Playing Defense (Corrigan Falls Raiders) (11 page)

“Oh.” I wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Nanotechnology is really small things, right? Like, you’d make little robots that could fix people?”

“Maybe,” Claudia said. She sounded miserable. I guess I was sounding pretty stupid, compared to what her parents were probably used to.

I decided it was best to talk as little as possible, so I just stood there, trying to look natural.

“You’re having trouble with math?” Dr. Waring asked.

For Claudia’s sake, I wanted to defend myself. Which didn’t make much sense, really—if I needed a tutor, it was pretty clear I wasn’t good at math. But I wanted to say something about missing a lot of school for road trips, or not having time for homework, or
something
that would make it sound like their precious daughter wasn’t hanging around with an actual gorilla. But instead, I said, “And chemistry. I’m having trouble with math and chemistry.”

Dr. Waring raised an eyebrow, and even Mr. Waring looked less than impressed.

“And what are your plans for after high school?” Dr. Waring asked.

“Uh…well, I hope to play hockey for another few years. The NHL would be great, obviously, but even a couple years on one of the European teams or something…” It all sounded kind of shaky, I had to admit. I tried to think of what
my
mom would want to hear. “I get a scholarship—every year I play in the OHL is a free year of school when I’m done. So when hockey’s over, I’ll probably go to school for…something.”

Claudia smiled at me, but it wasn’t her real smile. It was half apology, half something else. Embarrassment? For me, or for herself? Now that her parents were pointing it out to her, was she realizing how bad she was slumming, spending time with me?

Judging by the look on Dr. Waring’s face, that’s what she was hoping for. “And what about your parents?” she asked. “What do
they
do?”

“They have their own business,” I said. And then, because I wasn’t going to be ashamed of my family or try to hide anything about them, not even for Claudia’s sake, I added, “Construction.” The truth was, the family business was pretty successful, and my parents made good money from it. My brothers and sister made good livings, too. We were far from poor, and even without the OHL scholarship I could have afforded to go to school, no problem, just living off my parents for a while. But I wasn’t going to get into that with the Warings. It sounded too much like an apology,
and
I was sure they wouldn’t care anyway. It wasn’t the money they were uptight about. I didn’t know what word they’d use to describe it, but whatever it was I knew they thought they had it and I didn’t.

Dr. Waring held my gaze for a little longer, clearly trying to send a wave of intimidation in my direction. And even though I’d stared down countless goons twice her size and with actual blades strapped to their feet, I have to admit Dr. Waring was pretty scary. Not because of herself, but because of who she was to Claudia.

Still, I managed to meet her eyes, and finally she turned to her daughter and said, “I’m concerned about your own studies falling behind. You know how crucial this year is. You know that your fall marks are the ones sent to the universities. You have the math contest coming up. You need to prioritize yourself, not be sidetracked.”

“I know,” Claudia said quietly. I wondered if she was feeling bad for having lost time to the hockey game the night before.

“I could probably—” I started, but Claudia cut me off.

“You owe me four hours,” she said. And
this
was Dia, strong and fierce, with a sweetness underneath it all. “Don’t try to weasel out. And all three extra hours, too. I want them finished by the end of next week.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said quickly. If I was choosing between Claudia or her mother? I’d rather have her mother mad at me.

“Good,” she said, and then she turned to her mom and just as quickly turned back into a shy little girl. “Can we go do our work now?” she asked meekly.

“In the kitchen,” Dr. Waring said. I wasn’t sure what the other alternative would have been. Claudia’s bedroom? That was probably wishful thinking.

Claudia led us back through the foyer to pick up the milk and cookies, then past the stairs and into a big, bright kitchen with a long wooden table. There were French doors that opened onto a deck, and I walked over to peer outside. Yeah, it was a nice house. “My parents’ house has that, too,” I said to Claudia. I guess I hadn’t wanted to say anything to her mom, but I thought it was worthwhile making things clear to Claudia. “The French doors, then the deck, and the forest behind. They have a pool in between, though.”

She nodded and said, “That’s how you think of it? As your parents’ house? Not yours?”

I’d been trying to make it clear my family wasn’t destitute, and she’d used it as a way to wriggle into my brain. “I guess,” I said. “I don’t really live there anymore. Even over the summer I’m doing camps and tournaments and whatever. I go back for a weekend now and then, but that’s about it.”

“So the family you billet with—is
that
home?”

I’d never really thought about it, but if Claudia wanted me to, I would. “No,” I said after a moment. “That’s not home, either. I mean, it’s
their
home. And they’re nice and all, but they’re not family.”

“So you don’t have a home?” She sounded a little sad about that.

