Winging It (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

Toby

I gave serious thought to skipping third period. Well, I gave serious thought to getting in my car and driving until I ran out of gas, then getting out and walking until I fell over from exhaustion, just to get the hell away from Corrigan Falls and Nat and Scott and the whole damn thing. So skipping third period seemed like a pretty minor rebellion, compared to the other option.

But then I thought about the team. I was supposed to be a leader, and Coach wanted us all to take school seriously. I couldn’t start skipping. I wasn’t Scott, golden and charming and allowed to break any rule he wanted. I was Toby, and Toby went to class, even when his brain and his heart and his gut were all churning around, making him miserable and useless.

So I sat at the beach for a while, playing things back in my head. I’d frozen. I’d had my shot, and I’d whiffed on the puck.

Nat didn’t want some incoherent jock who couldn’t even find words for how he felt. She wanted someone smooth and mature and in control of himself. She wanted Scott. That was all there was to it.

I drove back to school in a bit of a daze. It was over. I’d tried and failed. If I’d ignored Dawn’s stupid advice, I could at least have held on to a bit of hope and fooled myself a little longer. But that wasn’t an option anymore.

“Where is she?” I heard from somewhere just outside my fog, and turned my head to see Scott striding across the parking lot toward me. He must have been waiting for Nat and me to come back.

“Fuck off,” I told him and headed for the school.

I wasn’t exactly surprised to feel his hand catch my shoulder, and every muscle in my body knew what I wanted to do. I could feel it, just how I’d spin around, how I’d put all my weight behind my swing, how his nose would crunch under my knuckles. It would be absolutely beautiful, and it would make me feel so much better, at least short term.

But I was Toby, the responsible one. If Scott and I got in a fight at school, he’d get suspended for a few days and probably use the time to go on a fantastic road trip or something. Me? I’d be on hard labor at my mom’s office, and even worse, Coach would bench me for at least the next few games. I couldn’t miss the start of the playoffs. Not when hockey was all I had left.

So I shrugged Scott’s hand off and kept walking. Then the ignorant asshole caught me again, and this time I at least gave my muscles the satisfaction of spinning around, swinging my arm up to shake him free. “Scott,” I said, slow and steady. “Fuck. Off.”

“You leave school with my girlfriend, come back without her, and you think I’m just going to walk away?”

I tried to ignore the word, but of course I couldn’t do it. His girlfriend. Nat was Scott’s girlfriend.
Girlfriend.
It was too much, and my hand clenched into a fist as I forgot about the team, forgot about my family, forgot everything but how good it was going to feel to mess him up.

“Hey!” I heard then, and Scott and I both turned to see Nat hustling toward us from inside the school. Winslow and Dawn were jogging to catch up with her. Great, an audience.

“What are you
doing
?” Nat demanded when she arrived. She was glaring at me, not Scott.

And that was exactly what I needed to kick me into gear. Nat was on Scott’s side. She’d made her choice, and I needed to live with it.

I held my hands up in exaggerated surrender. Scott had won. I was out. Then I turned and strode toward the school doors, and Winslow deked around to walk beside me. No words, thank God, and I knew he’d step in and buffer me from anyone else who tried to talk to me. I didn’t bother to look where Dawn had gotten to; I really didn’t want to know.

No, I didn’t want any more of her ideas or her interference. I had my teammates, and that was all I needed. I was going to skulk my way through third period, go to the arena and let the coaches fill my head with plays and strategies instead of confusion and loss, and then I was going to play my ass off in a game that didn’t make a bit of difference to anyone involved. After that? After that I was going to hit wherever the team party was and drink until I could barely stand up, and when it was time for me to fall down, I was going to make sure I did it with a friendly, happy puck bunny to cushion my fall. After that, I wouldn’t care who was whose girlfriend. It would be great.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Nat

I’d walked away from the whole mess in the parking lot as soon as I could, saying I had to get to class. And then after school I’d raced home, not because I had anything to do but because I just needed some time on my own. Scott had said we’d have dinner when we went out, but he’d also said he wasn’t going to pick me up until about seven thirty, so I made myself some ramen as a snack. Otherwise I’d be starving by the time we started eating and it would be hard for me to stick to the small servings I knew girls were supposed to eat on dates.

