“No shit,” he repeats back at me.
“Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean any disrespect. It’s not every day you meet a living legend.”
“A living legend?” He laughs. “I don’t know about all that. If I recall, I went to school with what, your great-great-something or other grandpa. I believe it was”—he pauses—“yes, Quincy Lexington. A chess nerd, if I do remember right.”
“That sounds right. We had a bout of nerds in our line somewhere,” I say.
Hiram Diggs nods at me. “You have a brother who played last year?”
I swallow down a lump, and my heart starts to race. Even a legend knows about Jamie. “Yes, sir, Jamie.”
I’ve had to talk about Jamie too many times today. Everyone wants to know how he is, where he is now, what he’s doing. It’s too much.
“Mighty terrible what happened to him, a young thing like that, talented. How’s he doing? Is he gonna walk again?”
I grit my teeth. “He’s all right for now.”
“Right unfair I say, an old geezer like me still kicking up dust and a young buck like him not even able to walk. Oh well, right shame. I reckon it’s all with a purpose from God.”
I can feel the panic start to sink in and claw at me. Breathe, I tell myself. Bright lights flash in my eyes, voices cloud around me, but I don’t know how to tune in to the present. One, two, three, four… Images flash in my head, too fast for me to catch on to any of them. It all goes back to that night, to me and Jamie and puddles of blood soaking a cotton field. Four, three, two one… I’m there, and he’s stuck, and I can’t help him. I can’t help.
“Jake!” A voice snaps me back into reality. Haley is staring at me, her eyes narrowed in. “You okay?”
That brings me back. Fuck. I look to my right, but the living legend isn’t there anymore. There are still crowds of people around, and I search the space for Howell. He’s standing with Coach, talking. What happened?
“You okay?”
I nod, and she leans in closer, the scent of her assaulting my senses. “Breathe, Jake,” she says to me. I hear her count, and I breathe with her until it feels like my stomach has settled into a calm.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
She raises an eyebrow. “I thought that old man was going to have a heart attack.”
“Did he?”
“What?”
“Have a heart attack?”
She laughs. “No, he left.”
Thank God. I don’t want to be the reason a living legend is, well, a legend.
She sits next to me on the bench, and I let my fingers rest against the back of her hand. She stays stock still, like she doesn’t want to break the spell.
“Are we done yet?” I ask her.
“Almost,” she says with a smile. “Think of all the great things that lie ahead. First, you get to stomp West Side, and then tomorrow, you get to win some unsuspecting hearts at Falling for Fall.”
I laugh. “I have a great date planned.”
“You do?”
“Oh yeah,” I say. “Whoever wins me is going to be up for an unforgettable date. I’ll say that.”
“Maybe I will have to bid on it,” she says, and I’m surprised to hear her being so bold. I smile, but before I can say anything Howell plops down beside me. My hand shoots away from hers.
“I’ve gotta get back,” she says and runs off to the other Belles.
“She’s actually good at schmoozing.”
“Yeah,” is all I say.
Howell stretches out. “Did you talk to Hiram Diggs? Will almost shit his pants. It was great.”
When I don’t respond, Howell looks at me. “You all right?”
Yes. No. I don’t know.
“How much longer is this shit?” I say instead, because at least with this response, I already know how Howell will be.
“They love you,” he says.
I chuckle with sarcasm. “Nah man, they love Jamie. They love asking me about Jamie, checking on Jamie, telling me it’s God’s will that this happened to him and it’s a damn shame. They don’t care about me. They don’t care about you, either, about any of us, unless we’re winning.”
“Is there a problem?” Coach Tucker asks, arms crossed over his chest. “Because you’re making a scene, so someone over here best be dying or there’s going to be repercussions.”
“Jake’s tired, Coach,” Howell says.
“He’s tired, huh? Well I reckon if he’s tired he oughta go home. Is that what you want, son, to go home? I can have the missus take you there if you’re feeling under the weather.”
