Offside

“She left the school,” Heather said. “Went home, I guess. After having fifteen guys practically jump all over her this morning and then finding out why, she took off.”

“Shit.”

“She’s not like that,” Heather said quietly, “and you made her sound like she was.”

She turned and walked away from me as Mika walked up behind me.

“So, since Nicole’s free game again, I was thinking of asking her—”

My fist hit his face before he could finish his sentence. He went sprawling to the ground.

“Hands OFF!” I screamed at him. “You don’t fucking touch her, you piece of shit!”

As temped as I was to finish beating the shit out of him, I had to find Nicole.

I drove all over fucking town, trying to find her with no luck whatsoever. Where could she hide an ugly-ass car like that? It was obviously running again since it wasn’t in her driveway anymore, so she had to be in it somewhere.

Deciding she had to come home eventually, I parked at her house and sat myself down on the front porch. Everything that had happened over the past few days started running through my head. What could I have done? Even if I had stopped Clint and threatened him, someone else had obviously seen my car at her house on Saturday. I should have thought about it when she drove me to her house. I should have just told her to take me home.

No…I couldn’t bring myself to regret that.

For the first time in a long time, I dug into the bottom of my soccer bag and pulled out a pack of Camels. Unfortunately, smoking a cigarette only agitated me more and didn’t calm me down at all. It made my lungs hurt, too. Smoking also didn’t make her appear.

My side was starting to ache, and I probably needed another one of the prescription pills, but they were at home, and I didn’t want to leave without seeing her. I leaned forward and dropped my head into my hands, closing my eyes and just trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do or say. My mind spun, and I lost track of time. When I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel drive and looked up, it was not the vehicle I wanted to see.

It was a sheriff’s cruiser.

Shit.

Sheriff Skye eyed me as he got out of the car and walked over to the porch.

“Thomas?”

“Um…yeah,” I stammered. “Hi.”

“I didn’t really expect to see you on my porch,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I didn’t really expect to be here.”

“You want to tell me why?”

“Not really.”

He tilted his head to one side to look at me.

“Why don’t you explain it anyway?” It wasn’t really a question.

I took a deep breath. I had absolutely no idea what to say.

“I was just…looking for Nicole.”

“She doesn’t seem to be here,” he remarked.

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Maybe you should wait to see her at school tomorrow.”

“I’d rather not,” I said.