And thinking of that, of course, made me flash back to eating pizza and garlic bread with Toby. That was
not
date eating! He expected me to believe that he actually wanted me after he’d seen me eat half a pizza and
more
than half an order of garlic fingers? I’d told him my
standard order
was a bacon cheeseburger! If I’d ordered a salad, okay, maybe he’d think of me as, like, a desirable girl. But a bacon cheeseburger? There was no way.

Further proof that he was only interested because Scott was. It totally reinforced the decision I’d made at lunch, but strangely, I wasn’t finding that as satisfying as I might have expected.

The Raiders game started at seven, so while I was working on my hair and makeup I turned on the radio pregame show. My mom was working that night, so thankfully I didn’t have to explain anything to her and could focus on my beautification. Which made me think of
more
evidence to prove Toby wasn’t actually into me. He’d regularly seen me covered in sweat, my hair all stringy, wearing sweats or hockey gear, no makeup…and he wanted me to believe he thought that was attractive? Impossible. Yeah, I’d made the right decision. That’s what I told myself, and I ignored the tiny voice that was asking all the hard questions.

Around quarter to eight, with the Raiders already up by two goals, Scott called and said he was in the driveway. I turned off the radio a bit reluctantly but tried to get excited about the date. This was real. Scott Dakins, complete with Mustang, was in my driveway, waiting for me. He already knew about the game I’d played, and he didn’t care. I’d won, and now it was time to enjoy my prize.

“Where are we going?” I asked as I buckled myself in, but he just grinned and backed out of the drive.

We made small talk, but Scott didn’t say much about whatever had happened between him and Toby in the parking lot. He just said he’d been looking for me and things with Toby had gotten hostile. Which was, of course, totally normal behavior for the two of them, but I still wondered how much of it was my fault. Toby hadn’t wanted to get involved with my plan, but I’d dragged him into it, and now he was suffering.

Suffering, and saying crazy things. I mean, he was
Toby
. Toby my old friend, my hockey buddy, the guy who took shots in my driveway and watched
Slap Shot
with me and stole my hockey bag. Toby who bought me pizza and garlic bread, who cared about me enough to give me hell and believed in me enough to know I could do better. Toby who put in extra time on the ice even though he was already tired, just so I could have a good opponent. Toby who set up a visit to the U of T team for me, just because…because he’d been thinking about me while he was on a road trip. Toby.
Oh, shit.

I needed to get my mind back on the guy I was actually with. Because that guy was Scott Dakins! Gorgeous and charming and perfect. “You seriously won’t tell me where we’re going?” I asked him.

He smiled again. “I wanted us to get away from Corrigan Falls. Remember how easy everything was in Toronto? Without all the extra crap and the people staring at us and thinking they knew us?”

Maybe things had been easy for
him
in Toronto, but I’d been pretty overwhelmed, trying to deal with his hostile family and the new environment and everything else. But, okay, yes, he and I had gotten along well on that trip. He’d let me see a bit of his vulnerability. That was important, probably. “But we’re not going all the way to the city, right?”

“No, just Blue.”

Blue Mountain, a ski resort a couple towns over. I’d been there on a field trip once, but that was about it. “We’re going skiing?” I asked cautiously.

He laughed. “No, just for dinner. A lot of people from the city go up there for the weekends, so it’s a bit more…you know. A bit more cultured than Corrigan Falls. Better restaurants, more nightlife. Less hockey.” He cut his gaze over toward me for a moment and said, “My dad has a condo there, and I have a key. So if we wanted to hang out for a while after dinner, we could.”

“With your dad?”

“No,” he said with patience that felt a bit exaggerated. “He wouldn’t be there. Just you and me.”

“Oh,” I squeaked. He raised his eyebrows at me, like he was waiting for me to calm down and be normal. He was going to have quite a wait on that one. “Let’s start with dinner,” I said, as if I wasn’t going to be too nervous to eat.

