Off the Field

Chapter Eighteen

Apparently Kasey had given up on talking to me and had gone for a more old-fashioned and effective method. As I walked into school on Tuesday and turned down my locker hallway, I caught a glimpse of her standing with her usual posse, except some guy had his arm wrapped around her waist as she batted her eyelashes at him. The second she spotted me, she seized his shoulders and planted her lips against his.

The air left my lungs all at once and I stopped dead.

“You don’t give a crap, remember?” Somehow Ray was behind me, shoving me forward until we reached our lockers, safely away from Kasey. “You don’t care at all.”

“She – she’s –”

I could barely speak, sputtering with rage. It was one thing to catch your girlfriend making out with some other guy when you were staggering drunk; in broad daylight at school when you were completely sober was a different story.

“She’s being her usual ditzy self,” Ray said firmly. “You already knew this.”

Maybe I had, but the rest of the school hadn’t cottoned on, so for the rest of the day I had to endure stares as Kasey flounced around with some other guy hanging off of her. I was torn between wanting to kill him and pitying him, because I knew too well what it felt like to be enamored with her.

By lunch I thought I might go insane if another person asked if Kasey and I were still together. I sat with the guys as we ate and tried to keep the conversation revolving around soccer and the upcoming championships, but eventually the topic came back to girls. Joey Walters was dumb enough to bring up his party and how he’d seen Kasey kissing some other guy, and I couldn’t handle it anymore.

Hopping to my feet, I went to throw out my trash and get the heck out of there, but as I turned away from the garbage can, I found myself face-to-face with Mal. She held her lunch tray and kept a blank expression as she said, “Excuse me,” and reached around me to empty it.

“Mal, listen to me,” I said without thinking; she was making me crazy.

“Why should I?”

“Because I need you to.”

She stared at me with conflicted brown eyes, but she wasn’t moving away, so I plucked up the courage to speak. However, just as I’d opened my mouth, another voice, dreadfully familiar, came from behind me.

“Danny, baby, where have you been?”

My whole body tensed as Kasey sashayed up next to me with her pink lips turned down in a pout. Her newest boy hovered behind her, glaring at me as she placed her hand on my arm and smiled at me with those baby blue eyes. A couple days before, I would have been performing back flips; funny how now I felt nothing.

“Sorry, I didn’t realize you cared,” I said, brushing her hand off. “You seemed a bit preoccupied with someone else.”

“Honey, don’t tell me you’re still worrying about that.” Kasey waved one hand like it was the most ridiculous thing ever. “You know how I feel about you.”