Hot by Halloween

by Jessica Bucher

  “You don’t like it?” she asked.

  “No. I can’t see your eyes.” Then she let me lift the bottom of my cheap lifeguard shirt to her face to try to gently wipe off as much of it as I could. “That’s better.”

  She took a long, deep breath, and I started to wonder why she was out here with me and not inside with the others—with Mitch. But I was afraid to ask, afraid I would get the obligatory friend-answer, like she felt bad for leaving me, and it would only make me feel worse.

  “Gray,” she whispered. “Are you mad at me?”

  “Of course, I’m not mad at you, Addy.” I wouldn’t have described my emotions as mad. Discouraged, maybe. Self-deprecating, sure.

  “Well, you certainly don’t like my costume. That much is obvious.” Her eyes went wide, and I felt a sudden pang of guilt for being a little too harsh with my reaction.

  I had to stand, feeling too restless. Being near her, so close and having these conversations made me feel like my head was spinning. Addy made me rethink everything. Just when I thought I had things figured out, she was there to flip my world upside down.

  “Addy, I don’t hate your costume. It’s just not you, and I think any guy who doesn’t like you for you doesn’t deserve you. That’s all I’ll say.”

  She stood too, pacing toward me. “Guys always pick the hot girl, Gray. What am I supposed to do?”

  My head jolted back in surprise. Addy was too smart for this. So, I took one stride back toward her, stepping up until we were nearly toe to toe. “You’re right. Guys do pick the hot girls, but you can’t possibly think putting on some makeup and sexy boots is what makes you hot. There are so many other things that do...”

  I caught the way her breath hitched as I said that, and it was barely above a whisper as she asked. “Then what does?”

  How could I answer that? Especially without breaching this invisible wall between us. If I told her, then there would be no going back. And for a second, I almost backed out of it. I could have made up some lame, generic answer that wouldn’t totally expose every feeling I had for her.

  But I didn’t do that. To hell with it.

  “Addy, the way you make me laugh is hot. The way you walked into those swim team tryouts like you weren’t scared of anything was hot. The way you didn’t quit and kept working at it was so hot.”

  She let out a small laugh, biting her lip as she didn’t tear her eyes off of mine for one second. Every reaction of hers that wasn’t slugging me or walking away was a good sign.

  My fingers brushed up against hers, and she didn’t pull away. So my other hand reached up and touched her chin, brushing my fingers along her jaw. “Addy, you are easily the hottest girl I have ever met.”

  Then, as her eyes went wide, like she still couldn’t believe how amazing she was, I closed the distance and brushed my lips against hers. I still worried she would stop me, even as I drew her against my body with my hand around her waist, but she didn’t. Instead, she lifted onto her toes and wrapped her arms around my neck.

  Kissing Addy was like diving into the water during a race, where everything else in my head was suddenly muted and my senses were drowned out by the softness of her lips and the feel of her skin against mine. And I never wanted to come up for air.

  Addy

  “There was kissing,” I said, puffing my chest out with pride. “His lips and my lips merged in a moment of greatness.”

  Lucy’s eyes burned with questions. “When, how, why, where was Mitch?” She was perched on the arm of the couch in my den, still in full orange cat mode.

  Nora sat up from her reclined state just long enough to smack Lucy with one mittened paw, before crashing back into the extra fluffy leather cushions. “Who brings Mitch up right now?”

  Lucy glared down at her. “Oh, I’m sorry, am I the only one acknowledging the fact that the entire mission of the party was to make Mitch jealous?”

  Hearing it out loud made my stomach turn. It was one-hundred percent true, but now that Gray and I had locked lips everything about the list in our squad goals notebook looked and felt real bad. I briefly contemplated ripping the page out and swearing the girls to secrecy, but I knew they’d never go for it. If Nora had to live with five pages of detailed notes on her failed attempt to show her pig, then I didn’t get to erase my senior year goal.

