The Tomboy & The Movie Star: A Sweet YA Romance (Jackson High Series Book 3)

by M. L. Collins

  “Whoa, what?” How rough was lacrosse? “You didn’t tell me your goalie broke his—”

  “Relax. He broke it trying to moonwalk on a treadmill.” He turned back to the coach. “This is Grant Stutterfield. He just transferred from California and is a solid goalie.”

  “Coach, that’s not—” I started to say, only Grady smacked his elbow into my stomach.

  “I’m happy to see you. Welcome aboard, Grant.” Coach nodded. “Go ahead and run the captain’s warm ups, Grady.”

  “Yes, sir, coach.” Grady pulled me with him into the center of the field. “Bring it in, guys.”

  He motioned to two guys who joined the line with him. “Grant, these are the other co-captains with me. Dax and TJ. Guys, this is Grant. Grant’s our new goalie.”

  “Awesome,” Dax said, holding up his fist for a fist bump which I answered.

  “Grant…watch. Hand it over.” Grady held his hand out to me, wiggling his fingers for it.

  I handed it over.

  “Okay, everyone, listen up. Before we run warm-ups, we’re announcing a new fitness competition. You know how we run out of gas in the last ten minutes of every game? Right. That’s going to stop.” Grady held up the Garmin watch for all to see. “Team competition. Every player will take one turn at this new top secret workout program I found on line. All workouts will be judged on cardio, heart rate, max reps, and…”

  Grady slid his gaze over to me.

  “VO2 max levels,” I added. “It’s mostly Hiit training.”

  “We’ll go by jersey number starting with 1 and work up. That means you’re up first, Dax.” He handed the watch over to Dax who looked athletic.

  “Cool.” Dax stared down at the watch before latching it onto his wrist. “Not to brag, but I plan to set the bar high.”

  “What’s the prize for winning?” some guy called from the back of the circle.

  “Better fitness and more wins isn’t enough for you?” Grady shook his head.

  “The prize is a…” I glanced at Grady since I had no idea what guys in Texas considered a worthy prize.

  “A fifty-dollar gift card to Burger Barn,” Grady said to the enthusiasm of the whole team.

  “Works for me,” TJ said. “All right, let’s get warmed up.”

  Everyone spread out as Grady turned to give me a wide smile.

  “Done. Welcome to the team, Stutterfield.”

  I wasn’t sure what I’d gotten myself into, but the idea of playing a team sport was pretty sweet.

  “Since you’re not dressed to workout, I’ll have Rob coach you on basic goalie skills. Tomorrow you can start full practice.” Grady turned toward the sidelines where the cheerleaders were practicing and called into the bleachers. “Big Rob! Come down here and help our new goalie!”

  A dude taller and a lot wider than me grabbed up a pair of crutches and hobbled onto the field.

  After introductions were made, Grady jogged off and left me under the tutelage of Rob. He spent a half hour going over the basics of handling the goalie stick, covering the goal, and how to clear the ball downfield. Next, he handed me his goalie mask and pads to wear and he took some shots with me as goalie. It turned out there was way more to stopping the ball than standing in front of it.

  When coach called an end to practice, Rob shook his head and frowned at me. “How long have you played goalie?”

  “How long have we been practicing?” I asked, dragging the mask from my face.

  “You’ve never played goalie?” Rob nodded, looking relieved. “That explains it then. Okay, not a big deal. We can work together during practice and you’ll pick it up in no time.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him I’d never played lacrosse. He’d probably figure that out at tomorrow’s practice.

  Grady walked over and slapped my back. “How’d it go?”

  “If you, Dax and TJ play stellar offense and never let the opposing team get their stick on the ball, then it’ll be awesome,” Rob said. “Any other scenario and it’ll be a bloodbath. As far as goalies go, Grant needs a lot of work.”

  “Yeah, me being goalie is not looking like a great idea.”

  “You’ll be fine. Any goalie is better than no goalie. Besides, this will be fun,” Grady said. “Tomorrow we’ll get you your uniform and goalie equipment.”

  The team scattered in different directions. Most of the team headed up the hill toward the student parking lot. TJ wandered over to the bleachers mumbling something about finding some girl, and Dax stayed on the field with the watch doing the first workout.

