by Vi Keeland
Keller, my center that had filled in as quarterback in my absence, snaps the ball into my hands. I’m completely unprepared, my eyes still on Nikki’s long lean legs, as the opposing players pummel me yet again.
“Hey, quarterback, you gonna join us anytime soon?” Coach Callihan yells impatiently at me.
Picking myself up off the ground yet again, I spit dirt— mixed with a little blood from my rapidly swelling lip— before I respond, “Maybe if I could get a little help from the offensive line, I might be able to stand long enough to stretch out my arm to throw the ball.” I know my putting blame on someone else won’t sit well with Coach, but I don’t give a shit.
“That just bought you eight laps with equipment on. Everyone else, hit the showers. We’re going to have to start extra early tomorrow. 6.AM. You can all thank Mr. Martin for the pre-dawn Saturday morning practice.”
The team groans, a few even mumble something about me being an asshole under their breath, but no one complains to Coach. No one is stupid enough. Ripping my helmet from my head, I toss it on the ground, readying myself for my eight-lap, big-mouth punishment.
“Hang on a minute, Martin.” Coach Callihan strides toward me. “Son.” He puts a hand on my padded shoulder. “I know you’ve had a tough year. But this isn’t a sport you can do without your head in the game. You’re liable to get hurt.” He looks me in the eye, waiting for something— perhaps it’s my response he expects— but I just stare back blankly. After a minute, his face changes. It’s clear something’s dawned on him. He lowers his voice from stern to almost fatherly. “You don’t care if you get hurt, do you?”
***
By lap seven, my legs start to burn. Between getting knocked around at practice and running with an extra ten pounds of equipment on me, I feel pain in every stride. The track team ended practice fifteen minutes ago, leaving me nothing to take my mind off my aching body anymore.
As I cross the start line to begin my last lap, I feel the pounding of footsteps from behind me before I even see her. Falling into sync with my slow pace, Nikki says, “Race a lap, slowpoke?”
My faltering gait comes to life. “Races have winners. Winners get a prize. What are we betting?” I throw her a devilish grin, trying to cover up how winded I really am.
Nikki’s mouth twists as she ponders, unsure of how to respond. “How about, loser buys the winner’s lunch Monday at school?”
“Lunch? Nah. That’s not a big enough prize.” My heart beats a little faster. “Dinner.”
“Okay, but I’m ordering the most expensive thing on the menu.” Nikki takes off like a bat out of hell. The girl runs like the wind— she’s a half dozen steps ahead of me before I even realize we’ve started.
Forcing one leg in front of the other, I try my damnedest to catch up to her, but I just don’t have it in me after seven long laps. Halfway through, it dawns on me…why am I even trying? I lose, I get to buy her dinner. I jog the last half of the track, enjoying the view from the rear.
Winded from her lightning speed sprint, Nikki bends over, hands on her hips. “Did you even try to win?”
“Nope,” I respond unapologetically, reaching down for my water bottle. I spray half into my mouth and the rest over my sweaty head. The padding and uniform, mixed with the unusually high temperature, leaves me feeling like I just ran two miles in a heated blanket.
“I won the bet fair and square, even if you decided not to try to win.”
“I’m not a welcher. Dinner’s on me.”
Nikki’s aunt is waiting for her across the parking lot, so we say goodbye and I head for the locker room. Most of the team is gone by the time I hit the shower, except Keller, who waited, knowing I’d drive him home.
“You and Nikki?” he questions as I dry off.
I know what he’s asking, but I make him spell it out anyway. “Me and Nikki what?”
“Together?”
“No.” My response is curt.
“She’s fucking hot. Did you see her ass in those tight little running shorts?” Keller asks with a dirty grin on his face. One I get the urge to smack off immediately.
“You’re a dick. You know that?”
“Yeah, and you know it too. Big deal.” He shrugs, not the slightest bit put off by being called a dick. In fact, I think he wears the title like a badge of honor. “So, you don’t care if I ask her to the dance then?”