“No sir, Coach, I’m fine.”
“That’s what I thought. Let’s go out here now and give them all the show they pay for, right? Because without them, you wouldn’t have a jersey to wear, a field to stand on, or a ball to catch.”
“Yes, sir,” I say.
Because that’s all that matters. Football.
Chapter Thirteen
Jake
There are a few moments in a game where seconds can feel like hours. One of those is waiting to see if the kick is good. Montgomery kicks, and the ball floats through the air like some sort of rocket feather—fast like a rocket, smooth like a feather. None of us wants to breathe too loudly in case the wind pushes the ball in the wrong direction. The crowd is cheering, but you can’t hear anything except your heart pounding in your chest for the longest five seconds of your life.
My eye is on the ball, on the goal posts, and the second it goes between them, I scream. We all scream. The crowd comes back to life, the team is cheering. Instant.
We’re all running over to Montgomery, slamming hugs into each other. It’s a pure celebration.
Culler has beaten West Side.
By one point.
Damn, nothing like it.
“We did it!” Howell screams after we’ve shaken the last hand. A howl rolls through the air. The band plays louder than ever. The crowd is roaring. People stopped expecting it years ago. I can’t believe it. I’m running onto the field with my teammates, cheering, sweating, throat aching from yelling, but it makes me scream louder. I see Haley hugging her brother, and then she’s in my arms, too. I stop screaming, take in the feel of her against me, and everything in the world is perfect.
After the team goes to eat, I find myself back at the Howells’ house. I can’t help it, really. Before, it was to escape my house, but now, it’s a lot more. I don’t know really what all the reasons are.
“I can’t believe you watch The Mailroom,” Howell says, rolling his eyes.
“It’s hilarious.” He gives me a disgusted look. “You don’t have refined taste like your sister and me,” I say, and Haley gives me a high five.
“I told him he’d love it. Especially Pete.”
I laugh. “Yes! Howell is totally a Pete.”
She laughs, too, and starts talking about one of Pete’s best scenes, where he takes all the boxes, bags, and carts out of the mailroom—really anything you can carry—and makes his coworkers have a bet to see who can deliver mail the fastest. He cheats, but the others don’t know how he’s doing it so fast.
“Shut up, you two,” Howell says, and he stands up from the couch.
“Aw, don’t run away, brother.”
“I’m not. I’m getting more ice cream,” he says.
Haley laughs again, and for the first time, I look at her. I’ve been trying not to pay her too much attention because I didn’t want Howell to notice me staring at his sister. But now that I am, I see she’s drawing in a notebook. It’s a perfect image from tonight’s game—Will standing back, watching the sky to see where his kick is going to go.
“That’s beautiful,” I say.
She smiles back at me. “Thanks.”
I try to look more closely at the picture, but she covers it up. Something about it seems familiar, but I can’t place what that is. Maybe it’s the moment she captured and how she drew on his face what we were all feeling.
“
I didn’t know you could draw.” She shrugs like it’s not a big deal. “Do you have more?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I stare at her for a second. “Can I see?”
She shakes her head, and I’m a little disappointed, but then she stands up. “Come upstairs. I’ll show you a few.”
Haley seems nervous, but she’s up the stairs before I have time to say anything else about it. I follow her up, but my heart pounds a little as we approach her bedroom door. The inner sanctum. I’ve never been in Haley Howell’s room before, as many times as I’ve been in this house. Haley is already pulling out a few pieces and putting them on the bed when she notices me standing in the doorway.
“Are you a vampire who needs an invite?” Her smile is faint.
“No,” I say, and I gulp down my weird feelings about being in her personal space. I’ve never been in her room, but it’s exactly her. The colors are muted, almost a light purple, with string lights all over the room, pictures of her and friends scattered around. Artwork is up in white frames—is it hers or someone else’s? Her bed is white and teal, with other pops of colors like pink and green spread around the room. It’s calm and playful, innocent almost. I feel out of place in it, wearing my black shirt and jeans.