So we parked underground at the building where his dad’s condo was and then walked up into a well-lit central square. “It’s like they took Whistler and just shrank it down,” Scott said, but I knew even less about Whistler than I knew about Blue Mountain.

He held my hand, which would have been nicer if I wasn’t so worried about my palms being clammy, and led us to a restaurant with a neon sign and lots of fake-looking stone on the outside. There was a big fireplace burning real wood in the middle of the main room, but otherwise it wasn’t too different from any of the chains back in Corrigan Falls. I didn’t bother mentioning that to Scott, though.

He ordered a beer and had his fake ID ready when the server asked for it. I wanted a root beer but ordered a Diet Coke. “No ID?” he asked me when the server was out of earshot. “I know a guy in the city who can make you one, if you want.”

“Uh, yeah, maybe.” I picked nervously at the leather-covered menu. I was supposed to order a salad, I was pretty sure, or else maybe chicken. With salad on the side instead of fries. One way or the other, I was expected to eat some lettuce with this meal.

“The planked salmon is really good here,” Scott said.

“Oh, I don’t like fish very much.”

“It’s not all that fishy. It’s delicious, really.”

And as stupid as it seems, that was what did it. I’d lied for this, schemed for it, maybe lost a friend for it, but eating salmon? Apparently
that
was where I drew the line. “No,” I said. “I don’t want salmon.”

He kept his face neutral but gave me a pretty long look. Possibly I’d been a little loud when I’d made that particular announcement. “Okay,” he said gently. “No salmon.”

“I think I’m getting the wood-oven pizza. This one, with ham and artichokes. But I’m going to ask them to hold the artichokes.” I knew I was still a little loud, with my chin jutted out, just daring him to object, but he didn’t take the bait.

“Okay,” he said mildly, as if he didn’t care about my totally classless order. “How much do you hate salmon? Is it going to gross you out if I eat it?”

Shit. He wasn’t fighting back. He was being totally reasonable, and
I
was the one being a pain in the ass. That wasn’t exactly what I’d anticipated. “No, that’d be fine. Thanks for checking, though.” I felt deflated. Why? I’d been looking for a fight about salmon? About something larger than that…his expectations of me on a date? But how many of those expectations were actually from him, and how many had I just made up on my own?

“Today, at lunch,” I started, and Scott’s gaze was suddenly locked on mine.

“Yeah?” he prompted when I faltered.

“Toby. He said—” Why the hell had I started this? What was I hoping to achieve? “He said he liked me. You know, like, he was interested. He wanted us to really go out, not fake go out. That’s what he said.”

Scott nodded slowly.

“You aren’t surprised,” I said. The realization felt as earthshaking as my antisalmon decision. “You knew he felt that way? He told you?”

“He didn’t tell me,” Scott said softly. He leaned back in his chair and looked like he was trying to think something through. That was when the server came with our drinks and to take our orders, but after he was gone Scott was still looking at me thoughtfully, like he was trying to figure me out.

“What did you say when he told you?” he finally asked.

I felt awkward, but I wasn’t sure why. None of this was news to Scott. “I told him he was just being competitive with you,” I said and quickly added, “Which is totally true! I mean, it’s not like he wanted me
before
all this crap started with you. So, it’s obvious, right?”

Scott took a long swallow of his beer. “What did he say when you told him that?”

“He said it wasn’t true.” My voice came out way too close to a whisper, and I made sure it was regular volume when I added, “He said he liked me and it had nothing to do with you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” And damn it, my voice was back to a whisper. I took a sip of my stupid Diet Coke, wishing it was root beer, or maybe vodka, and then made myself keep remembering. “But it’s not true, not really. He couldn’t say why he liked me, and that’s because he
doesn’t
really like me. He just got caught up in the crap with you.”

Scott had been looking down at his cutlery as I was talking, but when I said that last part he looked up at me, and it was as if he’d made a decision as strong as the one I’d made about the salmon. “Dawn says Toby’s legit crazy about you,” he said.

