Secret Girlfriend (16 page)

“I’ll see you at the car. Don’t let the man get you down.”
Rachel raised a well-manicured hand as she followed the officer up the slope to
the lot. At the gate, she turned and shouted back, “Oh! Please try to get to
the car without starting a small war.”

As they disappeared through the gate, I collected binders
and ref reports. I forced myself to concentrate on sorting and organizing the
data, beginning with the reports Coach would want tonight to make his decisions
for the captain spot—if that was still even an issue.

I’d finished the summary sheet, but Coach was still railing
away at the team. Settling myself in for the long haul, I watched him pace and
yell, swinging his clipboard around as if it were a weapon of annoying teen
destruction.

With a final warning, he dismissed the team, threatening to
call off the entire season if anything happened in the locker room.

The guys disappeared up the stairs to the school’s back door
and Coach made his way to hover over me. Studying his oversized sneakers, I
waited for the explosion that was mine to own.

“Whalen?” his voice had dropped to a softer pitch.

I tried not to look up, afraid to see either overwhelming
disappointment or
uncageable
anger in his eyes.

“Amy?”

“Coach,” I answered, still staring at those beat-up running
shoes.

“Look up here, sunshine.” He crouched down in front of me,
giving me nothing to focus on but him. “I know you didn’t instigate that. I
know you aren’t playing those two against each other. But that doesn’t change
the fact that my two best players are treating you like a toy they’re fighting
over.”

“Coach, honestly, I’m not trying to be fought over.”

“Good girl. I knew you were too smart for that.” He smacked
his ever-present clipboard against his thigh. “We can’t lose a season because a
boy can’t let go of his pride. Tomorrow, after practice, I’d appreciate it if
you made that very clear to Kent. I’m going to need this to end.”

What? What could I explain to Chris?

“To Chris, sir?”

“Whalen, you need to explain to that boy he should stick to
flirting with his own girlfriend and leave Parker’s alone.”

Oh.
Uh-oh.

“I’m not Parker’s girlfriend, sir.”

I had no idea what I was, but I knew I wasn’t that. Was
there a Lost
And
Confused status I could give Coach?
How about Hopeful But Unsure of Reception?

He gazed at me a long moment, studying me with the intensity
I’d only seen him focus on the team statistics.

“Whalen.”
The word was more of a
sigh than my name. “You need to figure out what you’re doing then and do it.
This half-ass stuff isn’t going to work, and I won’t have my team distracted
and divided. If you can’t take care of this, I’ll have to.”

He smacked the clipboard two more times and said, “Are we
clear?”

“Yes, sir.
Clear.”

He hulked up and made his way to the school, probably to
ensure there still
was
a locker room.
I watched until he disappeared at the top of the hill and gathered my stuff
together to escape to Rachel’s awaiting car.

The lights on the field flickered out and faded to darkness
as I made my way up the steps.
Figures.
No real
surprise that I’d be visible for all of three minutes and not when I actually
needed
lights. I stood there in the
dark, re-embracing my invisibility for a moment.

I was so done.
Done with all of it.
Luke Parker just humiliated me in front of the entire school before classes had
even started. I have no idea how one minute you can feel so sure, so excited
about something—about someone—and then the next you just want to be left alone
for the next sixty years.

I had enough problems with the only guy in my life.
My dad.

Yeah. And so I was done with both of them. Boys who played
soccer were officially banned from Amy-land.

Stomachs that flipped over.
Hearts that stopped.
No more!

Unfortunately, I was almost to Rachel’s car when I heard the
steps speeding up behind me.

“Hey! Amy!”

Not what I needed. I considered pretending not to hear him,
but with the speed Luke was gaining on me, he’d overtake me before I got to
Rachel’s Honda anyway.

“Amy, listen.”

I spun around, finally having an outlet for my anger and
humiliation.

“How could you, Luke?
Seriously.
You attacked your own team member.
Your
captain.
You started a fight to rival…
Gah
!
I don’t even know what it could rival it was so big. And you haven’t even
attended a single class yet.” I glanced back to where I was pretty sure Rachel
was reaching across the passenger’s seat to roll down the window on our side of
her absurdly old car. “Can’t you just let it go, leave him alone? A little
effort to get along with him would go a long way. You don’t get to just blow up
like that for no reason.”

Luke stared at me.
Hard.
When I
finally gave up on him answering me, I moved to step off the curb, to hop into
Rachel’s car and hopefully back to the house. I had a desperate plan to drown
myself in Chunky Monkey while she chitchatted about flirting with a cop that
was way too old for her—and not her boyfriend.

As I stepped down, a firm grip fastened around my arm and
spun me back toward Luke. Off balance, I stuck my hand out, bracing against his
chest. Before I could jerk away, Luke was leaning down, growling in a low,
intense voice I’d never heard come out of him before.