“The rink,” I said quickly. I hadn’t given it a lot of thought, but I was pretty sure it was true. “The whole building, really. The ice, and the locker room. The snack bar, even. I spend more awake time at the arena than anywhere else, probably.”

She nodded. “So your teammates really
are
your family, in a way.”

“They’re annoying, they think they know me better than they do, they’re always around even when I don’t want them to be… Yeah, that sounds like family.”

She grinned at me, and it was like her mother was miles away instead of right in the next room. Claudia and I were back to where we’d been the night before. I really wanted to kiss her, and from the way she was standing, the way she was looking at me, I was pretty sure she wanted me to. But then she heaved a big sigh and dragged out one of the heavy wooden chairs from the table. “We should work,” she said. “Did you bring your books?”

I had, unfortunately, so we cracked out the cookies and Claudia found glasses for the milk, which was a lot classier than my usual swig-from-the-carton approach, and we mathed it up.

Again, it wasn’t nearly as boring as it should have been. Partly because I could distract myself with not-math, like watching the way Claudia tucked her hair behind her ear, and imagining it was me doing it instead of her. Or letting my leg sit right next to hers, close enough that I could feel the warmth of her skin even through two layers of denim. And of course there was the try-to-make-her-laugh game. I made myself be subtle about it; I didn’t think she’d appreciate a full-on comedy act or clown routine. But I got a few smiles and one chuckle, so I called it a win.

I hadn’t realized how long we’d been at it until Dr. Waring came in and started poking around in the fridge. I glanced at my watch and realized she was looking for lunch.

“I should get going,” I said.

Claudia wrinkled her nose, and I could tell she was torn between asking me to stay and thinking it would be best for me to spend as little time as possible with her mom. I was kind of torn, too, so I waited to see how she’d call it. After I gave her enough time to invite me to stay if she’d wanted to, I finished gathering up my books and stuffed them in my knapsack.

“You owe me another hour and a half this weekend,” Claudia said firmly, her back turned to her mother.

“I’ve got tomorrow off completely,” I said. “I could probably get that three hours taken care of, too, if you’re okay with blitzing.”

“Yeah, for sure. Here again?”

“Great. I’ll bring the snacks.” And that should have been it. But that night was another curfew-free night, and I’m not kidding when I say we hardly get any of those. So I didn’t want to walk away without at least
asking
Claudia to spend some time with me. I could have phoned her later, I guess, but I felt like I had a better chance in person. I should have said something to her earlier, before her mom showed up, but maybe it was better this way anyhow. Might as well face them both at the same time.

So as I swung my knapsack over my shoulder I said, “You want to do something tonight? I’ve got a team dinner, but it won’t go long. I’ll be out by eight at the latest. We could see a movie or something?”

The expression on Claudia’s face made me wish I’d kept my mouth shut. Not for my own sake, exactly, but more because I really didn’t like seeing her look so tense. “I’d like to,” she said, but we both knew that wasn’t an answer. She glanced in her mother’s direction, looking tentative. And then, again, right as I watched, Claudia straightened her spine, put on a determined expression, and became Dia. “Yes,” she said, loud enough for everyone in the room to hear it clearly. “Okay. Call me when your dinner’s over. A movie sounds good.”

“Yeah?”

“I may or may not add the time to your math commitment,” she said lightly.

“It’d be worth it even if you did.”

“Nice line,” she said, like she was one of the guys on the team.

I grinned at her and resisted the urge to hip-check her. I
also
had to resist the urge to kiss her. These were some pretty strong, pretty contradictory urges I was dealing with.

“So, I’ll call you,” I said, backing slowly toward the door. Now that she was smiling again, it was really hard to stop looking at her.

“I’ll walk you out,” she replied, which was about the best suggestion I’d heard since she came up with the Sisterhood.

I was vaguely aware of her mom simmering behind us and figured that for Claudia, more sensitive
and
more closely connected to the woman, the simmer would be more like a full boil, but Claudia just kept moving. She pulled the front door open and led me outside, down the cold flagstone steps, and around the corner of the garage. And then it was like she just ran out of determination, and turned around to look timidly somewhere near my shoulder.

That was okay, though, because out here, away from her mom, I felt like I was ready to take charge. “Please tell me that you wanted to walk me out so you could kiss me.”

She glanced quickly toward my face, then back toward my shoulder as her face flamed.

“Yes?” I said gently. “No? Maybe you just wanted to be sure I didn’t steal anything on the way out?”

“I didn’t think you were going to steal anything,” she managed.

“So…a kiss?”

