Play With Me

Chapter 3

AT NINE THIRTY the following morning, I answered the door and found Tony outside. Hands braced on the doorframe and head hanging, he cast me a sheepish grin as he looked at me from under those incredibly gorgeous lashes.
"Still mad?"
I swallowed. The endless speech I had prepared for him the previous evening-including words like ignorant, idiot, and dumbass-had slipped from my mind. "Never again call me an elephant," was all that came out in a low grumble.
"Promise." The silly boy pouted and even crossed his heart.
I smiled. "We're good then."
Tony's metallic green mountain bike leaned against our low picket fence. I grabbed mine from the shed, and we cycled to the high school soccer field together. Close to fifty girls and boys from tenth to twelfth grade had gathered in front of one of the goal posts. Someone was handing out numbers as we joined them. Already a member of the team, Tony didn't have to participate in the tryouts. But I lined up to get mine.
"Forty-seven...Matthews," Ryan Hunter shouted to Susan Miller, who wrote down names on a list. He gave me the sticker, which I was supposed to pop on my chest, and smiled. So far, I hadn't seen Ryan without his ball cap, except on rare occasions, and then from far away, too. But today, the sun played in his dark hair that fell devilishly over his forehead, giving him a whole new appearance. His unexpected good looks took me unaware, and he caught me staring. His matter of fact tone changed to a sly rumble. "Good luck, Matthews."
When everyone got their numbers, he raised his voice over the chatting crowd. "Okay, everybody. For a little warm-up, I want you to run three laps around the field then come back here."
Panic kicked me in the gut. "Is he kidding? Three laps?"
"Don't say you already regret opting for the team."
I hated Tony's I-told-you-so chuckle as he dragged me from the trimmed lawn and started jogging next to me. Swallowing my retort, I tried to match his pace. Impossible of course, when one of his strides measured two of mine.
Shit, one lap seemed like ten miles. Screw Hunter and his warm-up. By the time I was done, I collapsed on the grass, hearing nothing but my own erratic breathing. Thank the Lord, I had a chance to catch my breath as forty-six candidates attempted to score goals before it was my turn.
Tony got me a drink from the water cooler while I mimed a dead frog for several minutes. My mouth and throat felt like the desert. As he stepped over me, his shadow was a welcome respite from the sun. I sat up, longing for the cup of water he held out to me. But when I grabbed the plastic cup, my heart sank. "So little?" I held the mouthful of liquid against the sun, turning it this way and that, seeing if it would miraculously become more. "There's something seriously wrong with your head."
"Not at all." He laughed. "But since you can hardly breathe after this short run, more water would make you sick. In fact, it would be better if you just rinsed your mouth with this and spit it out."
I offered him a sneer. "Can I spit it into your face?" Not waiting for his come back, I downed the little he granted me. The sip evaporated on my tongue in an instant.
"Matthews! Your turn!" That was Hunter, and when I turned in his direction, the soccer ball came flying toward me. Praise my mad reflexes. I caught it before it hit my churning stomach. Tony pulled me to my feet and gave me quick instructions on how to hit the ball for best impact.
Yeah, right. As if I really wanted to know that. I placed the ball on the ground then kicked it toward Frederickson who stood in the goal. It dropped to the lawn several feet in front of him then rolled on as if out for a relaxing stroll before it touched his left shoe.
My beam at Tony was full of faked enthusiasm. "Hey, what do you know, I got the direction right."
"Come on, Matthews." Ryan came jogging toward me with the ball under his arm. "I've seen you kick Mitchell's butt harder than that."
Beaten and exhausted, I was ready to capitulate, but when he offered me the soccer ball, his lips curved to a mocking smile, which prompted me to prove him wrong. I accepted the challenge.
He planted the ball in front of me, but then he had me taking several steps back. "Now take a short run and put a little more power in your thrust."
"Ah no, don't let him make me do that," I begged Tony and grabbed his shirt in growing horror. "We both know I will just trip over the damn thing."
The boys laughed, and Tony pried my fingers loose from his collar. "No, you won't. Tell you what, if you hit Frederickson straight in the chest, I'll buy you a chocolate decadence ice cream sundae. Deal?"
Ice cream? If there was the right incentive... "Deal." I started forward and kicked hard, aiming for the redhead guarding the goalie net. The soccer ball dropped neatly in Frederickson's arms.
"Well done!" Ryan yelled. Then he sprinted back to the low desk where Susan took her notes and called Sebastian Ramirez to try his luck.
Unspeakably proud, I turned a smiling face at Tony. But my smile got lost the moment I glimpsed Barbie girl standing with him.
