The Starter Boyfriend (11 page)

Satisfied, I flipped open my phone in case I’d somehow missed a text. No, nothing new. Still, that didn’t stop me from staring at my background picture for a heart-stopping moment, seeing Tux stare off past the camera while my head lolled upon his shoulder. And while neither of us was smiling, simply looking at it made the edges of my mouth jerk up.

Yes, I was crazy. But didn’t a desperate life call for some desperate measures?

Closing my phone, I checked the clock display, and saw it was nearly half-time. Randy had said he was fine with me sitting anywhere I wanted during the game—but I was guessing he didn’t mean the front seat of my car.

I locked up and headed out. Approaching Randy’s friend, I raised a hand in thanks.

“Courtney,” he called back, taking some steps toward me. “Question.”

I veered his way, my shoes kicking up some pebbles.

“Have you decided if you’re going to give your body to science someday?”

I stopped and squinted, wondering if he was a budding medical researcher or maybe some religious nut with strong opinions on the subject. “I—I have no idea.”

“Well, if you do, and you’re done with Randy? You can call me Science.” Then he grinned—all cheesy.

O.M.G., I ran right into that one, huh? I slackened my face to keep from giving him any reaction satisfaction, poked my hands into the pockets of my hoodie and walked off.

* * *

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” drawled Saffron from her perch on a top bleacher. “Finally.” Her tone and eye roll had
just teasing
written all over it, but with Saffron, you could never be sure.

Flea scooted down to make room for me on the end.

“That’s your boyfriend,” Madison added, “down there, under the hot lights.”

Boyfriend—wait. I could take ribbing about a lot of stuff, but this was crossing lines. By Monday, Randy and I would surely return to our regular lives, and I didn’t want rumors circulating about what had happened between us or who had dumped who. I just hoped to make the best of these two nights, and ride the wave of associated popularity with my teammates as long as I could.

“Amazing how many people think Randy and I are together,” I said, leaning forward to make they all heard me. “I even got free parking because the guy thought I’m the new Jacy.” Saving them from the details of that nitwit, I tucked hair behind my ear. “The important thing is, we all know the truth, that I’m just hanging out with him this weekend only.”

After a long beat, Saffron nodded, Madison snapped her gum in agreement and Flea did a silly little dance with her shoulders. Okay, message received. Three down, the rest of the world to go.

On the field, someone was running with the ball. The crowd on our school’s side was going wild. Even Flea was on her feet, clapping.

I stood, but from my nose-bleed seat, the players just looked like bunch of blurry colors to me. Instead of trying to follow the action, my mind drifted to how nice it was going to be to have the bonfire and dance behind me, not unlike the relief I expected to feel following my dad’s and Jennifer’s wedding.

“That’s Randy with the ball,” Madison announced, leaning around in back of Flea to poke me. “Maybe if he makes this touchdown, he’ll dedicate it to you, babycakes.”

I tried real hard not to frown. And could they even do that?

Two S.B. High touchdowns later, the clock expired. A roar rang out from our bleachers, guys pumped fists, and girls hugged and jumped up and down. Flea, who clearly cared the most of any of us about football, gave me a one-armed squeeze. Then she said something to the others about hitting the frozen yogurt store.

I blinked hard. “Wait, none of you are going to the bonfire?”

Madison looked at me like I had those alien horns and eyes after all. “Have we
ever
?”

“Well, no, but Saffron,” I said, turning to her, “didn’t you go with your ex and his crowd last year?”

“I did my duty, yeah. But that’s pretty much player/cheerleader stuff.”

“You also get the student body types, too, so you might know some people,” Flea added, patting my arm. “And of course, you’ll be with Randy.”

I felt my back teeth grind together.

We trailed with the foot traffic down to the back exit, where I’d promised to meet Randy. There, the girls did a see you tomorrow at the group mani/pedi appointment thing, and took off. Practically linking arms. Leaving me feeling about as vital as a runner left on base. And shaking my head at the irony that I was basically doing all this to strengthen my relationship with my friends.

Soon Randy lumbered toward me in a grass-stained uniform, cleats, and charcoal smudged beneath his eyes.

