The Stand-In Boyfriend

by Doherty, Emma

  I tap the ball forward with my right leg, pushing it away from the defender before quickly maneuvering my body so when I then kick forward with my left leg, the ball nutmegs an opposing player. While another lunges for me, I skip forward and suddenly have some space, and even though there’s no time to waste, I see everything in slow motion. I see the cheerleaders screaming for us from the sideline, Sophie jumping up and down and demanding that I shoot. I see my coach clutching his assistant’s arm, his eyes trained on the ball at my feet but not uttering a word. I see the fans in the stands, more people than we’ve ever played in front of, all watching in anticipation, and I imagine my mom, Ray, and Scotty with their hearts in their throats. I see Jessie willing us on and Chase and his friends screaming for me louder than anyone else.

  I turn my head back to the goal and see it’s crowded in front. I see Hallie by the goalpost screaming at me to pass her the ball but being crowded by two defenders. I see Maria trying to get away from her defender, shoving at the girl to give her space, and without turning around I know the rest of my teammates are racing toward the goal, trying to give me options, but they have too many people in the penalty box. If I launch the ball in, there will be too many pairs of legs swiping at it, too many people who could get the goal in the back of the net or launch it back downfield to where our defenders have left the space empty, meaning they could score on the counterattack. The defender I managed to escape is looming down on me, lunging for the ball, and I know it’s now or never.

  I pull my leg back, keeping my eyes on the top corner where I know I need to place the ball if we’re going to win this match, kick my leg forward as hard as I can, connecting with the ball on the inside of my foot, and I aim for raw power as I launch it as hard as I can. Time slows down as I watch it sail through the air, as it beats the two defenders at the near post and their goalkeeper flies through the air. Her fingers graze the edge of the ball, but not enough to push it from its path. It’s not enough to push it out of the top right corner or stop it from flying into the back of the net.

  GOAL!

  GOAL! GOAL! GOAL!

  I don’t even have time to fully comprehend that I’ve just scored and process everything it means, to understand that the whistle has blown and the game is over and I’ve just scored the winning goal in the state final in the last second of the game. I don’t have time because before I can even take a breath, my teammates are crashing into me, tumbling on top of me as I fall to the ground and they pile up on top of me.

  “You did it,” Tia is screaming in my face. “You fucking did it. We won! We won!”

  Complete elation fills my body, but more than that—more than that, it’s relief. I didn’t mess it up, I didn’t miss, I played my best game, and we’re winners. We’re state champions. I’m so happy I could almost cry.

  I don’t have time to think about it though because I’m being hauled to my feet and Sophie is in front of me screaming in delight, pulling me in for the hardest hug she’s ever given me while wiping tears away from her face. “You did it, Liv! You did it!”

  I laugh in delight and pull her back in, embracing her fiercely. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe we won. This doesn’t feel real.

  The noise is deafening. Hallie pushes in front of me and is trying to say something to me—I can see her lips moving but can’t hear the words. It doesn’t matter though as I throw myself on her, hugging her tightly. She and Tia are the only two people I think might care about this half as much as me.

  Suddenly I’m surrounded by even more people and I realize the crowd has rushed the field. People are grabbing at us and trying to congratulate us. A girl from my French class is in front of me, grinning wide, and a boy I never speak to in gym is congratulating me like we’re old friends.

  I’m pulled away from him and find Jessie standing there, his eyes shining and his grin wide. I start to laugh. This moment is everything. To win this in front of all these supporters and now to have my best friends congratulating me—this is everything I’ve ever wanted and more.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Jessie shouts, and it makes my heart soar. I care what he thinks. Even when I shouldn’t, I care. I care what he thinks more than anything, and him saying he’s proud of me makes me happier than anything else could. I grip his shoulders and pull him in for a hug, so tightly I feel like our bodies could fuse together. He hugs me back just as tightly, not allowing any space between us. “I’m so happy for you,” he shouts in my ear. I pull back, laughing in delight as our eyes meet, and then he quickly pulls me in again and plants a quick, hard kiss on my mouth.

  We both freeze completely, totally still amongst all the noise and chaos around us. Jessie’s eyes widen and I know that was pure instinct on his part, but we kissed. He just kissed me, but we don’t have time to process it. I don’t have time to think about it because I’m pulled away again, yanked into a group hug with the rest of the team, all of us jumping up and down in unison before I feel my waist being grabbed and then Chase is there, spinning me around in the air. He looks so happy you’d think he just won the state final again, and he doesn’t let me go. He bends suddenly and reaches for my legs, hauling me up onto his shoulder. Aaron, Brendon, Jackson, and the rest of their teammates grab Hallie, Tia, and the rest of us, and suddenly we’re all being held up in the air while the crowd around us chants. “Cham-pi-ons! Cham-pi-ons! Cham-pi-ons!” We’re champions. The girls’ soccer team from Grove Valley High School, which usually only has a few dozen people attend its matches, has won the state finals.

  After a minute, a voice can be heard louder than any other—the voice of my loud-mouthed best friend, my ride or die. Sophie Steele is starting a new chant.

  “Liv-y Chap-man! Liv-y Chap-man!”