“You might recognize this one,” she says, pointing to one of the pieces of artwork on the bed. It’s a sketch of our bridge, and it looks really good. She lays another in the pile. “I did watercolors,” she says, putting a color version of the same drawing on top of it. It’s so vibrant, it’s as if we are standing there right now on that same sunny day.
“Wow, Hals. It’s really beautiful.”
Her face glows when I say that, and it’s hard to look away from her and back to the artwork. I slowly turn through a couple of the pieces. Mrs. Baker in a fortune teller outfit at the last festival. Her brother reading. Abby laughing. Will and Spencer at the Montgomery wedding. They’re all tangible, and I feel like I’m in the room with them.
“This is remarkable, Haley. I don’t know shit about art, but this is brilliant.”
“I mean, I have a long way to go, but it’s really fun. I’ve been drawing since forever.”
Wow. I keep flipping through some of her art. “You’re so good. I bet you can draw anything.”
“Not anything.”
“You should share this with everyone,” I say, looking at her.
Haley rubs a hand down her other arm. “No, no, no. Art is, like, mine. I don’t really want to share it. You, Abby, and Chris are, like, the only people who even know I draw.” I turn toward her, and her eyes are wide. “You can’t tell anyone. I have one of your secrets, now you have one of mine.”
I cross my heart. “Your secret is safe. I promise.” I’ve never meant anything more right now.
“As is yours,” she says. Her body is so close to mine, and my heart is racing. I’ve shared more with her lately than anyone in my life. It’s almost easy to trust her, even when it’s not like that with anyone else. Even Howell. What else have I missed out on by not knowing her before?
“I wasn’t worried about that,” I say. I look back at the art. “You’re really talented.”
“Thank you.”
Silence falls between us for a moment before Howell comes in and looks between us. I realize immediately how close she is to me and how it could look to him. I take a step back.
“I like this new one,” he says, looking at the watercolor of our bridge.
“Yeah, Haley was showing me.”
Howell nods, and I wish I could know what he was thinking. “She’s pretty talented, even though she doesn’t like to think that,” he says. Then he looks at me. “Wanna go play a game?”
I nod and put down a picture of Abby. “Yeah, I’ll go kick your ass in some racing.”
“You wish,” he says.
“Thanks for showing me,” I tell Haley.
She nods, and I give her one last look before I follow Howell off to his room. On the way there he says, “She doesn’t show many people her art.”
“Really?” I say.
“Yeah, it’s pretty sacred. I didn’t realize y’all were that close.”
I don’t say anything because honestly, I don’t know what else to say.
An hour later, mid-killing some zombies, Howell says, “Is there something going on with you and my sister?”
“No,” I say to him.
“You aren’t trying to, like, date her? It’d be kinda like dating me.”
“Yeah, that’s what I think, too,” I say. But my heart is racing, screaming how untrue that is. I ignore it. I have to for my friendship.
“It’d be really complicated if my best friend was interested in my sister.”
I feel bad for lying, but it’s not actually a lie. There is not anything going on—but that doesn’t mean part of me doesn’t want that answer to be yes.
Chapter Fourteen
Haley
Leaves crunch under my feet. Fall is already here. If there’s one event that means the season change has come to Culler, it’s Falling for Fall. Yes, Homecoming is a big deal, but before we get there we have this. The Belles help organize the silent auction, dating back to when the City Council decided that it was probably best to include some young people. As weird as the whole thing is, it’s a great event. For the Belles, it’s a warm-up for Homecoming.
Abby crosses another name off her list.
“Good job, Belles. We have seventeen volunteers for the silent auction. Including Mr. Alvarez,” Abby says, waggling her eyebrows. The girls at school always talk about Mr. Alvarez’s behind when he’s at the smart board.
“This is going to be our best Falling for Fall ever. See everyone tomorrow!”
