Playing Defense (Corrigan Falls Raiders) (9 page)

“I don’t think Winslow’s been with as many of the other girls as Tyler,” Karen said as if she thought it would make me feel better.

It didn’t. The idea of him with
anybody
made him seem different from the goofy boy I’d been getting to know. He felt remote now, as if he were miles ahead of me on whatever path to adulthood we were all following. And I wasn’t sure if I wanted to run to catch up to him.

“I was freaked out, too,” Karen continued. “When I first found out about it all. I got over it, mostly. But like I said, I still don’t really like hanging out inside the arena after games.”

“No,” I agreed. “It’s nice out here. Let’s wait here. Or maybe I’ll call my parents and see if they can come pick me up. They said they could.” I’d been enthusiastic about the idea of going out after the game a few minutes earlier, but now it seemed like too much.

Karen winced. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No, it’s good that you did. I’d rather hear about it from you now, somewhere quiet where I can think. But really, I’m taking it all way too seriously, right? I mean, Chris has
been with
lots of girls. He challenged me to come to the game because he thought it would be good for me, that’s all. It’s not like it’s a date or something.” I made myself smile, but judging from the way Karen looked at me I wasn’t too convincing.

“I can’t speak for Winslow,” she said. “But from what I’ve seen? I’d say he likes you. If you like him, maybe you should come out with us and see what happens. But even if you’re totally not interested, it could still be fun. Right?”

“I guess.” But my enthusiasm was gone.

“If you don’t want to stay, you can always call your parents from wherever we are. Or I’m sure Chris would drive you home. Or Tyler and I could take you, if you want.” She frowned. “I really should get my license one of these days.”

“I have mine, but I don’t like driving.” Which suddenly just seemed like another way I was trying to stay a child. No sex, no driving…and, of course, I only drank the occasional glass of wine when my parents were celebrating a special event. No drugs, no job… I had nothing but school, and being a student was kind of the ultimate in not growing up. I felt hopelessly naive.

“Here they come,” Karen said softly, and I turned to see Chris and Tyler striding across the pavement toward us. The same Chris I’d been getting to know, big and golden and smiling, but now I was thinking of him differently. My little fantasy in chemistry class seemed ridiculously innocent. I’d been thinking about his
hands
? Seriously?

Tyler leaned down to kiss Karen hello and I stood there awkwardly, staring somewhere over Chris’s shoulder.

“Did you have fun?” he asked, and I nodded, still not looking at him.

“Yeah. You were right, it was good for me to experience something new. Thanks.”

“Tim Sullivan’s having a party. Not a big thing, but it might be fun. We were thinking of going over there. You interested?”

I had no idea who Tim Sullivan was, but the thought of being at a party with all the players and all the girls, and thinking of what might be going on with them? “I’m pretty tired, actually.” I finally made myself glance in his direction, but I looked quickly away again. “I think I’ll just call for a ride home. But thanks for suggesting the game. Really. It was fun.”

“You don’t need to call for a ride; I can drop you off, if you’re sure you don’t want to go to Sullivan’s. Or we could do something else, if you want.”

“I’m hungry,” Karen interjected. “Maybe we could go eat instead?”

“How can you be hungry?” Tyler asked, his voice light and affectionate. “Every time I looked up you were eating something!” There was a pause, some sort of wordless communication between them, and then Tyler said, “But
I’m
starving. They’ll probably get pizza at Sullivan’s sooner or later, but I wouldn’t mind going somewhere and sitting down to eat.”

The whole thing was impossible. They were all being nice, and trying to make me feel comfortable, and it was only making me even more
un
comfortable. I didn’t like being the center of attention like that, all of these nice people having to change their plans just to deal with the socially inept loser. “I’m just going to head home,” I said, trying to sound casual about it. “So you guys should do what works for you.”

I was digging around in my bag for my phone when Chris said, “Let me drive you, okay?”

His voice was soft, like it was just the two of us there, and it made me feel like I was okay. Like I
wasn’t
a socially inept loser, just a friend, and he was a friend, and wouldn’t it make sense for him to drive me home? “Okay,” I said weakly. “Thanks.”

