Winging It (13 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

Nat

Toby was quiet as he drove me home, and I couldn’t blame him. “I thought it would make him ease off,” I tried. “When I told Scott about us? I thought it would make it easier for you, because he’d know he wasn’t really winning. I don’t know why he’s still acting like a jerk.” And I didn’t know why Toby was letting it get to him.

“Has it occurred to you that maybe he’s not
acting
like a jerk? Maybe he’s just displaying his natural character?”

“Toby, I told you—I’ve really gotten to know him lately, and he’s not a bad guy. The two of you are like little kids or something, but when he’s not around you? When it’s just him and me, it’s—”

“No,” he said, his voice too loud for the small car. He took a deep breath and was a bit more controlled when he said. “No, sorry. I don’t really want to hear about your alone time with Scott. Okay?”

“I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant—” What? What the hell had I meant? And why was I trying to talk to Toby about this? “I was just surprised that you let him get to you, when you both know he’s not really stealing me from you.”

“
I
know, but nobody else does.”

Oh. Yeah, okay, I could see how that would bug him. And I really, really didn’t like being the reason Toby was upset. “You can dump me, okay? Like, we’ll make it crystal clear it’s all coming from you. No mutual breakup stuff, just a straight-out dumping. I’m not a great actress, so I probably can’t make a scene or anything, but—”

“No,” Toby said. “That’s not necessary. I really don’t want a scene.”

And by that point we were at my house. “You can think it over,” I told him as I opened my door. “However you want to play it is fine with me, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I couldn’t think of what else to say, so I shut the door and headed into the house, knowing he’d stay in the driveway until I was safely inside.

Shit. I hated seeing Toby that way. I felt bad about everything, and I wished—no, I didn’t wish I’d never started all this, because just having two weeks of me-and-Toby time had been wonderful. I’d made a mess of everything, but at least I had those memories.

That was when a knock sounded on the door, and I practically levitated across the foyer toward it. Toby was back! He was going to—I didn’t know, but he was going to make it all better, somehow.

But when I yanked the door open, it wasn’t Toby standing on the front steps.

“Hey,” Scott said. He peered behind me like he was scouting for my mom, then said, “Can I come in?”

“I have to do homework—I have to get caught up on the classes I missed.”

“Just for a couple minutes,” he said, and he smiled, and I stepped back to let him in. He was Scott Dakins, after all.

“Keep your voice down,” I said. “My mom’s probably asleep, and I really don’t need her waking up and trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing here. She still thinks me and Toby are a thing, and she really likes Toby.”

“Of course she does,” he said bitterly. Then he looked up the stairs. “Another Toby fan, just like the guys at the rink. So maybe I’ll hold off on hanging out with her until I’m more confident she won’t douse me in cooking oil and set me on fire.”

“She doesn’t really cook, so I doubt we have that much oil. But there’s a can of lawn-mower gas in the garage, so if you’re feeling flammable, this might not be the best night for you.”

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “there was a time not that long ago when you could barely talk to me. And now you’re, essentially, threatening to let your mom set me on fire. That’s an interesting change, don’t you think?”

“Well, it takes time to build up to threats about fire, you know? A girl can’t just jump in with that—she’s got to lead up to it.”

“Fair enough.”

He was fun to talk to. He was gorgeous. Scott damn Dakins, in my house. I should have been thrilled. “Was there a reason you came by, Scott?”

“I wanted to talk to you in person. You’re staging the big breakup tomorrow, right? And we’ve got Friday off school. So you want to go out tomorrow night, you and me? I have no idea what’s happening in Corrigan Falls on a Thursday night, but I’ll find something good.”

“It’s the last game of the regular season,” I told him. Was it possible he really hadn’t known? “The Raiders. There won’t be much going on until after the game, and then it’ll be a big hockey party somewhere. Maybe some smaller warm-ups, but everyone will end up in the same place sooner or later.”

“Great,” he muttered. “Were you planning to go to the game?”

“I don’t have a ticket, and I’m sure they’re sold out.” I could hit Toby up and see if anyone was using his girlfriend ticket, but that didn’t seem like a good idea. “I might listen on the radio.”

“It’s that important to you?”

That was kind of a good question. I’d avoided contact with the Raiders ever since they’d made Toby’s dream come true and ignored mine, but now that things were happening for me, they were starting to have more appeal. “They’ve been good to me. Helping me practice and everything.” I saw his expression and added, “But it’s not actually a super-important game. They’re number one in their division, no matter what happens. So, no, I guess I don’t have to listen to the game.”