  Nora threw her hands over her face. “Can’t we just talk about the kissing!? It has been 86 days since I kissed a boy. Let me live vicariously through Addy!”

  “Fine,” grumbled Lucy, shoving Nora’s feet off of the couch so she could wiggle in beside her. “But when you’re done with that, it’s time to officially check off Addy’s goal.”

  “Deal,” said Nora, her whole face brightening. “Let’s hear it; leave nothing out.”

  I pulled the lever on Dad’s recliner and stretched my arms up to rest behind my head.

  “It began on the curb of my ex-boyfriend’s driveway.”

  “I should have known this was going to be dramatic,” said Lucy.

  “Ahem,” I continued. “If the audience could please hold their comments till the end, there will be plenty of time for discussion, I assure you.” Lucy rolled her eyes, but I knew she wanted to hear the story every bit as much as Nora did.

  “As I was saying. I, Addy Marie Altman had just returned from the bedroom of my former lover, where said lover attempted to woo me back into his arms.”

  “Ooh,” gasped Nora, “I knew business was happening in that room!”

  “He, Mitch that is, tried everything in his power to lure me. There was quiet, under-the-breath talking, smoldering looks, slightly sexy smiling and...dare I say it, waist grabbing!”

  “Oh snap!” cried Nora. “He’s a bad, bad man.”

  “He really was, but I dug my stilettos in, straightened my cat ears, and told him I had to go find my man!”

  “You didn’t!”

  “I did!”

  Awe transformed Lucy’s face. Now she was into the story!

  “And so I backed out of his room, my tail not between my legs.”

  “This story is vastly improved by your being in a cat costume while you tell it and while it was happening,” snorted Nora.

  I nodded in agreement. “Anyway, I searched the party for Gray. Each glimpse of red material I saw, I was sure was his tiny lifeguard shorts.”

  “So tiny,” giggled Lucy.

  “But alas he was nowhere to be found, until I stepped outside, and like Hollywood-movie-magic there he was, his tan skin glistening in the moonlight.”

  “It wasn’t really that dark,” mumbled Nora.

  “Shush!” I demanded. “This is my story. I get to embellish it as I see fit.”

  “Fair enough,” said Nora, growing impatient. “Just so long as you get to the kissing at some point.”

  “Tan skin glistening in the moonlight,” I repeated. “And his eyes, fixed on mine. He said, ‘I don’t like your costume.’” I did a very bad, overly manly impression of Gray’s voice that drew giggles from both girls. “And I was like, ‘what? Isn’t this what guys like?’ Flirt flirt, eyelash bat, eyelash bat. And then he turned to face me, a slight wind coursing through his hair, his abs clenched in a perfect six pack beneath his shirt.”

  “Um, how do you know what his abs were doing?”

  “Dear sweet, beautiful Nora,” I sighed, “Somethings you don’t have to see to believe.”

  She pursed her lips in a tight smile, “Alright, alright, his abs were waving like the American flag, go on.”

  “He said, ‘Addy you are hotter than the entire Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition. Tyra Banks called. She wants to give you her job.’”

  Lucy cocked an eyebrow, “He said all of that huh…”

  “Something to the effect,” I smirked. “And then,” I said, sitting up to face the girls for added drama. “He pulled me into him like the cover of a romance novel. The sun which had previously set, returned and set again as his lips collided with mine. There was kissing,
” I finished. “There was kissing!”

  Nora and Lucy burst into applause as I stood to take a bow, my fluffy black tail pointing toward the sky in the process.

  “I have no idea how much of that was true,” said Lucy. “But I very much enjoyed the theatrics.”

  “Thank you!” I said, settling back down in Dad’s chair.

  Lucy grabbed our squad goals notebook from the coffee table and flipped it open to my senior goals page.

  “It’s time for you to check the boxes and write your official summary of this year’s mission.”