  “Dax is probably heading to college on a football scholarship, so his workout numbers will be stellar.” Grady nodded in Dax’s direction. “Are you worried about your trainer figuring out you aren’t doing your own workouts?”

  “I’ll tell her I had an espresso if she questions it.” I wasn’t worried. Even though I hadn’t played team sports, I was a good athlete. “She’s pretty smart. She’ll figure it out before half the team has taken turns. But at least she can stop worrying before she gets pissed at me. Heck, maybe Will Smith will pull a muscle and distract her.”

  “Your trainer trains Will Smith?” Grady’s eyes went wide. “That’s pretty cool.”

  “Speaking of pretty cool…” Really dumb segue, but I needed information. “Do you know Bernie Jewell? What’s her deal?”

  “Bernie? Yeah, I know Bernie. What do you mean?” Grady asked, giving me the side-eye.

  “Well, like does she have a boyfriend?”

  “Not that I know of. I’ve been hanging around her more now because of Lacey.” He shrugged. “I know she’s nice and smart. I also learned she’s ferocious if you hurt one of her friends.”

  “Yeah, I saw that Friday night.” I’d gone to the talent showcase since Bernie had said she was going. Some fight between Lacey and Grady blew up. As near as I could tell, Bernie stepped in when it looked like Grady was going to bail on her best friend. “That was totally awesome the way she lit into you to protect Lacey.”

  “Ferocious Bernie makes me nervous, but I deserved it for sure.” Grady ran a hand around his neck and grinned. “Are you looking to ask her out?”

  I shrugged.

  “Because you like her? Or is this for research?”

  I opened my mouth to respond, but Grady cut me off.

  “I’m going to have to tell you not to mess with Bernie if it’s just research.” Grady tipped his head toward a group of cheerleaders. “I’ve got some research for you. Go over there and ask Ashley out. She’s the captain of the varsity cheerleaders.”

  “But I don’t want to go out with her.” The girl in question was pretty. She had a bright cheerleader smile and short shorts to show off her long legs.

  “Not a problem. You’re a nobody nerd. Just ask and you’ll see.” Grady gave me a push in the cheerleader’s direction. “Go. Go and learn, king of the nerds. Haha, see what I did there?”

  “Yeah, you’re hilarious.” I stumbled over with my gangly nerd stride, until I stood a few feet away from Ashley and her friends. She glanced at me and away again as she continued telling her friends about some new nail polish she wanted to try.

  “Excuse me, Ashley?” I cleared my throat and pushed my glasses up with a finger at the bridge of my nose while I waited long seconds for Ashley to turn her head.

  “Do I know you?” She raked her gaze down to my shoes and back again, looking very unimpressed. “Oh, are you the new guy from California?”

  “Th-that’s me.” I looked down at my shoes before looking back into her face. “I was wondering if you’d like to go out. You know, with me.”

  “Oh honey, bless your heart.” Ashley’s attention snagged on one of the lacrosse players over my shoulder. “That’s never going to happen. But you get points for trying.”

  Her friends snickered beside her and the snickers turned to outright laughter after I turned and walked away.

  Grady grinned at me. “Bet you’ve never experienced that before.”
>
  “Nope. Can’t say that I have.”

  7

  Getting “Jumped” by the Awkward Nerd

  Bernie

  Tuesday after school

  When the last bell rang at the end of seventh period, I followed the stream of kids out the front door into the late-winter afternoon. These were the days to appreciate before the black asphalt in the parking lot was hot enough to cook a pizza on.

  I reached into the zippered pocket of my backpack for my car keys.

  “Isn’t it an amazing day?” Lacey said as we walked out to my car together. “The sun is shining, the birds are singing, and my cute pink flats made it through the day without scuff marks.”

  “I didn’t think you could get any perkier, but you did.” I fought the urge to both roll my eyes and grin. I was happy Lacey and Grady were a couple now. It was just that now that my best friend finally had time to listen to me complain about the things happening in my life—I couldn’t stand to bring her down. What she and Grady had was too new. “I guess I can handle your brain on love.”

  “Looking good, Lacey!” some guy called out from the group of guys leaning up against a bright red Camaro.

