captain, I assign each boy a position. Keeping Kenny up with me as a striker, I know between the two of us, there’s a small chance we might make a goal or two. My brother and cousin might run the football field, but I can and have run circles around them with a soccer ball.
Stopping in the middle of the court, I find myself face-to-face with Chase, that cocky smile still plastered all over his face. If I can get past my nerves to win a state championship, I can get past the one building up in my stomach now.
Passing the ball over to Kenny, it’s only seconds before it’s back in between my feet. Seamlessly, I weave in and out of the guys on the opposing team. Faking passes, I quickly make my way down to goal range. I hear my cousin Ellis yell, “You guys might as well accept your loss now” and the laughter of her brother, my cousin, Travis when he yells back, “Never!” in the background. But that’s all it is to me, background noise.
With precise calculation, I get myself close enough to the goal, knowing the chance of scoring is in my favor right now. Just as I pull my foot back to shoot, I feel someone’s arms wrap around my waist, pulling me down. There’s no need for me to turn around to know that it’s Chase as we tumble down to the floor below. I just know it. I can’t explain how, but I do. The closeness between the two of us causes every single hair on my body to stand up.
Jumping off his lap as fast as we fell, I turn to the teachers who are both closely watching me cautiously. Rightfully so, because like a ticking time bomb, I explode.
“Holding is a fucking foul! Give him a yellow card!”
And with that, the teachers, my brother, my cousins, our friends, and half the class burst out laughing, only infuriating me more.
“Calm down, you little Hurricane, it’s just gym class, you didn’t lose the World Cup,” Chase chuckles as he pulls himself up from the floor.
“It would have been a damn goal if you didn’t cheat,” I huff before turning to walk back to the center of the gym.
“If it makes you happy sweetheart, please take the kick,” he laughs, winking as he walks past me toward the bleachers. “But, I’ll only agree to my ‘yellow card’ on one condition.”
“First of all, don’t call me sweetheart. And what condition could you possibly have after knowing me for five whole seconds?” I ask, equal parts irritated, because that’s not how the game of soccer works, and intrigued because I’m pretty sure he knows this after saying I could take a kick, implying he knows at least a thing or two about soccer. And, I kind of want to know what his condition is.
“Be my rally girl.”
Without waiting for an answer, Chase jogs over to the spot on the bleacher he tossed the practice jersey on. A slew of gasps and whispers come from the girls on the sideline near us, none of them making any attempt to hide their surprise.
Coming back with his smirk still intact and a little pep in his step, that cocky bastard doesn’t think I’ll say no. And, truth be told, I don’t think I want to. I don’t know why I’m so drawn to this boy, but everything inside of me is telling me to fight my common sense and say yes. Saying yes would mean that I would need to break my rule of never getting involved with a boy that plays football.
There are three things I’ve learned growing up a Capparelli. One, is that family really is the most important thing in this world; two, loyalty should never, ever come with a price; and three, if a boy plays football, he loves that game more than anything, and probably, more than anyone.
Surprising even myself, I snatch the jersey out of his hand, pulling it over my head. As it falls to my mid-thigh, I drop the soccer ball in position to take my kick, motioning for Chase to move out of the way so I can take my shot.
Making the goal, the cheers come in from my teammates, and I do my best to replicate the smirk Chase has plastered all over his face, shrugging arrogantly.
“Whatever it is you're trying to do, might work on the girls wherever it is you're from, but it doesn't work here. Not with me. You really want my attention? Step up your game, Merrimack.”
Chapter One
Hollis
September 15, 2017
“I should have been a fucking pirate.”
All the girls I knew growing up had dreams of being a princess and finding Prince Charming, but not me. I was never the girl that wanted to be a lawyer, a doctor, or a teacher. No matter how hard everyone tried, there were no ballet classes or fancy dresses for me. I played soccer because chasing the ball was like chasing treasure, and if I wasn’t on the soccer field, I was in a karate dojo, convinced I would need those skills if I were ever to become a real pirate,
For five Halloweens in a row, I wore a red bandana on my head, knee high black boots, and held a ginormous plastic sword, determined that one day I would make that my everyday reality. In high school, I burnt out not one, but three Pirates of the Caribbean DVDs. There’s no one I crushed on harder than Captain Jack Sparrow.
