Life in the No-Dating Zone

by Patricia B Tighe

  Maybe Lindsey would like Gray more after a grand gesture. There was a chance. She really liked anything dramatic. And if he was going to do something, it would have to be tonight before Adam got home tomorrow.

  I carried the slippery, laughing baby into the house. If I could convince Gray to do something big, then maybe I could let it slip to Amy Acton that something had happened. Just to make sure Adam found out about it. And maybe, just maybe, I could help Lindsey and Adam toward their breakup. Because it seemed completely inevitable to me. He was a jerk. She deserved better.

  Guilt rose up in me, but I preoccupied myself with toweling off Jack. This was for the best. And probably called for my angry purple glasses.

  I couldn’t wait to talk to Gray.

  Thirty-Five

  Gray

  Across the Y’s game room, someone shoved their chair back with a loud screech.

  “What?” I asked, my mind swimming like I’d just taken a baseball to the skull.

  Rose’s wide smiled faded. She peeked at Sam, then back at me. I squirmed. “Sorry,” she said. “Weren’t y’all talking about Claire?”

  Sam took her hand. “It’s okay. We were. Just not the way you thought.”

  How could I get out of this? Maybe grab my brothers and hightail it to the car? I forced out a laugh. “Yeah, not that way.”

  I expected Rose to get all flushed and embarrassed, but she didn’t. Instead she just stared at me. I was getting that a lot lately. She even narrowed her eyes for a sec. “Don’t you think maybe we should?” she asked.

  “Should what?” I asked automatically. Stupid, stupid. Asking her a question was not the best way to get out of this.

  “Don’t play dumb,” she said.

  Sam tried to help. “Give him a break, Rose.”

  “No.”

  “No?” Sam and I asked at the same time.

  “No.” She rested her arms on the table and leaned toward me. “You’ve been hanging around my best friends. I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but somebody’s going to get hurt. And I don’t like that.”

  Wait a second. Where did she get off? I wasn’t hurting anyone.

  Sam caressed the back of her head. “Babe—”

  “Well?” she asked.

  I took out my keys. “I’m not gonna hurt anyone.” I stood. “I have to get my brothers home.”

  “Hang on, man,” Sam said. “Don’t go. Rose needs to tell you what she’s talking about.”

  She lifted her arms and sat back as if she were dealing with idiots.

  “You do,” he said.

  She glared at me. “I thought I was pretty clear.”

  Sam tugged her closer. “It’s clear you’re angry, but Gray doesn’t know why.” He motioned to me. “Go ahead, sit back down. Let’s get all this crap out in the open.”

  Crap? What the heck was going on? I really didn’t want to sit around listening to someone gripe. But Rose was Claire’s friend. Maybe there was something I needed to know before I talked to Claire. I made eye contact with Sam. He gave me a small nod. I dropped into my seat still holding my keys, ready to bolt if I needed to.

  Rose flipped her hair back over her shoulder. “I’ll just come right out and say it. When you kissed Lindsey at the party the other night, Claire looked like she’d just been slapped.”

  “What?” Claire upset? What did that mean?

  “And Claire says you like Lindsey, even though both Lindsey and I have been thinking you were interested in Claire.”

  They were? Why? And would Claire actually have told Lindsey everything? “She said that?”

  Rose frowned. “Something like that. We teased her, but she kept saying y’all were just friends.”

  “But—”

  “So I’d like to know what’s going on, because you may not want to hurt anyone, but you already have.”

  I squeezed the cool metal of my keys. I couldn’t believe Claire had been hurt. Did that mean she liked me? It sounded like it. But maybe Rose hadn’t read that right. Maybe Claire’s “slapped” look was because of something completely different.

  And why would Claire tell Lindsey I liked her? When this all started, she’d said she didn’t want to be a go-between. And if she told Lindsey that much, what else had she told her about me? I stood before I realized I was going to. This was a mess. I had to talk to Claire.