I waited. Partly because the team was crazy obsessed with the whole “explicit consent” thing and we got lectures on it almost monthly; if a Corrigan Falls Raider ever forced a girl into doing something she didn’t want to, he would
not
be able to claim he didn’t know any better. But mostly I waited because I felt like it was kind of important for Claudia to do this, to take charge of her own decisions.

And my patience paid off, because finally, soft but sure, I heard, “I walked you out because I wanted to kiss you.”

“And you still do?” I pushed.

She nodded.

And that was the end of my self-control. No more playing. Claudia tilted her head up as I lowered mine, and our lips met with something new, something fiercer than anything the night before. We weren’t exploring now, weren’t testing boundaries or worrying about…well, we weren’t worrying about anything. It was a hell of a kiss.

When we finally came up for air, Claudia had her bare feet on top of my shoes, and she was pressed up against the brick column between their two garage doors, my forearms braced on either side of her head, our bodies lined up and pressed together in as many points of connection as we’d been able to find. And I didn’t really remember how any of that had happened. I just remembered sensations, not events.

“Wow,” I whispered. “Maybe not the movies tonight? Maybe somewhere more private?”

Her eyes were wide, like she’d shocked herself with the kiss. Which would make sense, because she’d surprised the hell out of me. She blinked a couple times, clearly trying to come back to reality, and eventually my words registered. She glanced over toward the front door of the house. It was out of sight beyond the corner of the garage, and we were shielded from the street by a long hedge and a couple trees, not to mention the bulk of my truck, but Claudia still managed to look like she’d been caught doing something she wasn’t supposed to.

So I wasn’t too surprised when she said, “No, a movie’s a good idea. I think…I think a bit of public time might be wise.”

Not what I wanted to hear, but I kissed her again anyway. Less intense this time, but still a good kiss. “Okay,” I agreed. “Movie. Excellent.”

“Awesome,” she corrected.

And she was still there, her body tight against mine even if our lips were apart, so I wasn’t going to argue with her. “Awesome,” I agreed, and I let myself stand there just a little bit longer before heading off for practice.

Chapter Eight

I had always thought of myself as a person with a lot of self-control. I was disciplined, rational, and calm. Practically Vulcan, really.

All of that flew out the window when I was within pheromone-scenting distance of Chris Winslow. I floated back into the house after our driveway make-out session and it was like… Well, I’ve never been stoned, but it was definitely like reality had been somehow altered for the better. The tile felt warmer under my chilled feet, the walls a more serene and soothing shade of taupe, the sunlight streaming in through the windows a bright, cheerful affirmation of everything that was right with the world.

Then my mother said, “Claudia? Come into the kitchen, please,” and it was like she was attaching weights to my body that would have been floating easily without her interference.

I almost ignored her. Almost let myself float right up the stairs to my room where I was sure I could levitate above my bed for a while, thinking about Chris and the way his body made my body feel…but my reality hadn’t been altered quite
that
much.

So I trudged into the kitchen and stood by the doorway, waiting.

My mom glanced in my direction, then away, then back again for a longer look. “I should take a photo of you,” she said, sounding almost amused. “I could call it ‘Teen Attitude.’”

I nodded. “Because any resentment I might feel is just because I’m a teenager. I’m angsty, or hormonal or something. It couldn’t have anything to do with you treating a friend of mine as if he’s a lower life form.”

Her sigh made it clear she’d hoped for a better response but hadn’t really expected one. “He’s the same life form as you,” she said, as if
I’d
been the one acting like he wasn’t. “But what exactly do the two of you have in common? You’re going to hockey games. I assume you’ll see some sort of action movie tonight? Or maybe he’ll make a grand concession and see something slightly more cerebral, but it will be as a favor to you. A favor you’ll be expected to return, in one form or another.” Her raised eyebrow made it clear she knew what form she expected the favor to take. Gross.

“Maybe we don’t
have
to have all that much in common,” I said defensively. Because, really, she was right. It was hard to think of any common bonds between me and Chris, beyond the physical. He’d been going to the same school as me for more than a year, been in several classes with me, and we’d never exchanged a word or a glance. There was a reason for that, wasn’t there?

“For a friendship?” my mom said easily. “No, maybe not, if you’re just casual friends. But for something more serious? To be
good
friends, or to be romantically involved? I think you’d need to have things in common. Don’t you?”

I wasn’t sure what I thought. I definitely didn’t think he was a gorilla. But he
was
really different from me, wasn’t he?