My blood instantly boils. A possessiveness I’m not entitled to have grips me. “Whatever.” I slam my locker door.
“Cool.” Keller walks away whistling, enjoying he’s gotten under my skin.
I don’t say more than two words on the drive home. I hate myself for wanting it to be me to ask her to the dance.
Chapter 21
Nikki
“Damn it!” Startled by the vibration of my iPhone in my pocket, I jump from the desk chair in Aunt Claire’s office. More than a dozen manila folders spill from my arms and splatter onto the floor. Loose papers scatter from neatly labeled files. I’ll never be able to put everything back in the order Aunt Claire had them in. Files with tax returns, receipts, insurance papers, and medical invoices line the floor. Nothing even remotely related to me, or my sister. Not even a single paper about Mom.
I do my best to replace the papers in the right files and alphabetize the folders before dropping them back into the wooden filing cabinet. Aunt Claire is a lot more organized than Mom ever was. Mom’s idea of filing was tossing crumpled papers into a shoebox under the bed.
Discouraged after yet another fruitless search, I pick up the phone to call Ashley back.
“It’s about time. Thought I was going to have to hitch all the way to sunny ass California,” Ashley answers on the first ring. I hear loud music blaring in the background.
“Where are you?”
“Texas,” she responds and I can hear the smile in her voice.
“Obviously. But where…there’s music blasting in the background.”
She laughs. The music becomes more distant as she continues; she must be walking away for privacy. “Down at the lake.”
“Oh.” A vision of Caddo Lake fills my mind. The tall, moss-draped cypress trees and lush green vegetation surround the massive deep blue water, making it appear fantasy like. Almost like it’s part of a Louisiana swamp instead of the Texas national forest system. Ash and I used to spend hours down there swimming in a secluded area. Selfishly, it makes me sad that she’s there with someone else, instead of me.
She picks up on my feeling, even though we’re separated by two states and I’ve only said a half dozen words. It makes me miss her even more.
“You’re not missing much. Sean Drexler just ripped apart our favorite place to sit with his dirt bike. Our little green grass patch under the big tree is now a mud patch.”
“Sean Drexler? Nick’s older brother? You’re down at the lake with Sean?”
“Don’t worry, mother hen…there’s a bunch of us, not just the two of us.”
I sigh. “I feel like you’re cheating on me, going to our spot with other people.”
“Ummm…hello. I had to come down with six people to replace one of you, and it’s still not as much fun.”
I’m sure she’s lying, Sean and Nick are crazy. It would be nearly impossible to not have a good time hanging around with them. But it makes me feel better nonetheless.
“So, any leads on your sister?” Ashley asks, turning our light conversation serious, her voice dips with the mood.
“No,” I say, deflated. “I’ve searched almost the entire house. Every time Aunt Claire leaves, I snoop around more— but I haven’t found anything, really. Although, I did find out a little about California law on the internet. Since we were born in California, the adoption was most likely done here. And in California, a person can find out identifying information on their biological siblings at age eighteen.”
“That’s great! You don’t have long to go then.”
“Yes, but what if she’s, you know…like my
mother?”
“Crazy?”
“Not crazy! Bipolar!” I reprimand Ashley’s loose terminology, even though I know she means no harm.
“Whatever. If she’s a bat loon, then you pack up your stuff and come back to Texas and live with me.”
“You know your mom wouldn’t be able to take me in permanently.”
“Who said anything about Mom? We turn eighteen within a few weeks of each other. We can go down to Padre Island, get a cheap place to live and waitress or something,” Ashley says it like it’s no big deal. I actually picture her shrugging after she finishes her declaration. Funny enough, for Ashley it really is something she could easily do. I’m the one who needs the plan, the backup plan and the backup to the backup plan.
“Sounds good. How are you getting through English without me?”
“It went from being my easiest subject to my hardest since you left.”
