Kiss List (5 page)

A sudden burst of adrenaline hit me and I jumped into action. I ran to David and pulled one of his arms around my shoulders. He moaned. I clasped him around the waist and heaved as hard as I could. He finally managed to get to his feet, though his knees wobbled like they were going to cave in.

“We need to go!” I whispered urgently. David didn’t respond verbally but he nodded his head in agreement. I stayed as low as I could without falling over and shuffled off through the crowd with David’s arm around my neck. David half walked and half clung to me.

I wound through the hallways. Excited students were running around, shouting, and pressing against each other to get closer to the lunch room. No one noticed us as we quietly escaped. I finally got us away to the area by the west gym. There I led David down a flight of stairs leading to the locker rooms and physical therapy room. The physical therapist only came in after school hours when the sports were going on but my soccer coach had given me a key to the room so I could ice during my open period. I flicked on the lights and dragged David to one of the examination tables. His moaning grew louder as I rolled him onto the table but then subsided when I let go of him and he was able to curl up into a fetal position.

I rushed to the ice machine and pulled open the drawer. Luckily whoever had used it last had left it on and it was full of ice. I grabbed a plastic bag and filled it. Then I rushed back to David. “Here, you... you need to use this,” I said in a shaky voice. “Aaron said you need to ice your... you know.”

David just moaned in response and shook his head.

“Come on. Please,” I said. “You need to. Please, for me. I need you to feel better.”

I gently brushed the hair out of his eyes and rested an arm on his shoulder. I didn’t know what else to do.

David kept his eyes clenched shut but finally he held out his hand. I sighed in relief and handed him the bag. He tried to slip it under his shorts but his belt was too tight.

“You need to take those off,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’ll look away.”

“It’s fine,” David grunted. His voice was very strained. He slowly unbuckled his belt and pushed down his shorts, revealing a pair of black boxer briefs underneath. Then he took a deep breath and wedged the bag of ice between his legs. He suddenly gasped and his eyes shot open as a high-pitched little squeal escaped his lips. Then he moaned and rocked back and forth as he forced himself to endure the discomfort.

Seeing that he had things under control for the moment, I rushed over to the ice tub and began running cold water into it. Ice packs were good but I knew from personal experience that nothing could match an ice tub full of ice. I took the ice scooper and began shoveling the ice from the ice maker into the ice tub as it filled up. I continued until I had emptied all the ice into the ice tub. I put my hand in and it instantly went seized with a frozen-burning pain. It was the coldest ice bath I had ever made. Good. I wasn’t taking any chances. Not with David’s... “
boys” as Aaron had put it.

I went back over to David. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you into the tub.”

He opened one eye and to glance at the tub. Then he squeezed it shut and shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m feeling quite a bit better now.”

I let out another sigh of relief. David’s voice sounded almost normal and it seemed like his shyness and possibly even his sense of humor was returning. That was good, it meant the
pain had subsided to the point that he could think clearly. Well, the ice bath would have him crying for his mommy for a while, but then he might even be back to normal.

“I know a big brave wrestler like you isn’t afraid of an ice bath.” I said. “Come on, let’s go.”

I pulled him off the table. He let out a little whimper but did as I said. He kicked off his shorts and hobbled over to the ice bath with my help. He looked nervously down into the water.

“Just jump right in,” I said encouragingly.

“Easy for you to say,” he muttered. Then with a sigh he pulled his shirt off over his head so that he was clad only in his boxer briefs. I was too concerned to marvel at his perfectly chiseled abs and tall, lean, toned body... okay, maybe I marveled a little. David swung his leg over the side of the tub and lowered himself down. “Oooh. Oooooh,” he exclaimed as the cold set in.

“It’ll be over in a moment and then the pain will numb,” I said.

David didn’t say anything and I wasn’t sure what else to do. We remained in awkward silence for a while.

“How’s that feeling?” I finally ventured.

“Better, mostly numb now,” David said with a grimace and then he gave an awkward chuckle. “I guess this isn’t a very bad ass or tough guy type of injury.”

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed,” I said. “Sam should be embarrassed. He could go to jail and get sued for that. He probably should.”

“I’ll worry about Sam,” David interjected.

“Please, please just don’t feel embarrassed,” I said. “Would it help if I told you some embarrassing stories about me? I’ve got a lot of them. I’m very clumsy.”

David laughed but then grimaced again. “It’s hurts to laugh,” he said. “No more jokes. I can’t imagine you ever doing anything too embarrassing.”

The kiss list flashed through my mind and suddenly I wanted to keep myself busy and preoccupied. “I’ll look up your injury on the internet and see if there’s anything we should be doing,” I said.

I went to the old computer in the room and began searching through medical websites. Some of the images that came up on the screen were a little graphic and I noticed that David averted his eyes uncomfortably. The gist of the advice was to ice the wounded area. “If the pain lasts longer than an hour or there’s swelling we need to get you to the doctor,” I said.

“Really, I’m fine,” David said quickly. “His foot hit me mostly in the inner thigh so it was just a glancing blow.”

“Hmmm... okay,” I said critically, going into doctor mode. “But we are going to need to check for swelling after you get out of the tub just to be safe.”

“We?
After I get out of the tub?” David said in a strangled voice. “Uh, no. I can, uh, check myself. I don’t need you to help with that, especially right after I get out of a tub of ice.”

“Well, let me know if you see anything worrisome” I said hesitantly, wondering if I should insist - for purely medical reasons, of course. I continued to read through the websites. “They say we also need to get you in some underwear that had lots of support and protection. Your boxers are all soaking now. Do you have any extra clothes in the locker room?”

“Uh, I’ve got some spandex for running in my locker,” David said. He sounded bashful. No doubt this was a sensitive subject for him. I couldn’t let him know that talking about his underwear mortified me as much as it did him. He deserved to be treated with dignity.