My mom’s smile was kinder than it had been for a while. “I know, it’s exciting. He’s a very handsome boy.” She waited for my response, and finally seemed to take my silence as agreement. “The problem is…if the relationship is just based on the physical. If you’re both attracted to each other, but that’s all… Claudia, how many
other
girls could share that with him? How many already
have
? We both know how ridiculous this town is about hockey, so there’s the added status boost, right? You’ve got so much going for you beyond being a pretty girl, but he doesn’t care about those things. He doesn’t value your intelligence or your ambition. How could he, when they’re both so foreign to his experience? So for him, you’re just one more pretty girl who’s interested in a handsome hockey player.” She paused long enough to let it sink in, then said, “Is that all you want to be?”

I wished I could go back in time and
not
come into the kitchen. Or a little further back in time so I could have just stayed out in the driveway with Chris forever. I could have stayed lost in that warm, Chris-flavored haze instead of dealing with whatever the hell it was I was feeling there in the kitchen. “He’s a good guy,” I said lamely. “He
likes
me.”

“I’m sure he does,” she agreed softly. Like she was setting the groundwork for our big female bonding scene when he dumped my ass. Or, really, when I realized he’d never even picked my ass up, not on a permanent basis.

I didn’t want to talk to her anymore, and she didn’t try to stop me this time when I headed upstairs. But instead of floating, now I was trudging. I flopped down on my bed, stared at the ceiling, rolled over, and buried my head under the pillow, and I yelled. My voice was muffled and indistinct, but still enough to make me feel at least a little bit better. I sat up and stared at the stack of books on my desk. I had some homework, but not much. Mostly, I should be working on the practice questions for the math contest that was coming up in a few weeks. It was sponsored by the University of Waterloo, the school I really wanted to get into, and rumor was they weighted the contest results even more heavily than grades when they were deciding admissions.

That was the school I wanted. The contest was the way to get into the school. The contest was the way to get what I wanted. It was totally clear, totally logical. My path was obvious.

And still, I flopped back on the bed, grabbed my pillow, and yelled into it again. I didn’t want math, I wanted
Chris
. Well…I wanted math
and
Chris. I wanted to do math on Chris’s body, tracing equations on his abs, calculating the angle of his shoulders and the rate of change in the pressure of his lips. And when I was done with mathing him, I could move on to chemistry, and physics. Maybe even a little biology. And then I could start all over again.

I sighed and rolled off the bed onto my feet, then squared my shoulders and walked resolutely to my desk. There was no Chris. There was only math.

So I got to work. But I admit, there was a part of my mind wondering what movie we should go see. And another part wondering what would happen if we followed his suggestion, and didn’t go see a movie at all…

…

When I got to Claudia’s house, I turned the truck off and walked up to the front door instead of calling her and telling her to come outside. That was a tip from the guys on the team after I told them about the less-than-friendly parents. The team had quite a few other ideas, too. Some made sense, like being really careful what I said around Claudia’s parents and asking her for ideas on how to handle them, but others seemed a bit… I don’t know, a bit old-fashioned? Or else kind of sleazy. Like, there was no way I was going to buy flowers for Dr. Waring. That had been Christiansen’s idea, and he was just a rookie, so probably he was full of shit. But I knew he was dating a minister’s daughter back in Albany where he grew up, so maybe he knew what he was talking about. Ministers and doctors are kind of the same, maybe?

Still, I couldn’t pull something like that off. So I was empty-handed as I stood on the Warings’ doorstep, and I felt like a fool. This whole thing was awkward, and it was definitely a compliment to Claudia that I was going through with it. But I couldn’t really think of a way to make the compliment clear to her that didn’t involve me ranting for a while about her psycho mom or, worse, make it clear that I actually
was
a dumb jock who was way beneath her notice. So I figured I was going to have to just let it go.

Her dad was the one who answered the door, and he didn’t sound totally hostile. “Hi, Chris. Come on in.” But then it took me a minute to remember if I could call him just “mister” or if he had some extra title, too, and by the time I figured that out he seemed to have kind of given up on getting a greeting out of me. “Claudia’s in the living room.”

Which seemed to mean I was supposed to be in the living room, too. Shit, had I agreed to watch a movie
at home
with the whole Waring family? I hadn’t done that, had I? I’d said
go
to a movie…hadn’t I?

I was relieved when Claudia stood up and I saw she had her jacket in one hand. Her mom was looking at me like she thought I smelled bad, and when she asked, “What are you planning on seeing?” it seemed like she was setting some sort of trap.

“Uh, I don’t know.” I looked at Claudia. “I don’t even know what’s playing, to be honest.” There was only one theater in town, a multiplex out by the only mall. “I figured we could just go and see what’s on? Unless you had something you wanted to see.”

