She stands beside Mrs. Carpenter’s wheelchair. She’s wearing a black Lakeside football T-shirt under a puffy gray coat. She has a white knit cap over her blond hair that’s fuck-hot in a really cute kind of way. Her eyes are like two shiny emeralds beneath the bright field lights, and as she lifts her hand and waves to me, her pretty lips slide into a bursting, exhilarated kind of smile.
And just like that . . . I’m gone all over again.
I don’t stop jogging until I’m at the fence.
“Hey.”
Callie tilts her head. “Nice game, Coach.”
“Yeah . . . yeah, it was a good one.” I smile down at Callie’s mom. “Mrs. Carpenter, can I take Callie out tonight? You can have my cell phone, keep it right next to you, and call us if there’s any problems.”
If that doesn’t work, I’m prepared to offer my little brother a thousand dollars to babysit them for the night.
Mrs. Carpenter waves her hand. “We’ll be fine. You kids worry too much. Go have fun; have her home by lunchtime tomorrow.”
Just when I thought this night couldn’t get better—it blows better out of the frigging water.
“I can do that.” I nod.
That’s when the little bastards I coach decide to dump a cooler of Gatorade down my back. It’s cold, like a thousand icicles stabbing my spine at once, and I have a sense of how Caesar felt when he got taken out by his Senate. Et tu, shitheads? But I take it like a man. I push a wet hand through my hair and lick some of the liquid off my top lip.
I hook my thumb back over my shoulder, holding Callie’s gaze. “I gotta go do a football thing.” She laughs, nodding. “I’ll pick you up in a little while.”
And she waves, smiling. So beautiful it almost hurts to look at her.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Chapter Fourteen
Callie
Back in high school, after good football games—Garrett was always . . . well . . . horny. He was a teenage boy, so horny was pretty much the default setting—but after a big win, he was hotter, hungrier, more aggressive. I could practically smell the testosterone on his skin—which made me horny. I remember, when we’d make the requisite appearance at the after-party, how he’d keep me close, always touching me . . . his hand in mine, his thumb stroking my palm, his arm around my shoulder, rubbing my back. If I had to leave his side, his eyes would follow me around the room, over the rim of his cup of beer, like I was the only person who mattered. Like I was the heart, the center of his whole world.
We would never stay at the after-parties for long.
That same familiar anticipation fills me now, while I wait on my parents’ front porch for Garrett to pick me up. I pace, I fidget with the knit cap on my head, and toy with the zipper on my coat. My muscles are strung with excitement, so tight I feel like a rubber band that’s ready to snap. A horny rubber band.
I still don’t know where this is going with Garrett—and that scares me a little. Because Garrett Daniels is back in my life, in a way I never saw coming . . . winding his way around my heart. And it’s like a tragedy—like Romeo and Juliet—we already know how this ends. With goodbye. We both have these great, awesome, separate lives—far, far away from each other. We have careers, friends, homes, and neither one of us is going to turn that upside down. I know I’m being reckless—stupid—I’m going out on that diving board, about to cannonball into the deep end of hurt and heartache. But an ever-growing part of me just doesn’t care—and that scares me even more. That part will take what she can get, for as long as she can, heartache be damned.
It’s after eleven, late for this neighborhood. The residents on my parents’ street have already gone to bed, the windows dark and the air quiet. I hear the Jeep coming down the street before I see it, and by the time it stops at the curb, I’m already running across the lawn to meet him.
I don’t wait for Garrett to open the door; I do it myself and climb in. His hair is damp, and the cab is heavy with his clean, ocean, after-shower scent.
Garrett’s eyes are black velvet and his voice is dark silk, caressing me. “Your nose is pink. How long were you waiting out there?” He holds my hands in both of his, blowing against them, making my hands warm and my heart trip.
“Not too long. My parents are down for the night . . . and I was excited to see you.”
His eyes drift over my face, touching the hat on my head, my eyes, my mouth.