  “Look, I didn’t mean to hurt Claire. I need to talk to her.”

  Rose held up a hand. “Wait. You haven’t—”

  “Sorry. Go straight to the source, right?”

  Sam lifted his chin. “Good luck.”

  “Thanks.” I left before Rose could say anything else, rounded up my brothers, and tried to put a cap on the psyched feeling rushing through me. Claire might like me. And there was only one way to find out for sure.

  ***

  I paced in the shade of a tree beside my car at Granger Park, rehearsing my speech. Okay, not a real speech, but enough of one it was probably going to sound stupid. I just didn’t want to forget anything I needed to say to Claire.

  She was supposed to show up any minute. My pulse picked up. What was I doing? I couldn’t tell a girl how I felt about her. The whole thing was crazy. And sure to result in a slow death as she tried to tell me nicely she didn’t feel the same way.

  I lifted the back of my T-shirt collar away from my sweaty neck. I needed something to do. I scanned the park grounds for anything interesting. A long grassy slope ended in a new playground in primary colors. Currently about ten kids ran wild over it while some adults sat on benches watching the chaos. A couple of boys played catch nearby.

  Huh. I could’ve brought my brothers. That would’ve given me more time to be with Claire before I had to pick them up. And more time for them to interrupt us. Don’t be stupid, Gray. Forget Travis and Marcus. The speech. Practice the speech.

  I cleared my throat. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  “What is it?” Claire asked.

  I wheeled around, feeling like parts of my body got flung out into space, then snapped back again. Painfully. Claire stood there, a fountain drink in one hand, her lips pressed together like she was trying not to laugh. “Gah!” I said. “Have you been practicing ninja moves or something? I didn’t hear you at all.”

  She flicked her fingers toward me. “That move looked kind of ninja-like.”

  My mind still hadn’t caught up to the fact that she was right in front of me. I shook my head. Maybe a joke would help. “You could’ve killed me. I could’ve rolled down the hill and bashed into one of those trees and died. You would’ve had a lot of explaining to do.” Not real funny, but I’d said worse things.

  Claire grinned and I fought the sudden urge to lean in and kiss her. “Never would’ve happened,” she said. “I would’ve activated my superpowers and flown down to save you.”

  I widened my eyes dramatically. “You can fly? I’ve known you since kindergarten and you wait until now to tell me?”

  “It’s on a need-to-know basis.” She wiggled her eyebrows, then closed her lips around her straw.

  I need to know everything about you. No way I could say that. I stepped closer though. “Just assume I always need to know.”

  She choked on her drink and turned away from me. “Sounds”—cough, cough—“menacing.”

  I patted her on the back. “You okay?”

  “Yeah. Need a sec.”

  “All right.” I kept my hand on her warm back until she straightened with a noisy inhale through the nostrils.

  “I’m good now,” she said, looking at me through watery eyes.

  Something was different. I couldn’t tell exactly what it was—standard for me since girls are like 5,000-piece puzzles—but I got the sense I’d better say something quick. Had she changed her hair? No. It was back in a ponytail, though not the messy one she’d had that morning.

  She took off her glasses to wipe under her eyes and it hit me. Her glasses. They were purple. And they hadn’t da
rkened into shades. “Did you get new glasses? They’re nice.”

  “No, I have lots, but thanks.” She slid them back on. “These are my angry glasses.”

  Whoa, wait. She was angry? Didn’t seem like a good time to tell her I liked her. I’d have to see how the conversation went. “Are you mad about something?”

  She motioned across the park. “Let’s walk.”

  We headed down the slope toward the swing set. Even though the city had torn down the old playground to make room for the new one, they’d left the old swing set up. Just added new swings. Guess the metal stand was too sturdy to get rid of. Thankfully it stood far enough away from the playground that we wouldn’t be bothered by kids. And it was unoccupied.

  Claire didn’t say anything, and after a minute of listening to the children’s shrieks and a plane droning overhead, I couldn’t take it anymore. “What’s wrong?”