  I grabbed the notebook from Lucy and hastily put a check next to Join a school sport to get fit. Putting the check next to Acquire arm candy to make Mitch jealous, however, was not as easy. For once in my life, I agreed with Max. These goals were a bad idea.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gray

  I wound my fingers through Addy’s and gave her a gentle squeeze. She rested her head against my shoulder, and I could feel her fighting off tears of frustration. Her relay team wasn’t able to pull off a win today, and I knew she blamed herself. The takeoff was a little sloppier than she normally performed, and once the takeoff throws off the swim, the rest of the lap follows in the same way.

  “It’s one race, babe,” I said, kissing the top of her head. “You can’t win em’ all.”

  “I blame you. All the kissing lately must have thrown off my muscle memory.”

  “Okay, so we’ll just have to stop doing that,” I said as I tried to stand and leave, but she was quick to cling to my arm and pull me back down.

  “No, no, no. It’s worth it.” Then, she planted a quick kiss on my lips, so I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her in for a hug. I hated to see her beat herself up over this, but with all of the pressure from the rest of the team, I knew she had to be feeling it. The girls made her the focus of most practices, making her run extra drills, and overloading her with responsibility.

  There’s only so much I could do from my side of the pool, especially when I heard them berating her over the smallest mistakes—the same way I used to. I kept getting distracted watching them, and Simon had to snap me out of it a time or two, but I hated the way she just took their critiques.

  And after a race like today, I knew it was hurting her a little more.

  “Turner,” Griffith’s voice called for me from across the now empty building.

  “Yeah, coach,” I answered, peeling my arm off of Addy.

  “A word, son,” he said as he turned and headed back to his office.

  Addy and I shared a nervous expression. “Be right back,” I said.

  “I’ll go change,” she answered. “Meet me in the parking lot.”

  “Sounds good,” I shouted back with a smile, hoping to cheer her up.

  When I reached Griffith’s office, he was reading something on his computer. I didn’t know why I was nervous. Dating another swimmer wasn’t against any rules, but for some reason, I still felt nervous about people knowing we were officially a thing.

  “What’s up?” I asked as I stepped into the office. It was so quiet in the room, the only sound was the swish-swish of my workout pants as I moved to sit in the seat. The silence made me very nervous.

  “I got a call from UC Berkeley.”

  Every hair on my body suddenly stood at attention. With everything between Addy and me lately, I completely forgot about scholarship applications and scouts. But the memory came real quick as soon as he said that name. Berkeley was my dream: the one that always felt out of reach. I didn’t say anything as I waited for Griffith to finish.

  “Of course, I called them first. I don’t think your last coach was doing enough, and he sold you short. So, I convinced them to send a scout out to the district meet next week.”

  If it was silent before, it was somehow so much more silent in the room now. I replayed his words over and over to be sure I wasn’t missing anything. There would be a scout from UC to see me at the next meet.

  “You can say something, Gray,” Griffith teased.

  “I don’t know what to say,” I blurted out. My face fell into my hands as I let the reality of it wash over me.

  As he stood up and reached to shake my hand, he added, “You know what convinced them? I told them about how you took the time to help out the newer swimmers. How you kept the team together when others might have benched her.”

  A grin finally crept across my face. I still didn’t think I deserved it, but the idea that some reluctant deal I made with Addy somehow made a difference was almost laughable. Talk about a win-win.

  After thanking Griffith, I practically ran out to the parking lot to find Addy. She was waiting on the same low cement wall I always met her at. With the same glum expression on her face, she held our matching black DHS swim bags.

  “You forgot your bag,” she said as I jogged up to her.

  I could hardly wait to tell her the news. “You’re never going to believe this. There’s going to be a scout from UC Berkeley at regionals next week.” My chest was still huffing as I stood in front of her with an ear-to-ear smile on my face.

  Her jaw fell open, and she stared at me for a moment. The hesitation was obvious.

  “That’s amazing, Gray,” she squealed in a half-hearted tone as she jumped down from the wall and wrapped her arms around my neck in a strong hug.