“I’ll find something else for us to do, okay? Something good.”

This was what I’d wanted. What I still wanted. A real date, with Scott Dakins. “Yeah, okay,” I agreed.

“And in the meantime—” he said, his voice about an octave lower than usual.

I stared at him, my eyebrows raised questioningly. He leaned down, running both of his hands down my arms to my hands, twining our fingers together. Oh. This was—of course it was.

And then he was kissing me. Just gentle, nothing scary or too intense, but a real kiss. His breath was fresh and minty, and when he pulled away my lips tingled a little. He smiled, still so close his face was a bit blurry, and then leaned in and kissed me again.

It was…nice. Scott Dakins was kissing me. I was getting exactly what I’d wanted.

I pushed my forehead into his, breaking our mouths apart, and then let go of his hands before stepping away from him. “Okay. I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

He left this time, and I turned and locked the door behind him. Maybe I was just in shock. Maybe the kiss had been
so
good I wouldn’t even realize it until the wonder had time to sink into my brain. Or maybe—maybe—shit. Maybe I’d made a big mistake. But I had no idea how to fix it.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Toby

School on Thursday was kind of a blur. It was weird how much everyone cared about that night’s game, considering that it didn’t actually matter in terms of points. We had the division sewn up, so we were probably going to be playing the bench mostly, making sure everyone was totally primed for the playoffs. Not a big deal.

But somehow everyone at school seemed to have decided that it was a huge game. The players couldn’t make it down the hallways without being mobbed, and even once we were inside the classrooms everything was all about hockey. There were four Raiders in my gym class and the teacher decided to do a written assignment that day to make sure there were no injuries. We tried to talk her into letting us do something more fun, but she wasn’t bending, so we all trooped up to the library and had to do these stupid worksheets labeling the different muscles in our bodies.

I didn’t get a lot done, because I was sitting at a table with my teammates and pretty much the whole school stopped by to wish us luck. Not just students, but teachers, custodians, even the principal. This one stupid game that didn’t even mean anything, and for some reason it was getting turned into a huge event. I might have enjoyed it if I wasn’t totally distracted by the clock on the wall, ticking the minutes away until Nat and I would break up.

She was there in the library, but I hadn’t driven her to school that morning because practice had run late, so we hadn’t really had a chance to talk, one-on-one. She hadn’t had a chance to tell me it was over, officially. So we were still together, but she was at the farthest table in the library, and I was surrounded by people who thought I should care about some stupid hockey game.

And then, just to make it all a bit worse, Scott showed up. He must have left his own class and come looking for Nat, and he eased in beside her, smooth and slimy, and gave her a smile that made me want to knock his pearly white teeth right down his throat.

And for maybe the first time, instead of letting myself stare at his smug face, instead of falling right into the stupid trap I
knew
he was setting for me, I looked away. Instead of looking at him, I looked at Nat, and once I started looking, I couldn’t stop.

She didn’t look happy. I wasn’t sure why, but it didn’t really matter. She wasn’t happy, and Scott either hadn’t noticed or didn’t care. All he was focused on was me and trying to make me crazy.

And I couldn’t feel too superior about that, not really, because I’d been paying too much attention to him, too. Instead of thinking about Nat and trying to give her all the options she needed to make a good decision, I’d been worried about looking stupid in front of Scott. Instead of being honest with Nat, I’d hidden from her because I didn’t want to take the chance of looking bad in front of my asshole cousin. I mean, it would have sucked to get rejected, but that was just part of life. It was getting rejected
in favor of Scott
that was slowing me down.

I stood up before I’d known I was going to do it, my chair rattling around behind me and attracting a lot of attention. That was fine. I didn’t really
want
this to be public, but maybe it should be. Instead of letting a lie spread all over the school, maybe it was time for me to start spreading the truth.

“Nat,” I said, loud enough to be heard a few tables over, and all the other conversations in the library stopped.

She looked up at me, frowning in confusion, and I said, “I need to talk to you. Before—anything. At lunch today, can we talk?”

“Yeah,” she said, still not clear what I was up to. “Sure, no problem.”

And that was that. I sank back into my chair, almost shaking from released tension, and Winslow looked at me curiously and kind of hunched around so we had at least a little privacy without the crowd being able to see our faces. “Anything I should know?” he asked.