  She didn’t answer right away. Instead, she shook her head a little like she was having some kind of internal argument. When she finally spoke, her voice sounded tight. “Adam Castro is a complete jerk.”

  “I could’ve told you that. What happened?”

  “Nothing really. He just insulted me in a text and I made Lindsey tell me what he said. Now I wish I hadn’t.”

  My hands curled into fists, which surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. I knew I was protective of her. We made it to the swing set and each sank onto one of the contoured plastic seats. “Why were they talking about you?”

  “They weren’t. She was telling me about his romantic texts—” Claire touched my forearm, her fingers cold from her cup. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. You don’t want to hear about Adam and Lindsey’s relationship.”

  “Nah, it’s okay. I know she’s really into him.” Okay, here goes. Don’t screw this up. “That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about.” I couldn’t look her in the eye, so I dug the heels of my sneakers into the soft dirt. “I’ve realized I don’t really like Lindsey anymore.”

  “What?” Her voice had gone up in pitch. Just like when she was nervous.

  I blundered on, my words rushing out. “I mean, I do like her, but just as a friend. Since I’ve gotten to know her, I’ve realized we’re too different to date. I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner, I guess I was just caught up in how cool I thought she was.”

  I chanced a look up. Claire’s jaw had fallen open, and when our gazes met, she snapped her mouth shut. “Oh.” She shoved her cup at me—which almost spilled all over my lap—then jumped up and paced in front of the swing set. “This is a problem.”

  “Why?”

  She waved a hand. “Hang on. I need to think.”

  Um, okay. It was starting to look like this was a really bad time to tell her I liked her. But if I waited, I might lose my nerve.

  It was kind of hypnotic watching her walk back and forth, her ponytail bouncing, her lips moving while she talked to herself. Any other time, I would’ve been happy to sit there checking her out, but right now too much needed to be said.

  She finally slowed her steps and stopped, staring into the distance. I almost started talking, but the thoughtful look on her face made me keep my mouth shut. She came back and sat on the swing, wrapping her fingers around the chains. She smiled weirdly. Almost like even though she’d lost a puppy, it was up to her to make me feel better. “I had the best idea.”

  Thirty-Six

  Claire

  Gray frowned. Not in an angry way—more in a confused way. He looked adorable, his blue eyes questioning me. He didn’t like Lindsey! That news made me want to jump up and down like a five-year-old. I wouldn’t, of course. I needed to keep a tight rein on this crush. In fact, I needed to strangle it. I still planned to keep my vow. But it didn’t change the fact that I wanted to reach over and rub out the line between his eyebrows. That, however, would involve touching—a seriously bad idea.

  I guess I’d better enlighten him. Not that I’d tell him everything about my plan to get rid of Adam. I wasn’t particularly proud of it.

  “What idea?” he asked.

  If I kept staring into those blue eyes, I’d never complete a sentence. I pushed off the ground to get my swing going. “Um, I thought we were going to plan your grand gesture toward Lindsey, but I guess not, huh?”

  He leaned away to place my drink in the grass, then started up his swing. “No. But tell me your plan anyway.”

  “Oh, it was going to be great. So romantic. You’d stand outside Lindsey’s window with pink roses in your hand and I’d hide. Then you could say whatever you wanted, and if you went blank, I could whisper stuff to you.”

  Our swings were alternating, creating a breeze between us. Gray gazed over every time we passed. “There are a lot of problems with that plan, but one in particular.”

  “Yeah?”

  We passed each other three times before he finally answered. Almost as if he’d changed his mind about what he was about to say. “Didn’t you think I might be freaked out to have you witness the catastrophe of me talking to Lindsey?”

  I laughed. “No. You’ve been doing better and better every day.”

  “Thanks, but I think I’d rather be embarrassed alone.”

  “There was even a costume involved.”

  He twisted, making his swing wobble. “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I borrowed a Phantom outfit from the theater department at school. I figured you would feel more confident if part of you was hidden.”