“Good, you’re here,” he said, his mouth quivering into something that could reasonably be taken for a smile. “I gotta change and everything, so come hang out with the others.”

We moved into the darkened hallway behind the bleachers. People passed in small groups, talking and clowning around, but there remained an intimacy about the cramped walkway that felt slightly embarrassing to me since we were, technically, on a date. Or at least, a pre-date.

When he picked up his pace toward the bright lights, I ran-walked a couple steps to catch up. “This must be weird for you,” I blurted out, deciding to clear the air. “Being with me instead of Jacy. How long were you guys together?”

Randy slowed to look me full in the eyes. It was a struggle not to study the smudges beneath them, especially since one was broader and deeper than the other.

“A year next month.”

“You didn’t see the break-up coming?”

“We had problems, sure. I thought we’d make to prom, at least.” His footsteps slowed, but sounded harder. “Oh, well, it is what it is.”

We shot out across the Astroturf in the direction of a group hanging outside the guys’ locker room.

“Hey, everybody,” Randy called out. “You all know Courtney.”

I forced a smile and scanned the fifteen or so faces. Mostly girls. Some new, some familiar, only two totally recognizable. Science and Jacy.

Definitely drop knee.

Chapter 13

Time flies when you’re having fun. Or so people said.

Standing with Randy’s friends outside the players’ locker room, shifting my weight and checking my phone every three seconds for the arrival of a phantom text message I was not expecting, I wondered if there was a saying for the opposite. More than just time standing still, maybe like an elephant-sized weight bearing down on your soul?

When the moon completed a lunar orbit around our planet and Randy and the other players finally shuffled out of the locker room, I felt my muscles, limbs and over-active imagination begin to chill. At least now I’d have someone who’d acknowledge me.

In fact, my face was probably birthday candle bright as Randy crossed the packed dirt path toward us. So much so that he shuffled right on into my body space and dropped an arm across my shoulder, my smile dropped like a pop fly into a softball glove.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, babe.”

Babe
?

When I could hear again over the rush of blood in my ears, I was pretty sure I’d registered a gasp. I thought we’d been crystal clear on the boundaries of this date. Besides, if he’d wanted to grope me, he would have started back in that darkened hallway.

So what changed? His mother wasn’t around to impress, and the only other obvious reaction he’d be gunning for was Jacy’s. He’d told me he no longer cared about her. Her flyer told me she didn’t care about him. And in fact, I’d let her know I didn’t care about either one of them.

Since we were enough steps away from his crowd to have relative privacy—and because I didn’t want to get another moment into this night without clearing the air—I squinted my eyes at him. “What,” I spoke sharply, “was that?”

“What was what?”

“Babe.” I did a Jacy-worthy tongue click, loud and slow, figuring it my best chance at reaching him and breaking him.

Lo and behold, his forehead waved into a grimace, making his eyes look all squinty and sorry. “Look...the guys think you’re hot.”

Huh? I am pretty sure my eyelashes flew all the way back to my eyebrows. Although maybe that explained the nonsense with Science.

“They’ve been giving me back slaps for trading up.”

I don’t think I could have been more shocked if I’d heard Lady Gaga was performing live at tomorrow’s dance. Still—

“You know,” he said, even though I totally did not, “I was showing off a little.” He shook his head. “Look, forget it. That’s over. Let’s just go to the bonfire, okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I’m parked in the teacher’s lot. Player privilege on game nights.”

“Cool,” I said automatically. Since he’d promised to behave himself, I figured I’d still go. The thing was, I wanted to follow in my own car, just in case. Before I got that out of my mouth, he was introducing me to a couple people.

“Hank and Therese,” he said.

The redheaded girl straightened herself and nodded at me, while Hank—who I’d forever think of as Science—gave me a big grin. Filled with big teeth and big tartar, too.

I shuddered inwardly, then glanced back at the girl, who I realized not only had to deal with the guy’s rampant immaturity, but had to kiss him, too. Some people had it way worse than me.

“Hi,” I said as pleasantly as I could to them, then threw a look at Randy. “Okay, I guess we’re good to go?”