“I think I’m in love with Nat West,” I said numbly.

He frowned. “Yeah…and?”

I took a deep breath. “And I think I’m going to do something about it.”

His nod was slow and easy. “Cool. Let me know if you need any help with that.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

Nat

There was an actual crowd following me through the hallway at lunchtime. They tried to be subtle about it, like, oh, no, we just
happened
to be standing around outside the door of your last class, we just
happened
to be moving in the same direction as you, and we just
happened
to stop walking and make hushed conversation with each other while you dumped your books in your locker and grabbed your jacket. Yeah, right. They had no idea what Toby was up to, and neither did I, but I guess we were all curious.

I was tempted to go for a mad sprint and try to lose them in the cafeteria line or something, but I could see Toby already working his way down the crowded hall toward me, so I figured it was too late to get crafty.

“You want to go for a drive?” Toby asked when he was close enough to be heard.

I rolled my eyes toward the horde. “Probably a good idea.”

On our way to the parking lot we passed Dawn, who smiled at me and then pointed a finger at Toby like she was giving him a silent but somehow meaningful lecture. He jerked his head in what could have been a nod of acknowledgment or an angry dismissal.

I had no idea what was going on. Why was this so big? No, why had Toby
made
this so big? He’d been a Raider long enough to know they didn’t get much privacy, and he had to know there’d be interest in the stupid soap opera I’d constructed with him and Scott. I felt like I was getting washed along in the spring flood, and all I could do was try to keep my head above water.

Toby, on the other hand? He seemed to be piloting a speedboat, totally in control.

“What the hell is going on?” I demanded as soon as we were safely inside his car.

“Can we drive somewhere first?” he asked. “I want to talk to you, for sure. There’s stuff I need you to know. But I’d rather not be driving while I tell you.”

It was pretty hard to argue with that, so I settled into the battered fabric seat and let him drive. Down the hill, turning before downtown, and then into the parking lot at the beach.

The lake was still frozen, but the sun was warm, so I pushed the car door open and climbed out. This might be Toby’s conversation, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t make any decisions at all. I walked around the front of the car and waited, and he joined me.

“You want to go sit on a bench?” he asked.

“No. I want to stop moving, and start hearing. What’s going on?”

He sighed and looked out over the ice. “I’m an idiot,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound right. I think I’m the one with the stupid ideas around here. You’re the calm, sane friend who tries to talk me out of things but doesn’t quite make it.”

“Is that what I am?” He turned to look me in the eyes. “What if I wanted to be something else? Something more?”

Something more.
The words rang in my head, and I cautioned myself not to get too excited. “Something more?” I echoed.

He stared at me for another few seconds, then opened his mouth like he was going to say something, then turned toward the lake and made a weird sort of groaning, roaring sound. If it had been anyone but Toby, I would have been kind of freaked out.

Instead, I stepped around to stand in front of him and said, “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Can you say it again, with less aaarghhh?” Somehow him struggling for control made it easier for me to take charge. And I definitely wanted to hear what he was trying to say.

He snorted. “I was actually keeping a pretty tight leash on the aaarghhh with that one. You need even less?”

“I think I might need you to use actual words.”

He sighed and looked out at the lake again, then turned slowly toward me. “Any chance we could skip the words?” He shuffled a little closer, and my brain froze. I was dimly aware of his hand coming to rest on my waist. Not my face, because I’d told him I didn’t want him to touch me there when he—

Kissed me. Just the lightest brush of his lips on mine, barely even time for a pucker. And then he took a big step backward and whirled around to look out at the water.

“No,” he said, I think mostly to himself. “Fuck. I can’t—” He turned back to me, and his eyes were as big as they’d been in second grade when he’d fallen off the climbers and broken his ankle and I’d held his hand until his mom came and took him to the hospital. “I need the actual words. I have to make it clear. No more games, or whatever.”

“That sounds fine,” I said. My brain was still a little scrambled. Toby had just kissed me. For real, I was pretty sure. But then, that kiss in the driveway in the snow had felt real, too, way more real than— Well, it had felt real. So what was going on now?

“I like you,” Toby said quietly. His eyes were still a bit wild, but the energy seemed more focused now. “Like, I’m interested in you. You know? I mean, we’ve always been friends, but then when I started hanging out with you more, it felt right. Like…”

He was clearly struggling for words, but I didn’t think I was in any position to help him out, since I was struggling for something a lot more fundamental.