  Lacey was one of those perky, outgoing girls with friends in almost every clique in school. She was a joiner. She was president of the pep club and on the newspaper and yearbook staff. She dressed up for school in cute outfits, cute shoes, and cute hair styles. Pretty much my opposite.

  “Who’s the dude with you?” the guy called again.

  Ugh. I notched up my chin and kept walking.

  “Just ignore it,” Lacey said, hooking her arm through my elbow, moving us past the jocks and over to my car.

  That sounded like good advice because I was pretty sure the comments had come from John Ryan. Every time the guy opened his mouth it was clear he’d forgotten to pay his brain bill. “Like I care what a bunch of immature, shallow jocks think about me.”

  “Not all the jocks are jerks. TJ and Dax for instance.” Lacey grinned. “Or Grady.”

  “I know.” And I normally ignored guys like John Ryan but it seemed like I was having to ignore a lot of kids lately. I didn’t understand why so many kids cared one whit what I looked like or that I didn’t fit in. I mean, how did that affect them?

  I opened my door and automatically lowered the side window to let fresh air in. Lacey did the same on her side while I removed the sun visor from the front windshield, tucking it behind the driver’s seat.

  My phone sounded with an incoming text, so I checked it since the only people who texted me these days were my grandmas, Lacey, Grant or work.

  Yep, it was my manager texting the new schedule. I clicked the link to check and…what the heck?

  “Unbelievable. They cut back my hours at work. And gave them to Todd.” I threw myself behind the wheel and counted to three. Yes, Todd and I both worked at Al’s Garage. Luckily we rarely worked the same days. “My manager knows I need the hours.”

  “Is this the same dude who hinted you weren’t strong enough to handle the work?” Lacey snapped from the passenger seat, already affronted for me.

  “Same dude. Of course, he didn’t have the nerve to pull this when my dad was around.” My dad had been the head mechanic of the garage for over ten years. Even though my dad tried to keep it from me, I knew there were a few employees who were unhappy about me working there.

  “You don’t want to hear this—and it’s totally not fair—but I think you’re going to have to prove you’re just as good a technician as Todd.” Lacey’s gaze bored into mine. “You’re going to have to enter the state competition again.”

  “No way. I’m not doing that.”

  “Bernie, tell me you aren’t doubting yourself.”

  “I know I’m a good mechanic.” I did. But that didn’t mean my confidence hadn’t taken a beating last year. I wasn’t a glutton for punishment. If self-esteem were poker chips, my stack seemed to deplete daily. Last year’s competition was me pushing all my chips into the pot, and that hadn’t worked out at all.

  “Do you?” Lacey frowned at me.

  “Yes.”

  “Then why don’t you fight for your job? Go talk to your manager. Or tell your dad what’s going on.”

  “I’m not worrying my dad over this. His deployment is stressful enough.”

  “Okay, I get that. But the competition isn’t only about proving you’re just as good a mechanic as any guy.” Lacey placed her hand on my forearm. “Are you forgetting the top finishers get scholarship money?”

  Nope. That was the whole reason I’d entered last year. Tech school wasn’t cheap and my blue-collar family had been living paycheck to paycheck for years. It had taken all of my mom’s life insurance and Dad’s savings to pay off mom’s medical bills.

  “Hang on, I just had a thought… Maybe my manager cut my hours because he’s giving me the state inspection job I applied for." I knew Todd had applied for the job also, but I’d submitted my application first and had been working at the garage longer. “That would totally explain the change in my hours.”

  “Oh, okay. Then I’ll allow your manager to live another day without getting his house TP’ed.”

  The image of Lacey with her good girl reputation tossing rolls of toilet paper into my boss’s trees made me laugh as I inserted the key to start the car and…nothing.

  “Oh, flippin’ Froot Loops. Dead battery,” I groaned. Dang it, I should have just asked Lolli for the money until I got my paycheck. “I’m sorry, Lacey. This is all my fault.”

  “It’s okay. We’ll just get a jump,” she said before popping her head out the window and calling across the parking lot to the nearest group of guys. Just my luck, Todd Black was there. “Hey, guys! Would one of you give us a jump start?”

  “Sure, Lacey. But only if you put it in the yearbook that Bernie asked me to jump her.”

  Ugh, John Ryan again. Idiot.