“That’s because you copied all of my homework and sat next to me for the tests,” I tease, although it’s true.
“So how is mute hot guy?”
“He talks now.”
“And…”
I sigh loudly as I roll onto my back on the bed. “Even his voice is sort of hot.”
“You got it bad if you think his voice is hot!” Ashley laughs.
“It’s not so much his voice, but how he says things. I can’t explain it. He has a quiet confidence about him, he doesn’t really ask when he wants something, he just sort of tells you with a crooked grin.”
“You like a bossy pants? I can’t believe it…I thought opposites attracted.”
“Hey!” I feign offense. “I’m not bossy. And he’s not a bossy pants…it’s more like a confidence.”
“Whatever. Does he know you like him?” she asks.
“I don’t know. He’s hard to read. Sometimes I think he does, and that he sort of likes me too. But then other times he just looks at me differently. Sort of blankly…like I’m not even there.”
“Hmmm…sounds like a catch.”
“Shut up!” I yell through my laughter.
“Maybe you should just jump his bones?”
“Great advice, coming from the girl with less experience than me.”
“I don’t have less experience than you. I have the same barely-worth-mentioning experience as you.”
We talk on the phone for another twenty minutes, catching up about school and our plans for after graduation. I tell her about my bet with Zack and how we’re meeting tonight, a few hours before our group is getting together to work on our project. He’s paying off his bet with a dinner at Meson Ole, his favorite Mexican restaurant. Before we hang up, Ashley tells me that, tomorrow, she’s going to put flowers on Mom’s grave for me.
“You remembered.”
“Of course I did.” We’re both silent for a minute. “Remember the time your mom tried to make teal cupcakes to match my hair for my fifteenth birthday? She decorated the entire trailer in teal crepe paper too? But the cupcakes turned out grey and the crepe paper stayed up for four months and then she announced it was an Easter decoration.”
I smile thinking of Ashley passing the gross cupcakes out to the neighbors after mom went to sleep, so we could pretend we ate them all.
“How could I forget?”
That was one of her manic periods, when mom was happy and liked to throw little parties for us. Mom had remembered Ashley’s birthday, but her own mother hadn’t.
A tear creeps down my cheek. Life was good. I had Mom and she had me. And I was lucky enough to find a friend like Ash.
***
“You look very pretty.” I come down the stairs a few minutes before Zack is due to pick me up. Aunt Claire spots me from the kitchen as she wipes down the counters.
“Thank you.”
“Cute boy in your project group?” She smiles, fishing for the reason why I’ve done my hair and makeup a little more than usual. I hope it’s not so obvious to Zack that I put in more effort tonight.
“Sort of,” I respond shyly. Boys weren’t ever something Mom and I spoke about. Between her illness and general paranoia about people’s intentions, I never wanted to add to her worry. It seems odd to talk to an adult about boys.
“Hmmm… Sort of cute? Doesn’t sound that exciting. Now, a resounding yes to cute, that I’d be interested in.”
Her sarcasm breaks the awkwardness that I feel discussing boys with her. At least a little. She looks so sincere. I sit down on one of the stools, across the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room.
“He’s cute. I meant that was sort of why I took a little time to get dressed. Is it that obvious? Did I overdo it?” Looking down, I examine my outfit for the hundredth time. I bite my lip pensively.
“It doesn’t really matter if it is, his jaw will be hanging open when he sees you in that sundress.” Aunt Claire replies warmly. “Do I know the boy? I know a lot of kids from the hospital, broken arms and all.” She unloads another glass from the dishwasher and reaches up to place it on the top shelf.
“I don’t know. His name is Zack Martin.” I turn, seeing his classic car pull up in front of the house. “There he is now.”
The glass Aunt Claire was reaching to put away slips from her hands, shattering all over the floor.
“Are you okay? Did you cut yourself?” I rush into the kitchen, sidestepping shards of glass as best I can.