Hands laced behind her back, she rocked on her heels in front of him. Her boobs pushed out so far, she could have staked him in the heart. "Will you be at Hunter's party later?" she asked him in a sickly sweet voice.
I gulped. Ryan Hunter's parties were legend. I could only rely on the gossip in school of course, but rumor had it his father was friends with Chief Berkley, and so Ryan could turn up the music to a maximum all night. Beer flowed in endless rivers, and he even had his own pool table. The closest I had been to his house was when we drove by to get to the library, but it looked big enough to bear several halls. Getting an invitation to one of those parties meant stepping up into the cool league.
Not that I cared about hanging out with jerks like Cloey-yuck. But Tony had been to many of his parties, and he never told me much about the events behind those doors. That alone sharpened my curiosity.
He would go tonight for sure. The fact the Barbie Clone would be there too had my heart slipping to my pants. I put up a nonchalant face when I actually felt like bawling and trudged over to the water cooler to get a drink larger than the fly pee Tony had brought me after the warm-up.
The afternoon dragged on with more qualifications that involved passing the ball back and forth, zigzagging over the field with short kicks, and finally a count of how often one could kick the ball without losing it. I shot amazing two and a half.
This was it. I was done with soccer. May the ball rot in hell and the players die of thirst. I didn't give a damn if I made it onto the team or not. Playing ball in the scorching sun was for morons anyway.
I wiped the sweat off my face with the towel Tony had brought, then stuffed it back into his backpack, and stomped off.
"Hey, where do you think you're going?"
"Home."
Tony caught up with me. "You can't. Ryan hasn't announced the new players yet."
"Like I care."
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and used my speed to propel me in the opposite direction. "You don't want to know if you're on the team?"
Trying to wiggle from him, I gave him a hard stare. "Nope."
"Where's your spirit gone?"
"Where has your eyesight gone?" I stopped dead. "You saw what a miserable player I make."
"Ah, I've seen worse. Actually, I'm pretty proud of you. This was the first time you came into skin-contact with a soccer ball and you almost hit a goal on the second try. All you need is a little training."
I found that hard to believe, but the expression in his eyes told me differently. He meant it. Confused, I gave him a sideways glance. Unfortunately, Cloey intruded my view as she came skipping over to us like the tooth fairy. Her perfectly manicured fingers wrapped around his biceps as she bounced up and down before him.
"Come, quick. Hunter will name the players in a minute. He already told me that I was on the team."
"I'm not surprised." Tony let himself being dragged away from me. "You proved in camp you're a natural at soccer."
"Only at soccer?" She winked at him and skipped away.
My molars suffered from the hard grinding I did. The thing was-I needed to become a member of this team, badly. How else could I fend off this bimbo?
Ryan Hunter held a list in his hands as he stepped in front of the expecting crowd. "We need eleven new players. I'll call out the names of those who made it onto the team. If yours is among them, well done. If not, I'm sorry but hope you will try again next year. You've all shown great enthusiasm today." He cleared his throat and reeled off the new players. "Stevenson. Jones. Summers-"
Since Barbie jumped with her friend at that name, I figured now I knew her last name.
"-Smith. Jackson. Daniels. Hollister. McNeal. Miller. Matthews. And Warren."
My jaw hit the dirt. I pivoted to Tony. "Did he just say Matthews?"
"Guess he did." His silly grin made me want to slap some seriousness into his face.
"I'm going to play?"
"Yes," he chuckled. "Now get your things, I owe you a sundae"
I really made it, and he owed me ice cream. What a freaking fantastic day. I jogged to the bench and slung my backpack over one shoulder. Certainly, I had the most stupid grin in the world pasted on my lips. It slipped as the word owe got stuck on repeat in my mind. What if he had asked Ryan to let me onto the team even if I was a miserable player? At the thought of depending on Hunter's mercy, I felt awfully embarrassed.
I had to know, and Tony would spill-even if it meant I had to threaten to burn his Back to the Future collection.
Whipping around, I bumped into Ryan.
"Congrats, Matthews," he cheered. "You handled the tryout quite well."
"Yeah, whatever." Pissed at something I hadn't yet proof of, I shoved past him but then stopped. "What does Tony owe you for putting me on the team?"
For a moment, he looked confused. Then he laughed out loud. "You don't want to know." My hands fisted around the strap of my backpack. Hell, of course, I wanted to know.
Turning to leave, he glanced at me over his shoulder. His eyes sparked with a glint of mischief. "See you at my house, Matthews."
Holy shit. Did he just invite me to his party?