  “No thanks, John.” I leaned down to glare out Lacey’s window at him. “I’d rather walk across the width of Texas with a handful of rattlesnakes and two scorpions in my pocket.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  I turned to the voice out my window. Grant.

  “Just give me a second to pull my car around.” Grant straightened up from where he leaned against his Ford Focus.

  “That would be great,” I said.

  Grant gave me a wink as he grabbed his keys from his pocket and slid into his car.

  A wink? From Grant? Aaaand now my palms were suddenly sweaty. Sweaty palms simply because Grant was going to jump my dead battery? How dumb was that? Don’t answer. I knew I was being ridiculous.

  “You really should be better at vehicle maintenance, Bernard.” Todd stood leaning against his Jeep Cherokee, enjoying the situation. “It’s almost like you aren’t a very good mechanic. Do you want me to let work know you’re going to be late today?”

  I narrowed my gaze at Todd who laughed in my face before jumping into his Jeep and peeling out of the parking lot.

  Reaching down under my dash, I pulled the handle to unlatch the hood. I exited my car, walked around to the front, and slid my hand under the hood to depress the safety latch. Lifting the hood, I swung up the slender rod to hold it open, managing to poke myself in the eye in the process. Ow. Nice move, Bernie.

  I tried to ignore Grant’s car as it wound its way through the parking lot, but the closer he got, the more my nerves jangled. It was an awful lot like when I’d watched the movie Jaws with my brothers Brodie and Bryce a few summers ago. I’d had the same jangly-nerve feeling while watching the shark fin circle the swimmer, getting closer and closer and closer until—

  “Bernie?”

  “Yeah?” I blinked over at Lacey.

  “Close your door so he can pull his car beside yours.”

  “Right.” I blinked again to see Grant waiting about ten feet away from me, a small crooked grin on his face. Oh, boy. I darted around to shut my door and scooted out of the way as he pulled forward unt
il his car sat two feet from mine. His engine cut, his hood unlatched with a pop, and then he was out and around the front end to lift the hood.

  When he turned to look at me, prickly heat rushed over my face. What the heck? I saw the guy in class three days a week. So why was his brown gaze making me jumbled?

  “Jumper cables? I know you have a set.”

  “Jumper cables?” I repeated, standing staring at him until Lacey elbowed me in the ribs. “Oh! Yes, jumper cables. In my trunk. Let me grab them.” I spun around, moving down to the trunk of my car where I managed to hide my face for thirty seconds so I could pull myself together.

  “Can’t find them?” Grant asked from right next to me, which startled me into standing up so fast I hit the back of my head on the trunk.

  “Ouch.” Cheese and crackers that hurt. Rubbing one hand on the blossoming knot, I sucked in a breath through my teeth and refocused on the contents of my trunk. I ran my gaze over everything, hoping the cables were easily at hand so I could hurry this whole thing up. Except, there was a lot to look through: my grandma Gigi’s accordion, a stack of books, a crate of old car parts for my lamps, my tool box, spare coveralls along with a change of clothes, a case of water, first aid kit, fire extinguisher, spare towels, and two rolls of duct tape because you just never knew.

  “Wow. What are you, one of those end-of-the-world preppers or something?” Grant asked.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being prepared for a roadside emergency.” I shot him a narrow-eyed glance. Sure the contents of my trunk said “Caution: Nerdy girl mechanic on board” but I wasn’t embarrassed. Much.

  “What’s with the accordion?” His hand waved toward my trunk.

  “It’s a musical instrument.” I wasn’t going to get into the fact that I was such a dork that I was spending hours a week for a two-minute laugh for my grandma. I grabbed the stack of books out of the way, shoving them into Grant’s hands so I could keep digging.

  “Fifty Shades of Grey?” He read off the first title in the stack. “Interesting.”

  “It’s not what you think it is,” I said, mostly managing not to blush. It wasn’t the famous erotica book. No, this Fifty Shades of Gray (notice the different spelling of “gray”) was a cozy mystery book about a group of elderly women solving murder cases. I was reading it to the Book Babe Book Club at Shady Acres nursing home. I grabbed the book from his hands, shoved it back in my trunk and kept looking. “Ah ha! Here they are.”