“We’ll text you where we’re going,” Karen said. “And, Dia, if you change your mind, you should come, okay? I promise I won’t let you get stranded anywhere.”

“Great, thanks!” I said, trying for a bit more energy. “I’ll see you Monday!”

I followed Chris toward a big, dark pickup truck. It beeped when we got close, making me jump in surprise, even though half the cars in the world probably had remote entry. I felt like an idiot, but Chris just said, “You okay?” and then opened the passenger door for me.

I climbed in, vaguely aware of Chris hovering behind me like he thought I might be about to fall, and wondered just how pathetic he thought I was. Was I a child who couldn’t get into a truck by herself? But I couldn’t really get snippy with him when I saw how carefully he eased the door shut with me safe inside. And he actually
jogged
around the front of the car to get to his door. Of course my stupid brain told me he was just in that much of a hurry to get rid of me, but mostly I knew he was being a gentleman.

He climbed into the high truck a lot more gracefully than I had, and when he shut the door it sent a little gust of air across him toward me. I could smell cologne or aftershave, just something light and a bit spicy, and I looked at his jawline. His hair was so fair it was hard to ever see stubble, but even in the dim light of the truck I could see his skin was baby-smooth right then. He’d shaved after the game. Was that…was it significant? Did guys shave all the time before going out, or was there some connection to trying to be ready for kissing? And if it was about kissing, was it about
me
, or just any random girl?

“So, home?” he asked as he turned on the engine. Then he half turned in his seat so he was looking at me, and I made myself look back. It was
Chris
. Goofy, lazy Chris who was afraid of his mom and liked being a member of a sisterhood because it made him feel pretty. I shouldn’t find him intimidating just because he’d had a thousand times more sex than I had. Of course, that would mean multiplying by zero, since I’d never even been kissed. So even my math was failing me. I shook my head in disgust.

“Not home?” he asked.

“Oh. Sorry. I was thinking of…well, I was thinking about math. Weird, right?”

He shrugged. “A bit, I guess. But I like that about you. Of course, I call it ‘different’ instead of ‘weird.’ In my head. I don’t call it either out loud. I mean, I don’t talk about you. Well, I talk about you, but I don’t label you when I do it. Or I guess maybe I do, but in a good way. Like maybe I told someone I like you because you’re different, or something like that. I’m not sure.”

I stared at him, and he turned back around to look out the front windshield.

“Oh my God,” I said. I gave myself another moment to think it through, but I couldn’t come up with a different interpretation. “Chris, are you
nervous
? About
me
?”

“I
wasn’t
,” he said almost fiercely. “But then you wanted to go home, and you’re being—okay, yeah, you’re being
weird
, and I don’t know why, and seriously, Claudia, I am
not
a thinker. This isn’t what I do. I’m a gorilla, remember? I don’t get all uptight about stuff and worry about whether someone’s having fun or likes me or whatever, and now for some reason I
am
doing it and I’m a total rookie and I don’t know what I’m doing. So, yeah. I’m nervous. About
you
.”

“Wow.” We both sat there quietly for a moment. I was letting it all sink in, and I had no idea what he was doing. “That’s cool,” I finally said.

“It’s
cool
?” He turned to look at me again.

“It helps me. I was nervous—like, really nervous. But knowing that you’re nervous—you’d think it’d be contagious, really. Like, from an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense for emotions to spread, because being nervous is a survival mechanism, the adrenaline preparing us for fight or flight, so if one member of my social group sees something to worry about it would make sense for me to worry about it as well. But it doesn’t seem to be working like that here. I guess probably because I wasn’t nervous about an external threat, I was just nervous about you.”

“Why were you nervous about me?”

I sighed. I didn’t want to get into the sex thing with him. Not at all. “Just being weird.”

“Are you kind of over it now? Like, do you still want to go home? Or do you want to go somewhere? The party, or we can meet up with Mac and Karen somewhere, or we can just go somewhere ourselves, if you want. Just us.”

And that was all it took for me to get nervous again. Just the two of us. Going somewhere. Did that mean sex?

“Okay,” Chris said. “Not just us. Got it.”