  “It feels pretty amazing.” Looking down at her, it was like I could read her thoughts. She was trying her best to put on a brave face for me, as if my good news wasn’t possibly bad news for her. This past week had been one high after another. As I assumed the first week in any relationship was supposed to feel, I didn’t want to do anything but be near her and make her smile.

  Now, she wasn’t smiling, so I bent my head down and kissed her. She melted in my arms in moments, and when I pulled away, her cheeks were a little pinker and her eyes a little softer.

  “Berkeley? Like California…” she said, her mouth twisting into a worried little knot.

  “That is what the C stands for.” Graduation still felt so far away, too far to start worrying about. So I linked her fingers with mine and pulled her out to the car. She dropped our bags into the trunk and climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Once we reached my house, we spent our ritual ten minutes lip-locked across the car’s center console. By the time we pulled ourselves apart, she had a full smile pasted on her face that mirrored mine. I tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and gave her one last peck before climbing out and grabbing my bag from the trunk.

  When I walked in the house, my mom was watching TV on the couch and she gave me a suspicious glance and weird smile. She was just a little excited about my new relationship with Addy.

  “How did it go today?” She hopped off the couch and followed me into the dining room so I could drop my stuff.

  She had just come off a double shift and wasn’t able to make it to our meet, but that didn’t stop her from texting me all day.

  “Umm...great actually,” I said as I pulled open the drawstring pouch. “Coach had some good news…” I smiled at her, waiting for her to guess the news.

  “A scout!” she squealed.

  I nodded. “Berkeley.”

  After a wild hug and some sleep-deprived wild dancing, my mom finally settled down at the table so I could dish about the rest of my day...and a little about Addy.

  As I unloaded my dirty laundry, I noticed something didn’t feel right about my bag. I reached in and pulled out a bluish green notebook covered in glitter, and it suddenly dawned on me that that wasn’t my bag.

  “What’s that?” my mom asked, one eyebrow raised in confusion.

  I must have been so distracted by my good news that I totally grabbed Addy’s identical black bag by mistake. But rather than be annoyed, I couldn’t hide my smile as I turned over the girliest looking book I’d ever seen, and across the front I read the barely legible title: Squad Goals.

  Addy

  I thought my day sucked wh
en I bombed the relay. Apparently that was just the jumping off point for a pile of suck. With my luck we were probably having pineapple on our pizza tonight, while cleaning toilets as a family.

  I didn’t say hello to Max or Mom when I got home from the meet. Not even when Max called after me to find out how it went. He could gloat about how insufferably right he was later, but for the time being, I needed to sulk in private.

  The moment I closed the door to my bedroom, I threw my swim bag on the carpet and popped open my laptop.

  “Where is UC Berkeley?” I typed into the search bar.

  The answer, Berkeley, California wasn’t very helpful, considering I hadn’t known there was a Berkeley. But one look at the school’s webpage told me Gray and I were about to be leagues apart and not just because of the distance. This place was an incubator for rich hippies. I could barely be bothered to sort my recycling, so I sure as heck wasn’t going to fit in at a place that referred to itself as the “Golden Bear Community.” Not that I was planning to follow Gray to college. It was just, I had hoped his family situation, and lack of funding options might result in his going to a local school. Minnesota State University perhaps. I didn’t know what their swim team was like, but they were affordable plus there was the added bonus that I had actually been accepted there.

  The tuition for residents at UC Berkeley was huge; out-of-state students might as well just chop off a limb and sell it on the black market. No wonder Gray was so worried about getting a scholarship. Unless his Mom had a secret trust fund, Gray’s only shot was next week’s scout.

  I was torn. As his girlfriend (my lord, I loved the sound of that), I wanted him to achieve what he had been working so hard towards. But as a selfish teenage girl-child, I wanted the boy I was wild about to stay nearby. I did not like picturing him sharing a dorm with a bunch of super hot California girls.

  Oblivious to the rules of modern society, Max came crashing into my room without knocking. He held a Mountain Dew in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. Further evidence that his true love was actually just a vending machine he hadn’t met yet.