With that, the meeting is over, and she and I walk side by side back to her car. She pulls out her phone. I’ve been thinking that this is the moment, today, to tell her about Jake, so I say, “I had a dream about Jake.”
Abby’s eyes widen, but she keeps looking down on her phone. “Wait, what kind of dream?”
I shrug. “Not that kind of dream.” I already regret trying to start up the conversation, but I want to tell her that Jake and I are friends. Friendly. Or at least plant the seed.
“What happened in it?” she asks.
I pause. This isn’t a hard image to pull up; when you’ve crushed on someone over ten years, you have scenarios of how you finally get together. Some are even realistic. I stick to that, the fantasy that feels like reality. “We were talking, very closely, and he said he liked me. It was almost a scene from a movie, honestly. We both declared we’d liked each other for a long time, and then he kissed me.”
Abby laughs. Like, really laughs. “That’s great.”
Wow. Laughter. Is him liking me so ludicrous of an idea? “Why is it funny?”
“I mean, you don’t even like Jake, do you?”
I shrug. Yes, and he might like me, too.
“I wouldn’t say I don’t like him; he practically lives at my house. I’m tutoring him some, and he’s doing community service at the rehab center.” I play the whole thing off a lot more than I want to.
“Then it makes sense that you’d be dreaming about him, Hals,” Abby says, sliding her phone back into her bag. “You’re spending a lot of time with him, and honestly, you haven’t had any boy action since Shane. You’re projecting all your feelings onto him because he’s the closest one. You don’t actually like him.” Abby pauses as we approach her car and gets out her keys. “If you were harboring a secret desire to kiss Jake Lexington, I would know.”
I start to protest, and her phone dings. “I gotta go. We’re going to see Nana. I’ll text you later!” Abby hugs me before I can even process it and then jumps into her car.
So much for that. Good job, Haley. You can’t even spin a fantasy right.
I sigh and start walking. I love Culler when the seasons start to change. The last legs of summer have started to lose their footing, and the wind is crisper. It’s South Caroli
na, so it’s never entirely fall until the leaves are gone, but the hint is there. I’ve always imagined living in a place where there were four distinct seasons, each one bringing a unique atmosphere. I’d especially love some snow. It’s only really snowed once when I was ten, and the whole town came out to play in it. I’d love some snow for real.
“Are you coming on Sunday?” Mrs. Patty Baker calls out to me as I walk past the gazebo.
“Ma’am?” I ask, turning back toward her.
Mrs. Baker is a nice older lady, famous for her intrusive questions and Southern bluntness. Her family was raised in Culler, and she raised hers here. She’s ingrained into this place, much like everyone else.
“This weekend is Falling for Fall right here. Are you coming, dear?”
“Yes, ma’am. The Belles are working it.”
“Are you going to bid on a fella?”
All the money goes back into the town, so most people play along.
“I’m not sure if I’d want to bid on anyone.”
She gasps at me. “Poppycock, dear. You’re young and beautiful. I’m sure you’re going to win some unsuspecting young man’s heart.”
I laugh, even though my mind wanders to Jake. The last few weeks, we have been spending a lot of time together, but that doesn’t mean anything. “Thank you, ma’am. Have a great day.”
I laugh to myself a little as I walk away. This town is too much sometimes. I love it, though. No matter where I go, I will never live anywhere else as charming as Culler.
Get toilet paper, my brother texts me.
I send him a thumbs up as I go inside Brown’s General Store to pick up some things Momma requested. I hear them talking about the game as soon as I go inside. On Friday, we beat the team from West Side. Culler is now undefeated, five games in a row.
“I don’t know what Coach Tucker is doing to those kids, but they have a fire in their bellies,” one man says.
“I really didn’t think the younger Lexington had it in him. The way he carries on around town.”
“It’s a shame what happened to the older one.”
The Crush Collision (Southern Charmed) Page 9