“What?”

“Let go of the door handle, Claudia. You don’t have to jump out of the truck to get away from me.” He shook his head. “Jesus. Do you think I’m going to hurt you? Whatever different culture I’m part of, it’s definitely not one that hurts women, okay? I’m pretty sure gorillas are actually really gentle.”

My groan was a little melodramatic, but it felt good, and when I was done with it I was able to say, “No. I trust you. And, honestly, what’s with all this ‘gorilla’ talk? Is that about—” I stopped. “Oh, no, Chris.
You
were the one who started talking about gorillas, not me! I said I was an anthropologist, but that could be—I mean, anthropologists study any culture. They can even study their own cultures, I think. It didn’t mean I think you’re different, or definitely not
less
than me. How can I go to that school or live in this town and think that hockey players are somehow
less
instead of
more
?”

“But you’re not like everyone else at school, or in town. You don’t even like hockey.”

He said that last bit as though it was the saddest thing he’d ever heard, and it probably wasn’t too sensitive when I laughed in response. “I like it okay. It was really interesting, tonight. No, not interesting. Not, like—it was
fun
. Okay? I had fun watching you play hockey, and you seem really good at it. Trust me, you are not the person in this vehicle who should be feeling insecure. I’m much more likely to be the one making a fool of myself.”

“I don’t get that. What do you think you’re going to do?”

This time my groan was less pained, more frustrated. “I’m just a loser. That’s all. And it was kind of nice back when you didn’t
know
I was a loser. So it was a bit nerve-racking there for a while, trying to pretend I was something I’m not. But now the secret’s out, so—I guess that’s good. Nothing more to worry about. Fine. I’m a loser. I have no social skills, no experience at, like,
anything
, and am generally just better off in a library somewhere instead of going out with regular people and trying to blend in and be something I’m not.”

He was quiet for quite a while after that, but finally he said, “I’m sorry if I made you think you had to blend in. I didn’t mean to do that. I’m not really sure
how
I did that. But, yeah, I can see how that would suck. For you to hide your awesomeness like that. It must be difficult.”

My snort was completely unladylike. “Seriously? You think I’m still going to be fooled by that?”

“Fooled?” He slid around again until he was facing me head-on, or at least would have been if I hadn’t been so determined to keep looking out the front windshield. Then he reached out his hand and gently, so lightly I could barely feel his touch, laid his fingers along my jawline. And then he…it doesn’t make sense that he was able to pull without having anything to grip on to, without exerting any pressure, but that was what it felt like. It felt like he was somehow pulling my face around so I was looking at him, and even though he didn’t use
any
physical force, I still felt powerless to resist.

When I was finally facing him he said, “Claudia, I think you’re
awesome
. Different. Weird, even, but in the best possible way. I think you’re cute and hot and funny and sweet. I love how smart you are, and how you act like you think I’m smart, too. You might be a bit wrong on that one, but still, I
like
you being wrong about it. I think it was really—it sounds weird, but I think it was brave of you to come out to the game tonight, and I admire the way you let yourself enjoy it instead of just sulking through the whole game. You’re being really honest about the awesome challenges, and I respect that, and it makes me want to be really honest about them, too.” He stopped talking then, and just looked at me, waiting to see what I’d do with all of that.

“You think I’m hot?” I said. I’d heard the rest of it, more or less, and hopefully I’d remember it well enough to review later, but a good chunk of my brain had been captured pretty early in his little speech.

He grinned at me. “Yeah,” he said. “But, you know, that doesn’t have to be a thing. Like, if you just want to be friends, that’s…” He frowned. “Well, I was going to say it was fine. But it’s not, like,
fine
. But it’d be my problem, not yours. I could be your friend, if that’s all you want. Just sisters. And the tutoring.”

“I’ve never been kissed,” I blurted out. Apparently truth only came out of me in random explosions. Chris froze, and I said, “Or kissed anyone. I don’t mean to phrase it as a passive event. I’ve never been part of a kiss. That’s a good way to put it, right? It’s mutual. Equal. I think that’s a better way to phrase it, probably. Part of a kiss. Right?”