“Give me your combination and I’ll get it,” I said.

“Okay, but just get the bag please,” David said after a moment. “I can get what I need from it after.”

I was relived to give David a few moments of peace, though it took some willpower to be able to tear my eyes away from his shirtless body.

I hesitantly pushed my way through the doors of the boys’ locker room and flipped on the lights. I waited but didn’t hear anything. It was deserted at this time of day. Good. Then an overwhelming smell of body odor and hints of cheap colon and body spray hit me and I gagged. Why did the room smell this bad? The girls’ locker room smelled like fruity perfume and soap. Boys were gross.

I wandered through the locker room and found the area where the runners kept their stuff. A card that read “D. Reagan” was pasted on the locker. I used the combination that David had given me and retrieved his bag.

How could I make this better? David had tried to help me and I had gotten him hurt. He was my hero but felt humiliated. That wasn’t right. There had to be a way for me to make him feel like the hero he was.

I thought about my girls. What would they say? Alyssa would tell me to be nice to David and take an interest in his interests. Payton would tell me to flirt with him to make him feel manly again. Olivia... what would the budding psychologist say? She would probably tell me to put David in a role where he could take control again. If people act the role, they start to assume the role. So I needed some activity that David was passionate about where he could take the lead and I could flirt with him.

Wrestling. The thought flew into my mind. David had already told me that he couldn’t wait for the wrestling season to begin. Maybe I could ask him to show me some moves? He could take on the role of the teacher and I could use it as an excuse to feel him up and flirt with him. It was perfect.

And then the idea flew out of my mind as quickly as it had entered. Wrestling was physical and that’s the last thing that David needed right now. Every time he moved he would feel pain. Once again, I was out of ideas.

As I walked out of the locker room I passed a row of lockers with baseball bats and other baseball equipment. I stopped in surprise. The baseball season wasn’t until spring. What was this stuff doing here now? The baseball guys must practice in the off-season and get lockers from the school to store their stuff. As I looked down the row of lockers I saw one labeled “S. Queen.”

I felt my anger rise as I looked at Sam’s name. I fought the petty urge to get a bucket and dump water on his clothes. Then as I stood there, glaring at his locker, an idea occurred to me. Sam had hurt David, the least he could do was lend David something to make help him get better. I searched the locker room and grabbed a chair with metal legs. I threaded one of the legs through the lock on Sam’s locker and wrenched down until the lock broke open. Then I searched through his bag until I found the particular item I was looking for. It picked it up with my fingers, trying to touch as little of it as possible, and dropped it on top of David’s bag. Then I had another thought. I extracted David’s running shirt from his bag, ran back to his locker, and locked it inside.

I had one more stop to make before I could set my plan in motion. I stopped in the girls’ locker room and went to my locker. I picked out the tightest fitting soccer shirt and shorts that I had and changed into them. Then I looked in the mirror and fixed up my hair as best I could.

David looked at me in confusion when I got back into the therapy room. “Why are you wearing your soccer stuff?” he asked.

“I had an idea,” I said. “Right now the principal and our teachers are going to be busy sorting out who is responsible for the fight. I don’t think it hurts to lie low for a while until things blow over. Besides, are you in any hurry to get back to classes? No one is going to get any work done while everyone talks about the fight and the teachers give lectures.”

“So?” David said uncertainly. “What did you have in mind?”

“I want you to teach me how to wrestle,” I said.

David laughed heartily and then grimaced. “I told you not to make me laugh,” he said.

“I’m serious,” I said. “At the running meet you told me you couldn’t wait for wrestling season. Well? What better time than the present? You can teach me a few moves. Unless you’re afraid of getting beat by a soccer chick, that is. We can be pretty tough, you know. I’m willing to bet I can take a pretty boy wrestler down.”

David’s expression was pained. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” he said. “I don’t think I can do anything too active right now.”

“I’ve already thought of that,” I said. “And I found this. Just put it on and you’ll be fine.”

I held up his bag and showed him what was on top of it. He choked and began to cough. “That’s a jockstrap,” he said between coughs.

“I know,” I said. “I borrowed it from Sam’s locker. I don’t think he’ll mind, considering. Oh don’t give me that look. We’re not five years old. I know what a jock strap is and why boys need it. Now stop wasting time and get suited up or I’ll think you really are scared of me.”

“Putting on another dude’s cup is disgusting,” David said.

“Just slip it on over your spandex shorts,” I said. “It never has to touch your skin.”

David looked at me incredulously but it seemed like he had run out of excuses. I averted my eyes as he got out of the tub and changed into his spandex shorts and the jockstrap. After he had slid on mesh running shorts he told me I could look. “Hey,” he said as he rummaged through his bag. “Where’s my shirt? I could have sworn I packed my running shirt this morning when I left home.”

“I didn’t see it,” I said innocently. “I just grabbed the bag like you said and I’m not going back in that locker room. It smelled really, really bad. You can’t wear your golf shirt, though; it’s too nice. Just go shirtless. I don’t mind at all.”

David eyed me for a moment and then seemed to decide that I was not devious enough to hide his shirt. “So what’s the
bet?” he said.

“Bet?”

“Yeah, you said you bet that you could ‘take a pretty boy wrestler down,’” David said. “I’ll teach you a few moves and then we’ll see what you’ve got. If I win, what do I get?”

I shrugged. “What do you want?” I asked.

He hesitated and then blurted out, “You have to go on a date with me.” His face got red as he said the words but he looked serious.

I smiled. Inside, my heart was soaring. I restrained the urge to jump around and pump my fists in the air like I had after kissing Sam
.. “Okay,” I said. “And if I win?”