There was a look between Claudia and her mom, but I had no idea what it meant and didn’t really feel like working too hard to figure it out.

“That sounds good,” Claudia said when she and her mom were done glaring at each other. “Let’s go.”

“So we’ll expect you back in a couple hours?” Dr. Waring asked.

It sounded like a question, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t. I decided to keep my mouth shut. I’d drive Claudia home whenever she wanted to come home, and not a second before. So the timing wasn’t really up to me.

“We might get something to eat afterward,” Claudia tried.

“Call to let us know, please.”

Claudia nodded to her mom, then jerked her chin toward the door, telling me to get moving. I guess she’d given up on words entirely, and I couldn’t really blame her. It sure seemed like her mom was looking for an excuse to start something, and getting out of there without saying too much was probably safest.

So I headed for the door, Claudia behind me, and we didn’t say anything until we were in the truck, out of the driveway, and halfway down the street. “Sorry,” Claudia finally said.

“Is it going to be a problem?” I was usually pretty good at ignoring things, but I didn’t think Claudia was.

Claudia sighed. “I have no idea. It’s not pleasant. She’s… She loves me. She means well. She’s just…”

“Wound a little tight?” I suggested.

That earned me a snort of agreement. “But really, so am I, usually. I take things seriously. I’m not like you.”

I wasn’t sure how to take that. “What do you mean? What am I
like
?”

“You’re relaxed. Happy-go-lucky. The opposite of me and my mom.”

“Well, not the
opposite
. There’s stuff I care about.”

“No,” she said quickly, “I didn’t mean you don’t
care
. But you don’t let yourself get twisted up about it.”

That was normally true. I had a feeling I was getting pretty twisted up over Claudia, though. The idea that her mom’s problem with me might actually get in the way of us spending time together? Yeah, that was enough to tighten my stomach in a completely unpleasant way. Damn, was that what the two of them
always
felt like?

No. Maybe her mom, but not Claudia. “You’re not all that uptight,” I said. “You care about stuff, but it’s good stuff. Like, school or whatever. It’s
good
to care about that. You don’t let it get in the way of you doing what you want.”

We were at the movie theater by then; one good thing about small towns is how little time it takes to get anywhere. So I parked the truck and looked over to find Claudia frowning at me. “Did you catch the part where I’d never even kissed anybody before you?” she demanded. “Do you really think that counts as not letting school get in the way of doing what I want?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking of that more in terms of you saving yourself for me. Or having really high standards that no guy before me has been able to meet. I wasn’t thinking that you’d have been madly making out with guys if you weren’t so distracted by your math homework.”

“I would have been,” she said solemnly. “I would have been
madly
making out with guys. Lots of them. I have no standards at all. It was only the math homework that saved me.”

Damn, I liked this girl. But it would probably freak her out if I showed her just how far-gone I already was, so I made myself be just as serious as she was pretending to be. “I didn’t know that. Thanks for your honesty.” And then I let the smirk work its way out. “I can’t help noticing that there’s no math in the truck with us right now. But there
is
a guy…”

She grinned at me, then frowned. “I can just about guarantee my mom will grill me about the movie. We have to go see something.”

“I’m paying twenty bucks for an alibi?”

“I’ll pay half.”

I shook my head. “I’m not worried about the money. And, okay, this is all new for her, right? If you haven’t been dating much—”

“Haven’t been dating
at all
,” she corrected.

“Yeah, okay. You haven’t been dating at all. So a guy showing up all of a sudden is going to throw her off. That’s not weird, right? It doesn’t mean she’s going to
stay
tense.”

“Well, past performance isn’t always a good predictor of future performance, but sometimes it’s the best we’ve got. And based on past performance? I think we should expect her to stay tense.”

“So how do you deal with that? Like, do you talk her into letting you do what you want, or do you just ignore her, or what?”

“Usually?” She looked down at her hands, then back up at me. “No, not usually.
Always
. Always before, I’ve just…gone along with her. She’s usually
right
, is the thing. She’s smart, and she thinks things through, and she makes good decisions. So I go along with her.”

I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, but I made myself ask anyway. “Are you going to do that this time?”

She stared at me, her eyes wide. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

It didn’t make me mad, exactly. But it made me a lot more aware of that uncomfortable tightness in my gut. I was getting way too into this, considering the person I was into it
with
wasn’t sure it was even worth standing up to her mother over.

Something to be aware of, for sure. I needed to keep this as casual as Claudia was, not let myself build it up into something it wasn’t. Casual. Okay, good. I could do casual. So I smiled and nodded toward the list of movies on the outside of the theater. “Anything you want to watch?”