“I think we should go out, for real,” he said, then shook his head and turned back to the lake. “No, that’s no good. That makes it sound like I’m making a practical suggestion or something. I don’t mean, like, ‘should,’ because it’s the smart thing to do, or anything like that. I mean—”

And then there was another groan-roar toward the lake. We stood there silently after that, him staring at the water, me staring at him.

Finally I pulled myself together enough to say. “You’re telling me you like me. Like, romantically. Is that what you’re saying? You don’t want us to break up. You want us to stay together, but for real.”

“Yes!” He spun around, looking relieved, and pretty clearly hoping I would keep helping him out, turning this into some sort of true and false quiz.

Well, I wasn’t sure if I was up to that, but I definitely had one more question I wanted to ask. No, that wasn’t right. I didn’t want to ask it, but I needed to. So I took a deep breath and said, “And how is this not exactly the same thing Scott was doing?” I waited for an answer, but he was just staring at me blankly, and something about that made me really angry. “Neither of you notices me until the other wants me? Seriously?”

“I always
noticed
you,” Toby replied as if he was genuinely stung by my words.

“Really? When was the last time we had a conversation, before I came to you with the plan for Scott? Had it been months, or actually
years
?”

“That wasn’t because I didn’t notice you! I mean, that was you, more than me! I would have still hung out, if—”

“If you could have found time in your busy schedule?” I shook my head. “But you didn’t. You had hockey, and you had Dawn, and there wasn’t room for me.”

He stared at me, then looked out at the lake, then back at me. “Okay. That’s not really how I remember it, but…okay. Let’s say that’s how it was, back then. What difference does that make to how I’m feeling
now
?”

There was a pretty big part of me that wanted me to keep my mouth shut. I was confused, sure, but it wasn’t like I hadn’t been thinking about this. Scott was Scott, but this was
Toby
. And that was what made it so important that I really understand what was going on. So I said, “What changed?”

“I…I spent more time with you!”

“And was I different than I used to be?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded a bit desperate now. “Not really, I guess. I just noticed different things about you. You were still
you
, you were just—”

“More attractive? Once you knew Scott was interested?”

He stared at me, and I forced myself to stay strong. Toby and I could still be friends, maybe, someday, as long as I didn’t screw this up now. I didn’t have to lose
everything
.

“You need to chill out and stop thinking about Scott,” I told him. “I know you’re a good guy. You’re not
deliberately
trying to use me as a way to get back at him. But subconsciously? It seems pretty clear, Toby.”

His jaw had dropped. Whatever he’d been expecting me to say in response to his little declaration, it clearly hadn’t been this. “But what about
you
?” he finally asked. “What do
you
feel about it all?”

And even for Toby, I couldn’t be quite that honest. I couldn’t tell him how I felt when he’d kissed me, when he touched me, couldn’t tell him how much I hated talking on the phone to most people and how much I loved it when I was talking to him. I couldn’t tell him how scared I was, scared of this being real for me and not for him.

So I took a few steps toward the lake and said, “I feel like it’s time for this to be over. It was stupid of me to start it, and I’m sorry. But, Toby—you only want me because Scott wants me. The two of you are so much alike it’s scary.”

“No,” he said. “That’s not— I really don’t think that’s—no. I know what I feel.”

“Yeah. But do you know
why
you feel it?” I was suddenly exhausted. I felt like giving up, like crawling into bed and pulling the covers over my head and not coming out until spring. “I’m going to walk back to school. We should—we should say we’re broken up now. Okay?”

“Scott’s an asshole, but that’s not why I want to be with you.”

I whirled around. God, I wanted it to be true, but I stayed tough. “Okay, fine. Why
do
you want to be with me? For most of our lives we were friends, then we were barely friendly, and now you want us to go out? Because…why? If it’s not about getting back at Scott, what
is
it about?”

I hadn’t realized I was stalking toward him until I was right in front of him, staring at him as he stared back at me. Right then, I wanted him to say something magical, something perfect that would explain everything and make it all good. His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out.

I raised an eyebrow, waited a few more moments, then said, “Yeah. That’s what I thought.” I needed to get out of there. “I’m going,” I said to the tree somewhere over Toby’s shoulder. “Good luck at your game tonight.”

And that was all I could manage. I turned and walked away, and this time Toby didn’t stop me.