  He pumped his legs, getting his swing to move smoothly again. “I don’t know whether to feel insulted or touched that you’d go to so much trouble.”

  A thought struck me and I blurted it out before I could stop myself. “I don’t suppose you’d want to do the grand gesture anyway? I mean, since I went to so much trouble.” I lifted my eyebrows, trying to look sweet and innocent. What was the chance he’d do it? Just to help me get rid of Adam? Probably zero.

  He stopped his swing. “What for?”

  I stopped too but then wished I hadn’t. What was I thinking? If I told him, he’d think I was being mean—a stereotypical manipulative high school girl. Which was kind of true.

  “Claire?”

  Great. I had to tell him now. There was no getting around it. I couldn’t think of a lie fast enough. “Um, remember how I don’t like Adam very much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “News of a guy talking to Lindsey outside her window at night would probably get back to him, which would cause trouble, and maybe Lindsey would realize what a jerk he is and they’d break up.”

  Gray tilted his head. “You really want them to break up that badly?”

  I twisted my swing so I wouldn’t have to focus on the confused look in his eyes. The chains crossed overhead. I continued to twist around. What should I say? I really didn’t want to analyze the situation. I just wanted Adam gone.

  When I didn’t answer, Gray spoke up. “I mean, she really likes him. Don’t you think it’d be better to let the break-up happen on its own?”

  No. I tightened my grip on the swing’s warm metal chains. “I guess. It’s just … I don’t know.”

  “Maybe you could hang around Lindsey only when Adam isn’t there.”

  For some reason, that comment made my face go hot like when I was about to cry.

  Gray must have realized something was wrong because he backtracked. “I’m not saying you should ditch your friend, just avoid Adam.”

  I already do. And I’d like one friend to hang out with who wouldn’t rather be with her boyfriend. Ugh. I needed to get away from that feeling as quickly as possible. I let my swing unwind until it jerked me to a stop. “So that’s a no on the grand gesture?” I tried to keep my tone light, but my throat burned from holding everything in. I sounded like I was about to lose it.

  “Listen.” Gray gently pried my hand off the chain and engulfed it in both of his. Like he cared. He caressed my knuckles with his thumb, sending electricity skittering up my arm. “I don’t like Ca
stro much either, but no, I don’t think I can do the grand gesture thing.” He cleared his throat. “And I have a good reason besides th—”

  “Look out!” a little kid yelled, seconds before a softball banged into Gray’s ankle.

  He dropped my hand and bent over. “Fuffshhzzz.”

  I jumped up. A little boy jogged toward us but slowed to a walk when he saw me. “Be careful!” I said in my best mad-babysitter voice.

  “Sorry,” the kid mumbled, then snatched up the ball and ran back to his waiting friend.

  I squatted down beside Gray, who was rubbing his ankle. “Is it bad?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “Liar.”

  He expelled a big breath, puffing out his cheeks. “It hurts, but not like it’s broken or anything.”

  “Let me see.” He moved his hands away to reveal a nasty red mark on his outer ankle bone. “Wow. I didn’t think the ball was coming that fast.”

  “Me neither. Took a lucky bounce, I guess.”

  That made me smile—it was so Gray. “Sorry I didn’t fly in and save you.”

  We laughed together, hunched down and squatting in front of the swing set. We must have looked weird—awkward position, grinning like fools—but I could’ve stayed like that forever. Just staring into his sparkling blue eyes, comfortable being near him. He was so easy to be with. Would we stay friends now that he didn’t need me anymore? With Lindsey out of the picture, we might not have anything to talk about.

  Gray must have been having serious thoughts too because his smile faded, his face turning intent. “Claire, I …” He placed his fingers on my shoulder.

  What was he doing? A shockwave of tingles rolled down my back. I jerked, knocking myself off balance and landing on my butt in the dirt. “Dang it!”

  He let out a brief laugh. “You okay?”