“No. No, we won’t ever get along. I know it. He knows it.
And you need to know it. I want the “C” on his shirt, his spot on the team, and
the girlfriend he’s too proud to recognize in public. But know this, Amy.” He
came even closer, his nose actually brushing mine. “Only the last one matters.”

He released me so abruptly I
stumbled
a little, bumping into the car behind me. Before I could reply, he was gone,
the oversized rectangular taillights of his Chevy disappearing at a speed that
made me worry about his safety.

Sinking into the passenger’s seat, I turned to Rachel. “Did
you get all that or do you need a play by play?”

Rachel shook her head, her gaze focused on the road. “That
was by far the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.”

A dull throb grew in my head as I contemplated her words.
“Seriously.
You’re insane. Can we go before Chris comes out
and demands something too?”

One of my double-booked conversations was enough for
tonight.

Leave it to Luke to knock down the brand new walls around
Amy-land, before I had a chance to do all that decision-solidifying stuff I’d
planned on. Never in my life had I been so confused. Did I have a boyfriend?
Did I even want one if guys were basically crazy? And, if I wanted one, how the
heck do you choose between the guy you’ve loved since elementary school and the
guy who just can’t stop knocking down the wall around your heart?

I was confused. But more than that, I was tired of being
confused.

We drove to my house in silence, the trees casting the
almost-full moon’s shadow through the sunroof. Rachel didn’t ask when we
stopped in front of my house, just turned the car off and followed me into the
Haven.

It was the first time girl’s night was to accommodate my
angst, and wouldn’t you know? It started to rain.
Again.

Chapter
23

The rain pounded against my window in a heavy, distracting
drumming. Dad must have left even earlier than normal, probably as soon as the storm
woke him. Or it was just another desperate attempt to avoid me. I hadn’t gotten
a run in for a couple days, and the amount of water falling from the sky
annoyed me.

Typically I loved to run in the rain, especially in the
summer heat. The smell of water spitting off the overheated pavement always
pushed me farther. But this, this was a blinding curtain of water not even I
would go out in.

I switched on the TV and flipped to the local channel,
hoping for a break in the clouds.

Not good.
Actually, worse than not good.

Storm advisories ran across the bottom of the screen. In the
top corner, a map with my house pretty much sitting in the middle, showed a
flood warning. And the news continued to get worse.

The call for evacuation was immediate and urgent.

Hopefully, I could wait until my dad got home to form a
plan. In the meantime, I kept sneaking peeks out the window to see how much the
river had risen. By afternoon, the water sloshed over the banks and engulfed
the trees lining the drive.

As little wavelets inched closer, I realized there was more
than a good chance the house might get flooded—like good as in
primetime-TV-will-have-a-new-reality-show-in-the-fall good chance.

The living room, the one place in the house that hadn’t
changed in the last six years, was a comfortable shrine to family.
My family.
My mother’s trinkets and memories dotted the room
giving it the cozy feeling I longed to hold onto. Each piece of furniture had
been
hand picked
at flea markets and antique sales.
The only reason this cottage was more than a cute house was because of the home
she had made it.

Starting with the lighter things, I began carrying
furniture, knick-knacks and keepsakes upstairs to the spare bedroom. Each trip
down, I glanced out the window, eyeing the rising water.

When everything I could easily lift had been moved, I
started on my studio in the back room. The paintings and works-in-progress went
first, followed by my easel, sketches, and paints. After that, I remembered the
den. I grabbed Dad’s work papers and the lock box and put that all on his bed.

At the front door, I shivered from the rush of raw air and
water streaming toward me. In the background, Channel 5 reported the dam
upstream was being strained and that evacuation was upgraded to “mandatory”.

How could my dad not be home yet? I tried his voicemail
again, but the phone kept doing that annoying doo-doo-doo thing and telling me
all circuits were busy and to try again later.

Unfortunately, that was the message for every call I tried
to make.

If I got to the evacuation center at the school, I was going
to learn how to drive and ask for a car by the end of the week. Forget about
the whole parent at the driving test thing. I’d hire a parent if I had to.

“Think. Think. Think.” I forced myself to focus. “If Dad’s
on his way home, what do I need to do? What does one need to bring on an
evacuation?”

Seriously, school could be doing a better job teaching us
life skills. Between this and the management of boys, I thought I could have
written a whole new curriculum.

Clothes, blankets, towels, toiletries, sketch pad.
Stuff for dad.

I’ll admit, I was beginning to panic, but figured I could at
least move Mom’s heavier stuff toward the foyer for when Dad got there. Maybe I
could even pull some of it up the narrow staircase on my own.

The sky grew darker by the time I’d gotten all the furniture
in the entryway. I collapsed on the overstuffed chair angled toward the
banister and started bawling. Around me sat all the objects in the world that
carried my mother’s memory and I couldn’t get them to safety alone—I couldn’t
even get myself to safety—and I’d finally allowed myself to wonder if my father
had forgotten he even had a daughter.

