Head Games

by Nicole Leigh Shepherd

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  One

  two

  three

  four

  five

  six

  seven

  eight

  nine

  ten

  eleven

  twelve

  thireteen

  fourteen

  fifteen

  sixteen

  seventeen

  eigthteen

  nineteen

  twenty

  twenty-one

  twenty-two

  twenty-three

  twenty-four

  twenty-five

  twenty-six

  twenty-seven

  twenty-eight

  twenty-nine

  thirty

  thirty-one

  thirty-two

  thirty-three

  thirty-four

  thirty-five

  thirty-six

  thirty-seven

  thirty-eight

  thirty-nine

  forty

  forty-one

  forty-two

  forty-three

  forty-four

  forty-five

  forty-six

  forty-seven

  forty-eight

  forty-nine

  fifty

  fifty-one

  fifty-two

  fifty-three

  fifty-four

  fifty-five

  fifty-six

  fifty-seven

  fifty-eight

  fifty-nine

  sixty

  sixty-one

  sixty-two

  sixty-three

  sixty-four

  sixty-five

  Acknowledgements

  Head Games

  RAZORBILL

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group

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  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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  eISBN : 978-1-101-51311-8

  eISBN : 978-1-101-51311-8

  Series credited by Jane Schonberger

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  This book is dedicated to every girl who has dared to dream, especially the original Pretty Tough girls, Alex and Maddie, and the newest Pretty Tough girl, Kaci Olivia. You are all such an inspiration.

  One

  Nothing “Monday morning story worthy” ever happens to me. Excitement is saved for the gorgeous girls at Beachwood Academy. You know the ones who, even when they’re not looking for it, find fun in the most peculiar places. Like shopping: “Can you believe (insert movie star’s name here) asked us to lunch?” Or while walking the dog: “Can you believe (insert hot guy here) pulled up (insert hotter car here) and asked me to go to (insert even hotter club here) on Saturday night?” Gripping an orange ball inside the paint is about as exciting as it gets for me.

  But then, bright and early one Saturday morning, everything changed, and my life instantly became story worthy.

  After completing my usual Saturday morning routine (Breakfast? Check. Beachwood Sun sports section? Check. Obsessively thinking about our big game against Richland? Check. Dreaming of being in the WNBA? Check.), I throw my thick brown hair into a messy ponytail and take off toward the wooden boardwalk trail that ends at my fave California coast basketball court, only a few yards from the crashing aquamarine waves. The worn wooden path is completely and utterly deserted except for a couple early morning joggers. If I’m lucky today, I’ll spot some serious eye candy. Just as I’m thinking this, my cell phone buzzes.

  FR: BANANA:

  CALL ME ASAP!!!!!!!!

  I quickly text back my BFF Hannah Montgomery AKA “Banana”:

  TO: BANANA:

  FREAKING ABOUT FASHION SHOW AGAIN?

  Staring at my reflection in the phone, I run my fingers under my brown eyes to erase the leftover mascara marks from one of Banana’s makeovers. (She says mascara is a must for my wideset eyes). Then I go online and leave a good morning post on fellow freshman Chloe’s wall. Chloe’s so sweet to post on my wall this morning, even though she’s been out with the flu.

  FR: BANANA:

  YES! MEET ME @ CAF. ASAP.

  Hannah hearts her ASAPs. I shove my phone inside my royal blue Beachwood Academy basketball bag and break into a jog. I hate to be late. Plus, Coach makes us run suicides for every second we’re tardy. Not fun.

  The trail veers off at the recreation complex, an elaborate facility that houses a skate park, basketball and volleyball courts, a gym—complete with full-size Olympic pool—and a sauna, among other exciting features. (Well, exciting for people like me who are totally obsessed with sports.) When I reach the end of the path, I look up. And there he is: Zachary Michael Murphy. Just like he has been for the past six mornings in a row. Only this time he’s alone. The court lights, still on from the night before, shine on him, as he successfully makes jump shot after jump shot. Leave it to him to never be too far from the spotlight.

  Zachary Murphy. My future boyfriend (I wish) and the only guy in the entire high school who checks off on my boyfriend must-have—height. And he happens to be nice, way older (he started kindergarten a year late—plus, he’s a junior), athletic, and hot, too. I swear I’m not shallow. (He’s not the most popular guy at school. Christopher Phillips is.) And it’s not like I’ve had a boyfriend, or even a kiss before, to actually understand must-haves. But I know what I need. Because, let’s face it, I’m kind of walking around with a serious boyfriend handicap: my height.

  I’m not just tall. I’m mega tall. Six feet. Seventy-two and three-quarter inches. And my doctor says I’m not even done growing yet. I’m taller than everyone at Beachwood Academy except exactly nine male teachers, three coaches, the principal, the E-wing janitor, and one student—and fourteen others with future height potential (because of their ginormous feet).