  Chase joins in with her and suddenly it’s on everyone’s lips. My name is being chanted over and over again. I look around, and for once, I’m not shy. For once I don’t care that I’m being recognized like this. I’m proud of what I’ve just achieved and when I lock eyes with Hallie as she joins in with the rest of the team, screaming my name, that’s when I get it. That’s when I get everything I’ve ever wanted in a soccer jersey.

  THE EUPHORIA DOESN’T LEAVE MY body. After the trophy ceremony, I manage to find my parents, and my mom is actually crying with happiness. She keeps hugging me over and over again, telling me how proud she is of me, and Scotty looks at me like I’m a hero while Ray gets all bashful and emotional. Then when she tells me the scouts from Florida State—the college I’ve dreamed of attending—approached her after the game and are interested in me playing for them next year, I nearly fall over, and I swear I’ll never have a day as good as this again.

  Somehow Sophie and the rest of the cheerleaders along with a solid handful of the boys’ soccer team manage to gatecrash our team bus on the hour-long drive back to Newsummer. I looked for Jessie before we got on and saw him being pulled away by Courtney and some of her friends. I don’t even care. We had a moment and I won the state final. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t get any better than that. We don’t stop singing or laughing the whole journey back to the school.

  Chase volunteers his house for the victory party and within ten minutes of us arriving, it’s packed. Room after room is full and his house is probably going to get wrecked from the sheer amount of people partying here, but when I mention this to him he just tells me to shut up and enjoy my night. He’s in a great mood—almost as good as me. If he’s not hugging me to him, he’s slinging his arm around me or massaging my shoulders. Only when Sophie pulls me away from him, telling me she needs her hero bestie, does he let me go.

  “I need to tell you something.”

  I nod, glancing around the room. Jessie’s still not here. I take the cup she holds out to me and take a sip. There’s definitely way more alcohol than necessary in there, but right now I don’t care. Everything is amazing right now.

  “Well, last night Mark was hanging out here with Chase, Aaron, and the rest of those guys.”r />
  “Yeah,” I reply. Chase wanted to go out for dinner and a movie, but I was way too worked up about the game to be in anyone’s company. I was actually in bed by eight o’clock, desperate to get a full night’s sleep, not that it did me any good—I was way too stressed to sleep. When I told him I was just going to stay in and wanted to be on my own, he said he was going to have some friends over for video games and pizza.

  “So his sister showed up with a bunch of her friends after a couple of hours and they were all hanging out together.”

  I frown at the look on Sophie’s face. She doesn’t look impressed.

  “So?”

  “So…they’re college girls? Hot college girls.”

  I roll my eyes. “Mark likes you Sophie—a lot. He always has. He did when you first started dating and he still does despite you hooking up with that college guy. It’s you who keeps running hot and cold on him, not the other way around.”

  She shakes her head. “You’re not getting it. I know Mark isn’t going to be with anyone else, but he said there was this one girl who was all over Chase—hanging on his every word, following him around everywhere, touching his arm, all that kinda stuff—making it very obvious she’d be down for a hook-up.”

  A pang of jealousy hits me straight in the stomach, and it shocks me. Since when do I care about Chase and other girls?

  “What happened?” I ask slowly.

  Sophie shakes her head. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. He told her he had an awesome girlfriend and he wasn’t interested, even though she was offering it up on a silver platter.”

  Relief unfolds in my stomach. I shouldn’t be relieved that he didn’t want to hook up with an older girl, and I definitely shouldn’t be jealous about someone else liking him. Chase and I are fake, and I want Jessie. I still want Jessie, but I don’t like what Sophie just told me. I really don’t like it.

  “Mark told me because he was saying how whipped Chase is and how into you he is. I haven’t told him you’re both faking it. He has no clue about that, but he said Chase is hooked.”

  I swallow. “I mean…he probably didn’t want to look like a dick in front of the guys by cheating on me. Most of them think we’re the real deal. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  She scoffs. “He turned down a hot, older college girl for you, Livy.”

  My eyes drift behind her to where Chase is chatting with Aaron and Brendon. He glances up and grins at me. My stomach flips, and it makes me want to be sick. No. No. I don’t want to know what that means. I don’t want to think about the fact that I’m jealous that some girl was hitting on him, and I definitely don’t want to think about what it means that he didn’t even consider her. I try to dismiss it and pretend it’s just because he didn’t want to lose face and have his friends think he’d cheat, but I know that’s not true.

  “What…um…it’s not—”

  She raises an eyebrow, a smirk on her face. “Are you sure he’s still faking?”

  I’m saved from answering by Tia and Hallie appearing beside us. They start to dissect the game, discussing every pass and goal in great detail, and it helps to relax me. I don’t want to think about Chase and a college girl and what his rejection of her might mean. I want to think about what I know: soccer and my friends and Jessie. I want to stick to what I know, to what makes me comfortable, and that means Jessie.

  I glance around the party and see that he still hasn’t showed up.

  “Have you seen Jessie?” I ask Sophie as Tia and Hallie drift off and get another drink.

  She glances around, surprised, like she hadn’t noticed he wasn’t here. “I don’t know. He should be here. I texted to tell him where we were.”