Over my own stupid sobbing, I heard the engine rev up the
drive and shot to the door. Only, it wasn’t a mid-sized Toyota coming my way.
It was a dark red, very old pick-up.

Luke wasn’t even out of the truck before I launched myself
at him, the rain mixing with my tears and soaking us both through in less time
than it took for him to push me back toward the house.

“Grab your stuff. We have to get you out of here.”

He shoved the door shut against the wind and froze, unable
to move in the menagerie of furniture.

“Amy, what’s all the furniture doing in the foyer?”

I started crying again, that ugly, drastic, hiccupping
crying.

“It was my mom’s.”

He pushed his hair back and ran his hand across the back of
his neck. Glancing up the stairs, taking in the assortment of stuff I’d tried
to carry up myself. He checked his watch and said, “Pick three things.”

Launching myself at Luke Parker while
sobbing was beginning to become a habit.
But he rubbed my back for a
moment and let me sniffle into his T-shirt.

“Really, Amy.
Only
three.”

I pulled away, totally embarrassed that I kept finding
myself in Luke’s arms instead of, you know, not.

It was too overwhelming. But I knew he was right.
Three
was even more than we really had time for, but
picking what stayed and what didn’t was like choosing which memories I got to
keep.

Luke’s hand came to rest on the back of my neck.

“When you walk in the room every day, where would you
picture her?”

I pointed to the battered chair I’d been curled up in.

“Okay. We’ll take that one first.”

Once that was done, we surveyed the hall, Luke beside me not
pushing as I caught him glancing out the window toward the river.

“Amy?”

“I don’t know. I can’t pick.” I looked up at him, a little
desperate. “You pick.”

“How about we take the oversized chair thing and the other
cushion chair thing?” He pointed at the two loveseats. “And hope the stuff
that’s wood can be refinished.”

And just like that I knew my home might not be here when I
got back. That the best I could hope for was to be able to refinish the wood.
And that Luke and his big truck had already crossed the little wooden bridge
once.

“Let’s go.”

He looked at me and I realized I was getting used to it.
Comfortable with the wordless-searching-look thing he did when he
really
looked at me—that no matter the
misunderstandings and the arguments, he saw me. And being seen had suddenly
become a very good thing.

“Do you have your stuff?”

I pointed to the two suitcases and the hamper filled with
blankets and pillows.

“I put a tarp in the back of the truck. We’ll throw
everything under there and make a run for it.”

“A run for it?”
My voice squeaked
the question as I realized things were worse than I thought.

“The bridge was already sitting in water coming this way.
I’m hoping it’s still there. If not, we’ll drive toward the farm and hope
that’s far enough from the river to ride it out.”

“Oh my God, Luke.
What are you
doing here?”

That seemed to be the only question that stopped him. He
halted, turned back toward me and said, “You were here.”

And then he was gone, sprinting through the downpour and
throwing suitcases in the back. I ran to the kitchen and stuffed as much food
as I could into a backpack in case we were stuck in his truck today.
And tonight.
And until the water went
down.

I climbed in the truck, pushing my wet hair out of my eyes.
Luke turned the key and the engine
sputtered,
a sick
sad noise that had my heart stalled out. Closing my eyes, I prayed his rescue
hadn’t already morphed into a tragedy.

“Don’t worry. It’s just damp.”

Damp. I started laughing.
Hysterically.
The type of laughter people in the movies get slapped for. We were sitting in
three inches of water, a river racing toward us, about to wash away the bridge
that might already be gone, and he says the engine is
damp
.

Luke Parker, King of the Understatement.

The truck turned over with a loud roar that slowly subsided
into its typical gentle rev. As we made our way down the lane, the trees rode
low, slapping water soaked branches against the side of the battered old chariot
of a truck. I was so relieved to see the end of the drive that I laughed a
little, not knowing how else to let it out.

Luke turned us onto the road and stopped where the bridge
met land. The bed of the bridge was already hidden by water, several inches
sloshing over the top. Together, we sat and looked at it, just watching the
water rushing by.

“Ready?”

I nodded. It wasn’t as though you could get
more
ready for something like this. Luke
threw the truck in gear and reached down to where my hand gripped the seat,
threading his fingers between mine.

I suddenly knew we’d make the bridge, if just for Luke’s
sheer stubborn streak. But I closed my eyes and squeezed his hand in mine
anyway. The front wheels dipped onto the wood with a cur-thud. The water shoved
the front end around, almost forcing us into the railing. Luke pulled his hand
back and downshifted, forcing us forward and up the incline on the far side. I
glanced over my shoulder. Nothing except the railing peaked out above the water
behind us.

Easing back in the seat, my muscles turned to mush as Luke
re-threaded his fingers through mine for the silent ride up the three hills to
the school.