I wanted endless, barefoot adventures and the only love I planned on keeping was one for the open sea. And, maybe, for a parrot I would name Kiwi. As life would have it though, New England grew on me and I never ended up chasing my childhood dream of wreaking havoc in the Caribbean. If I had though, I’d be happily drinking rum on warm, white island sand instead of miserably contemplating drinking rum on freezing, white kitchen linoleum.
The glass of ice sitting next to my left thigh amplifies the cold of the floor, pressuring me to make my decision faster. On my right, sits a half empty bottle of my go-to, fail safe black spiced rum. But, next to that sits an incredibly intimidating wicker basket. Though, in all fairness to the basket, it’s not the basket itself that’s intimidating. The execution of deciding whether to open it, that’s what is scary as fuck.
Within said wicker basket sits a bottle. A $4,000 bottle of British Royal Navy Imperial Reserve Rum, to be exact. A bottle that should have been saved for a celebration, a monumental moment in life. Not to say today wasn’t monumental, but it sure as hell isn’t a celebration.
But, you know what? Fuck it. It’s time to go big. It’s time to stop settling. Life is too damn short to be drinking cheap rum and crying over boys that don’t know exactly what they have and who they have it with. So, the Hollis Capparelli Comeback Tour officially starts tonight. Right now, in this exact moment, actually.
Sucking in a breath, I slowly open the lid of the basket, carefully pulling out the ceramic jar that holds the gallon of molasses colored rum. Taking a solid minute, I admire the engagement gift from my grandparents before a heinous cackle escapes me. The irony isn't lost on me as I lift the bottle in the air, and cheers to nothing and no one.
The oaky taste of the rum lingers on my lips as I pull myself off the floor, setting the bottle back onto the breakfast bar it came from. It only takes one swig of rum to conclude that drinking by myself, on my kitchen floor, is a pitiful excuse of a comeback. Leaning on the cluttered breakfast bar, I scroll through the contacts in my phone, deciding to start with Kinley.
Not only is she one of my longest and closest friends, she’s a professional party planner. If anyone knows where to go to start an epic break-up party, it’s going to be Kinley. The added bonus of texting Kinley is that she’ll take charge, because that’s what she does, all the time. She would take offense to being called a “control freak,” but as they say, if the shoe fits…
Knowing she would take the reins on the evening as soon as I let her know what happened takes some stress off me, so right now, I’m all for her executing her leadership skills, per se, and managing the plans for the night. I won’t even have to text anyone else, Kinley will take care of it. Though, I should probably call or text Chase, too. Actually, I know I should. But, I also know that if I call him right now, he’ll drop everything and come stra
ight here. That’s what he’s done since we were teenagers. Chase Merrimack is my very best friend and the self-proclaimed one-man “Hurricane Hollis” recovery crew.
When he does get his phone call, he’s going to give me such a hard time for not letting him know sooner. Like, three hours ago sooner. Or, really, three months sooner. That’ll be a whole different battle to fight after the initial dust settles from this shit storm though.
The first thing that will come is the worry, and then the pity. The very last thing I want to be is the friend that ruins a perfectly good Friday night. Especially tonight of all nights. Besides, what doesn't scream “I don't care that I just wasted two years of life with a cheating scumbag” more than a night out with your best girls? Nothing, that’s what.
It’s time to get the ball rolling on this comeback of mine. Knowing she’s scheduled a few event consultations and a catering meeting for this afternoon, I opt to text Kinley instead of calling her. Normally I would never tell someone something this important through a text message but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures.
Snapping a picture of my empty left ring finger, I attach it to a text to Kinley and quickly text out,
See something sparkly missing from my finger? We need to celebrate this shit. HELPPPPP.
Pressing send, I decide the next step while embarking on my comeback tour is to find an outfit that says “daaaaamn, girl.” I’m not sure exactly what look I want to go for tonight. However, I do know everyone is going to see a side of Hollis Capparelli that they haven’t seen in a long time tonight. That is for damn sure.
With my phone still in hand, I take the few necessary steps to get to my bedroom. My little apartment may not be much, but it’s mine. Well, kind of. The space is mine. The apartment, however, is in the finished basement of my father’s house.