“Uhmm….yes, yes. I’m fine. Just clumsy. Go. I don’t want you cutting yourself in here. Go have fun.” Her voice is a bit shaky, startled from the piercing sound of glass hitting the tile.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Have fun. Be home by midnight, please.”
***
Zack is just starting up the walkway when I open the front door. He looks up and I watch his eyes take me in. Slowly. They rake over me, dropping from my eyes to my glossed lips down to my exposed shoulders. Taking his time, he follows the neckline of my simple, yet body contouring sundress, lingering when he reaches my full breasts. I’m sufficiently covered, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t aware that the dress showed off my assets well. Tight around my chest, gathering snuggly at the waist, with a scant amount of cleavage. Just enough coverage to still leave something for him to imagine. And I watch his face change as his imagination takes off running.
His eyes drift down my legs, tanned now from the eternal California sun. Momentarily he’s lost in what he sees and doesn’t even notice I’m watching him leer. Totally worth the extra effort getting ready tonight, I couldn’t be happier at the reaction I get. Eventually, his eyes make their way back up to mine and I arch one eyebrow, letting him know he’s been caught. A normal reaction might be to look embarrassed or perhaps even flustered a little. But not Zack. Instead, he flashes me a wicked grin. “You look incredible.” He’s the one doing the leering, yet I’m the one who ends up blushing.
Chapter 22
Zack
We arrive at Meson Ole before it gets crowded. Nobody goes to dinner in Long Beach at six o’clock, except old people. Nikki and I are directed to a quiet spot in the back corner that overlooks the outside dinner deck and ocean beyond it.
“Unless you want to sit outside?” the half interested waitress says as she points to the table in the corner.
One glance at Nikki longingly gazing out the window at the water and I say, “An outside table would be great if you could manage that.”
I hold the deck door as Nikki walks out, my gentlemanly gesture rewarded by the first view of her from behind. Holy shit, this girl makes my pulse race more than running eight laps this afternoon did. And it completely throws me every time.
She’s sexy as hell, but it isn’t just her smokin’ curves in that form-fitting little sundress. There’s an honesty about her — something that makes her so real. In Kardashian California, everything is planned, performed and perfected. Except for Nikki.
“Zack? Are you going to just stand there holding the door or join me for dinner? I think th
e loser has to actually eat dinner with the winner, not just stare at her from afar.”
Caught fantasizing about Nikki’s ass, it’s my turn to blush— something Nikki does a lot. From the amused look on her face, I’m quite sure she knows exactly where the blush is rising from too. I don’t think for a second that she’s oblivious to the effect she has on me. It would be nearly impossible to miss.
“Is it too warm for you to sit outside?” I ask as the waitress glides past, heading back inside to get us a bowl of chips and salsa.
“I think you’re warmer than I am,” Nikki teases.
As I stand behind her to pull out her chair, a slight breeze catches Nikki’s sundress and exposes her upper thighs. Her petite hand catches it before it goes any higher and smoothes it under her as she quickly sits.
The table is small, intimate. Taking my seat across from her, I pick up the menu, hoping to distract myself from the pulsating sensation I feel everywhere. My leg brushes against her long smooth one under the table.
“What do you like best?” Nikki asks.
It takes me a few beats to realize we’re talking about the menu. Good… let’s stick to the menu. I can handle that.
“I haven’t been here in years. But I used to like the steak fajitas. I was a kid though.”
“I actually know a few adults who eat steak fajitas too.”
Before I can respond, the waitress returns.
“We’ll both have the steak fajitas…from the grown-up menu,” Nikki beats me to the punch, a mischievous smile on her face.
I smile, sitting back to soak in the freshness of whatever is brewing between us. My shoulders relax as I mentally begin to accept what my body has already surrendered to. From the corner of my eye, I notice a pretty, albeit artificial-looking, blonde teen and her mother are seated a few tables away. The girl looks strikingly like Emily. Suddenly, whatever I’d begun to accept seems oh so wrong.