  This explains my other nicknames over the years: Towering Taylor Thomas, Giraffe, Horse, Elephant, and another one about my anatomy, but I prefer not to think about that one right now.

  “Hey,” Zach says,
smiling and balancing a bright orange basketball on his hip. Yum.

  “Hey.”The words barely make it across my lips because (a) this is Zach, and he has never said “hi” to me before (well, except for after an AAU game when a bunch of my friends went over to his house to hang out with his sister Zoe—but that doesn’t even really count because he was saying “hi” to the whole group of us). And (b) I can’t breathe because according to Zach’s status (which I’ve recently begun reading religiously), my height-appropriate soul-mate is at long last single.

  Last week, after I finally mustered up enough courage to friend-request Zach (mainly so I could stare at his page and possibly drag some pics of him onto my desktop), I logged onto my account and was shocked to discover that he had friend-requested me first. Me. Naturally, I rubbed my eyes (not once but three times) and logged off and then on again because I assumed I must have accidentally signed onto Hannah’s account or something. Of course, when I finally realized that I had read his request correctly, I accepted it in less than seven seconds. Since then, I’ve been checking (not stalking, I swear) Zach’s page daily. Okay, and sometimes even hourly from my phone depending on how much time I have on my hands.

  But last night at exactly ten twenty-seven, something happened. His relationship status changed from “in a relationship with Kylie Collins” to single. Yes, S-I-N-G-L-E.

  “Want to play?” Zach asks. Before I can answer, he sets up and shoots.

  Swish.

  I look up at the sky for a second, wondering if his nowex-girlfriend is hovering above us in an aircraft. For a second, I picture Kylie Collins hanging out of an army helicopter with an AK-47 in hand, ready to light me up.

  He bounce-passes the basketball to me. My instincts take over, and I feel for the familiar seams, set up, and shoot.

  When the ball plunges through the net, I meet Zach’s chocolate eyes and spot his teeny eye-sprinkles. See, if you get close enough, Zach’s acorn eyes have tiny amber speckles. I did. Get close enough. Once. It happened exactly two weeks ago. While running between my first and second period classes, I stumbled and accidentally slammed into Zach, launching him four steps back and spilling the contents of my pale blue Nike bag all over the floor. It was like a bad slow-mo action scene. But, being the super sweet guy he is, Zach stopped and squatted immediately, gathering my stuff. But, what did he pick up? Not the pack of Extra Polar Ice gum or the tube of L’Occitane lip balm my mom forces me to carry around. No. Instead, he seized my annual handmade bedazzled birthday card to my aunt. Don’t ask. It’s a tradition. And not a tradition I ever wanted Zach to find out about.

  Interrupting my eye-sprinkle-related daydream, Zach retrieves the ball and bounce-passes it to me. Just then, I catch the court lights refracting off the very same eye-sprinkles I’d been thinking about. Perfect. Meanwhile, the ball continues to bounce and bounce until it rolls onto the sand.

  I allow myself another moment to fully take Zach in. He’s wearing his Beachwood basketball fleece with jeans pulled low on his hips. Just low enough, in fact, that when he lifts up his arms to shoot, his fleece inches up to show off the tan smooth cuts of his lower back muscles. Yum. He runs his fingers through his dark hair, and I feel a wave of heat rush through my body.

  “Uh. You don’t have to play if you don’t want to.” He grins.

  I look down at my practice clothes—vintage gray cotton shorts with the word Basketball written across my butt, a birthday present from my aunt two summers ago. Yup. The butt shorts. The ones that don’t exactly do wonders for my pale legs.

  Why? Why did I wear these shorts today? Of all days . . . Oh, that’s right. They were my only clean shorts because Mom has been M.I.A. lately (meaning no wash), and I figured a Saturday practice meant zero chance of a Zach sighting. (According to last night’s status, Zach was out late last night surfing with Nick.) And even if by the slightest chance I did see Zach, I figured that there was no way he was going to look at me, let alone my butt.

  See, this is against all social rules. Zachary Murphy doesn’t hang out alone with girls like me. I mean, since I started shooting baskets here first thing in the morning in the beginning of September, Zach hasn’t even noticed me. He hangs out with tiny girls like Kylie, Chloe, and Missy. That’s just the way things work at Beachwood. Once in a while, guys like Zach will maybe talk to me, or text me, or even message me. But most of the time, I’m like a chess piece to strategically place in line in order to snag Hannah or another cute girl I happen to hang out with—girls who hold their heads up high and proudly stick their butts out when they wear gray shorts with words written across their cheeks, instead of feeling like total poseurs.