The words didn’t make sense. “
Dawn
says? Since when do you talk to Dawn?” I managed not to say
she thinks you’re an asshole
, but it was a close thing.

“After you and Toby went into the school today at lunch, she and I had a little talk.” He leaned back in his chair and stretched his shoulders the way guys do when they want to relax
and
want to show off their muscles. “She really doesn’t like me much, does she?”

“You sexually harassed her for, like, three years straight. No, she doesn’t like you.”

He frowned at the words, then said, “I don’t think I’d have called it that.”

“You don’t actually get to be the one who decides, though.”

He sighed. “The point is, she knows Toby pretty well, and she thinks he genuinely likes you. And for what it’s worth? I know him pretty well, too, and I agree with her.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I demanded, possibly a little too loudly. “Why are you telling me all this? Why the hell are we talking about Toby?”

“You don’t believe Toby because he can’t say why he wants to be with you,” he said as if I hadn’t asked him a question.

“Yeah,” I responded. I probably sounded a little belligerent, but I didn’t care.

“Do you know why
I
want to be with you?” He took another sip of beer as I shook my head. “I like you,” he said, like it was concession. “You’re funny, and you try to be honest, which is a bit ironic considering your recent shenanigans, but I think it’s true. And I think you’re pretty. You’ve got a sort of wide-eyed virgin thing that makes me want to corrupt you, for sure. But you know what really gets me? You know what’s got me totally hooked on you?”

I honestly wasn’t sure if I wanted to know or not, and I was trying so hard to not be wide-eyed that I probably looked like I was squinting into a sandstorm, but I managed a bit of a head shake. I didn’t know but was ready to hear.

His smile was as gentle as his voice as he said, “The best thing about you, the main reason I want to spend time with you? Is that my cousin Toby is crazy about you, and I get off on torturing the poor bastard.”

I stared at him, and he just shrugged. “You know that’s true, Nat. You’ve known it from the start. Why the hell are you acting so shocked about it now?”

I wasn’t really sure. I mean, that was why Scott had started chasing me, sure. Had I fooled myself into thinking that had changed? Or maybe that wasn’t the part that I was actually shocked by. “Wait. You really think Toby likes me? I mean, separate from wanting to beat you at something?”

“He offered me a chance to publicly humiliate him,” Scott said. “He said I could win however I wanted, as long as I didn’t hurt you. Does that sound like someone who
isn’t
crazy about you, for real?” He waited for me to argue, then said, “But, honestly, it doesn’t matter all that much how he feels. I mean, it matters, but you’re never going to be a hundred percent sure in these things. You’ve got to just take a leap of faith sometimes, right? Like Toby did today at lunch. He just put it out there and took the chance. Sometimes you just have to be brave enough to say what you’re feeling. So the really important question here, I think, isn’t what Toby thinks of you. It’s what you think of Toby.”

“Did you just call Toby brave?”

“I’ll deny it if you ever repeat it,” he said. “Focus on the question.”

So I tried. Toby. Toby and me. Together. I thought of that kiss in the driveway and even the memory was enough to make my stomach flip happily. Okay, yeah, the physical would be good. The rest? Toby laughing with me, wrestling over my gear bag together, taking shots, skating, just
being
together. Toby wanted that? Maybe he really did. Maybe I could have that.

I didn’t say anything, but I could tell that I was starting to smile, and Scott obviously had no trouble interpreting my expression. He nodded to our server, and when the guy came over, Scott said, “Can you make those orders to go?”

The server nodded, and Scott looked at me and said, “We’ve got some driving to do. I’m not sure if we’ll make it back before the end of the game, but he won’t be too hard to find, wherever he is, will he? Or I can just take you home, if you want a chance to think all this over.” He shook his head. “No, it’s not fair to keep giving me that wide-eyed look, not if I’m not ever going to get to do anything about it.”

I squinted back down but still wasn’t sure just what to say. “Why are you being so nice?” I finally managed.

“I’m only about 95 percent evil,” he said calmly. “The other 5 percent? Total sweetheart. You’re just getting the lucky five.”