  “We kissed,” I tell her.

  Her eyes bug out so much I start to laugh. “What the hell?” she demands. “Why are you only just now telling me this? When did this happen?”

  “Calm down. It wasn’t a kiss kiss or anything. He just grabbed me after the game, hugged me, and then kissed me. I don’t think either of us were expecting it.”

  “No tongue?” she asks.

  My face burns, which makes her snicker. “No,” I manage to mutter. If there’s no tongue, Sophie doesn’t even count it as a kiss.

  “Oh my God though—this is big!”

  “I know.”

  “Are you going to tell Chase?”

  I shrug. “I don’t know.” Especially after what she just told me. I don’t know exactly what my status is with Chase as the moment. “Do you think I should? Should I let him know our plan is finally working?” I ask, just because it’s easier to stick with the original plan of making Jessie jealous and putting Abigail off than actually thinking about how our relationship might have changed.

  She stares at me for a minute, opens her mouth like she’s going to say something, but then snaps it shut again.

  “What?” I ask.

  She shakes her head. “Nothing.”

  “Soph?”

  “You’re still set on Jessie, huh?”

  My eyes flash to hers and I know she doesn’t buy for a second that her telling me about Chase’s college girl hasn’t thrown me, but I don’t know why she’s asking me about Jessie. Nothing has changed there. My feelings are exactly the same as they have been for years. “Yes,” I reply with complete certainty. “I still want Jessie.”

  She nods in acceptance. She knows better than anyone how deeply rooted my crush on him is. She knows I’m not lying if I say I want him, despite how confusing Chase is starting to make things. “Well he should be here. He’s never one to miss a party, and he was really happy for you.”

  I grin. I’m not going to pretend I’m not happy to hear that. “I can’t believe we kissed. What do you think it means?”

  She starts to laugh and rolls her eyes. “Do not try to figure that out now.” She shakes her head in amusement. “Deal with that mind fuck tomorrow.”

  “But where is he?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Who cares? His moody ass will show up soon enough. You just need to enjoy the night.”

  I grin at her. She’s right. For once I need to not make this about Jessie. Tonight is about me and my team, not Chase, and not Jessie.

  “Here, have some of this,” she tells me, pushing a red cup into my hands.

  I glance down dubiously. “What is it?”

  She grins. “Something that will make you feel even better and let you forget about Jessie.”

  I bite my lip and hesitate for all of a second. I usually don’t drink much, but tonight is an exception. She raises an eyebrow in a challenge. I raise my cup in the air, shoot her a grin, and down it in one gulp. Then we make a beeline over to the drinks table and mix up two more.

  “Chapman, you lose again!” Tia crows at me from across the table. We’re playing beer pong, although we’ve substituted the beer for vodka and lemonade. I’m not quite sure how I got roped into playing this game again, and I’m just as bad as I was last time.

  Sophie starts laughing hysterically from beside me. She seems to be enjoying me losing a lot more than she should.

  “Down it!” Hallie demands from her place next to Tia. “Down it, down it, down it.”

  I shrug my shoulders and reach for my cup, staggering into Sophie as I do, but before I can get it to my lips, it’s taken out of my hand. “Hey!”

  “You’ll thank me tomorrow,” Chase assures me, a look of amusement on his face.

  “She needs to drink that,” Tia insists. “It’s the rules.”

  Chase doesn’t think twice before downing the whole cup himself. Tia looks outraged, but Sophie cracks up laughing again. “Aww, Liv, Chase is being your hero—how sweet.”

  “Shut it, Steele,” he tells her before grabbing my arm and tugging me away from them. I stumble into him and he snickers and wraps an arm around me, leading me out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. It’s still pretty busy in here and as I look around, I see a few people I recognize from school, but no one whose names I know.


  “Who are all these people?” I ask as he leads me over to his humongous fridge.

  He shrugs. “People from school, I guess.”

  “Aww,” I tease, “is the great Chase Mitchell too good to know their names?”

  He smirks. “Shut up, Chapman.”

  I stand up taller as he pulls out a bottle of water from the fridge, unscrews the lid, and wordlessly passes it over to me. I chug down half of it immediately. “Seriously though, thanks for letting us have the party here. That’s really nice of you.”

  He leans against the counter next to me. “Anything for my girl.”

  I burst out into a fit of giggles. My girl. He’s very good at keeping this act up all the time. I’ve conveniently shoved what Sophie told me about the college girl to the back of my head, and now that I’ve had a bit of time to think about it and had a few more drinks, it seems silly. Chase probably just didn’t like her and is being a good guy, sticking to our agreement.

  Again he rolls his eyes at me, and when I nearly fall over from laughing too hard even though it really wasn’t that funny he grabs my waist and hoists me up on top of the counter.

  I stare down at him in surprise, unsure how I made it up here. He’s just staring back at me in amusement, his green eyes sparkling, and the strangest thing happens—I almost lose my breath.

  Wow. Sophie and all the other girls were right—Chase really is gorgeous.

  I reach out and brush back a lock of hair that has fallen onto his forehead. “You’re really good-looking, aren’t you?”

  He laughs again. “You’re drunk.”