  This was no easy lesson to learn. At first, I believed my family, doctor, and even Hannah when they told me that my height was a good thing and would actually attract guys. So, last year, I decided to try to be like everyone else my age and spend seven minutes “in heaven” with Dylan Davis inside Hannah’s downstairs walk-in closet during her fourteenth birthday party.

  After ensuring that the closet door was firmly shut (no need for P.D.A.), I bent my knees and partially squatted to match Dylan’s five-feet-five-inch frame. Then I shut my eyes and gently parted my lips just like I watched Leighton Meester do on Gossip Girl. My breath catching in my throat, I waited for his lips to press against mine. And . . . nothing. A few seconds later, I heard a deep sigh and opened my eyes to witness Dylan’s white knuckles wrap around the doorknob, the light of his open cell phone reflected off his face as he counted down the seconds.

  “Uh. Sorry. Just tell everyone we hooked up or something. You’re just way too big.”

  Lesson learned—height is great for hanging off a basketball rim. Not so great for hanging with guys.

  Zach jogs over to retrieve the ball off the beach.

  “One-on-one?” he asks, picking up the ball and looking up.

  I nod. My heart seriously melts like an M&M left in someone’s hand for too long.

  “Read about you in the paper today. Another twenty-twenty, huh?”

  “Yup.” I smile as I always do when someone compliments my basketball skills. I’m used to the basketball compliments. They’re normal and easy . . . unlike my social life.

  Zach glances at my braces-free teeth (two months ago this Thursday—yay!) and I wonder whether I have a poppy seed wedged in there from the everything bagel I ate earlier. Turning my back toward him, I pretend to stare out at the ocean as I dig my nail in between my two front teeth to check for any strays.

  “Your ball. Make it, take it,” he says, grinning and passing the ball to me.

  Zach stands in front of me with his hands up, giving off the most scrumptious scent ever—a combination of mint, musk, surf, and sand. We’re nose to nose. So close, I can smell his peppermint breath.

  I dribble for a bit, cutting and maneuvering toward the basket. Zach slides behind me, one hand up against the small of my back and the other high in the air. I move my feet, jockeying for position. At the same time, my heart picks up speed.

  I lean in, shove, and hook the ball toward the hoop. Zach extends and jumps, attempting to block my shot, but he’s too late. The ball effortlessly sails through the net.

  “Nice,” he says, grabbing the ball. He bounce passes it back to me. “Two-nothing.”

  I walk over to my duffel and pull out my cell to see how I’m doing on time. Thirty minutes until basketball practice. Quickly, I do the math in my head and figure I have about ten minutes left in beach-court paradise.

  “Going somewhere?” Zach asks, placing his hand on his hip.

  “Practice.” I dribble the ball back to mid court. “But, I’m not done beating you yet.”

  “You’re not getting by me that easily again,” he says, squatting in a defensive slide position.

  “Wanna bet?” I answer. Basketball is the only thing that makes me feel invincible. When I’m out on the court, I say and do things that I never would otherwise in a bazillion years. Like, after I sink a perfect th
ree, I sometimes wanna pull a Titanic-style Leonardo DiCaprio maneuver and run across the gym yelling, “I’m king of the world!” (or I guess, in my case, queen). And although I’d never have the courage to actually do that in real life, sometimes I wonder if anyone would really notice. (If it wasn’t game time, that is.)

  I look at the basket and figure that I could probably get by him at the baseline, but then I remember: this is Zach I’m dealing with. I’ve seen his moves, and he’s not exactly the type of player who will just let me past. Although I’m ashamed to admit it, the reason I’m so in tune with Zach’s style of play is because “seeing his moves” is really an understatement. Not only have I watched him run, jump, and pivot in the flesh, but—since our cyber friendship began—I’ve been known to view a few (or twenty) of the game highlights he regularly posts online. In fact, it’s sort of become one of my favorite secret pastimes.

  I drive hard toward the basket, but Zach steps in front of me and I lose my footing, causing me to crash down, knobby knees first, on the pavement. The ball soars through the air and rolls onto the sand. Again. Luckily, my outstretched hands break my fall. But, with all the momentum, one of my pasty knees drags on the pavement like a tire screeching to a stop.

  And it stings. Real bad. Like the time I fell ice-skating at Hannah’s fifth birthday party and needed fifteen stitches.

  I’m screwed. Not only because next Friday is the game against Richland, the biggest game of my life—coaches from an elite Amateur Athletic Union summer team, the (AAU) SoCal Suns, will be coming to evaluate my playing ability against Richland’s stud center in order to determine whether to offer either of us a spot—but also because playoffs are right around the corner, along with our chance at a three-peat, a third championship in a row. And of course, I’m going to have to play injured. Great.

  “Are you okay?” Zach asks, staring at me, as if I’m some sort of freak show. After a few very uncomfortable seconds of silence—which feel more like ten hours—Zach offers me his hand.