I sat beside Randy in his mom’s SUV, in what some people called co-pilot, others as shotgun, and I was trying
not
to think of as the girlfriend seat. I was glad when he jacked up the KROQ volume on an old Led Zeppelin song and started head-rocking, thinking it would make conversation near impossible.

Near
being the operative word. Because faster than I could blink my eyes, he was shouting something at me.

“
What
?” I yelled back.

He tried again. And again. Finally, I picked up on the word “cheeseburger,” which at least made sense since we were headed in the direction of In-N-Out. Since he and I had had our share of misunderstandings in our week of not-dating, I decided to save us one more and reached for the volume button and turned it down.

Only to see him recoil like I’d just flung battery acid at him. “What the— That’s Jimmy Page!”

“I couldn’t hear you.”

Blowing out a sigh, he cranked the volume back up. Even higher. Telling me he either lived and died by Led Zep, thought music trumped cheeseburgers, or was just basically stupid. A question I did not want or need answered. I rested my cheek against the cool window and readied my taste buds for a double-double, Animal Style. Yeah, it would be way messy, but that’s what napkins were for, right? I didn’t care so much about losing my cool in front of Randy, and my guess was, he wouldn’t hyper-focus on me, anyway.

“Dude, remember,” Science spoke up when KROQ went to commercial. “There’s food at the bonfire.”

Randy nodded, then looked my way and shrugged. Whatever his gesture meant was completely lost on me. I was too busy trying to figure out how a guy in the back seat heard what I couldn’t. Wondering if it was some kind of male telepathy, or just further proof that I did not belong with these people. And if that was a nix on In-N-Out.

We parked in the beach lot, then ambled across the sandy asphalt toward the pink-lit beach pavilion, voices and peals of laughter arcing up around the crash and splash of ocean waves.

When a voice cried out, “Incoming!” I barely had time to look up before Randy was a foot off the ground, and making a one-handed grab at a football hurling toward us in the wind. Which he caught, then tucked under his arm for a charge at a testosterone-laden huddle out on the sand.

I followed, watching him engage in knuckle, chest and shoulder bumps, and hearing lots of yeah-uh-huh-dude name-calling. Further down the beach, the bonfire blazed up from the fire pit almost two stories high, its sparks trying to reach the heavens.

After finally noticing (or maybe remembering) me, Randy asked his teammates if they knew me. All ten or so of them looked my way, their expressions ranging from bored nods to peering straight through me.

“Well,” Randy said, then did an exaggerated stomach rub. “Starving here. Gotta get some grub. Later, guys.”

The wind at our backs, he told me about some long pass in some game long ago. I tried to look interested while writing it off as one of those you-had-to-be-there’s.

Over at the pavilion, picnic tables lined the pavement, covered with assorted bags and bowls of chips, dips, burgers and dogs. While Randy went in for a junk food touchdown, I moved to a far table to eye some sealed bags of marshmallows that I hoped would find their warmed-up, gooey way between chocolate bars and graham crackers to be the highlight of my night.

That’s when I felt the prickly-warm arrival of someone moving in close behind me. I turned to see a male physique inside a gray hoodie, a few loose, blond curls hanging free.

“A—Adam,” I sputtered. “What are you doing here?”

A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Well, it
is
the beach.”

Okay, he had me there. “Yeah,” I said and laughed. Which felt remarkably good, like I was letting fizz out of a capped-up soda bottle. “I mean, here. At the homecoming bonfire. A school-sanctioned event. I didn’t think it would be your thing.”

“It’s not.” He flicked his head toward a distant sand dune. “I saw the fire from over there with my bros, remembered about Homecoming, and figured there’d be food. Since it’s my school, I get to eat, too.”

His lips curved, which was when I saw a crumb on his cheek—practically calling for me to reach up and wipe it off. That would definitely break our laws of unattraction. I laced my fingers together in front of me to resist my ridiculous temptation.

“What’s your excuse, Courtney? I didn’t figure you for a member of the pom-pom set.”

“Oh, I’m here with Randy.”

“Randy? That’s
on
?”

“Just Homecoming,” I said matter-of-factly. The fact boomeranged back at me that I had probably never told him about this date. I hadn’t seen Adam in awhile. When we had talked, it had been Saffron, right? “I’m with him. At the dance, and at this thing right now.”