***
On Monday morning, all anyone can talk about is the hot new couple—Grayson and Andre. I’m seriously happy for her, and I do my best to put on a smile when she and Andre cuddle up in the hallway. But by the end of the day, I’m ready to gouge my own eyes out with a number two pencil.
“Hey.” Ash walks up behind me and removes the pencil from my hand, which is poised dangerously close to my right eye. “Careful with that thing. It’s sharp.”
I turn around to face him, and he hands my pencil back to me. “Yeah, I guess I wouldn’t be able to play tennis very well with only one eye.”
He leans closer and lowers his voice. “Can I ask why you were trying to blind yourself?”
I nod down the hall, indicating Andre’s locker. “He and Grayson haven’t come up for air in a while. At this rate she’ll be winded before we even hit the courts.”
“I heard they were heading to the baseball game this afternoon. Andre’s brother is pitching today.”
Gray’s blowing me off again? “Oh. I guess she forgot to mention it.” I turn back to my locker and grab my racket. “Looks like I’m going to have one hell of a serve come tryouts, since that’s all I can practice on my own.”
“You need a hitting partner?”
I close my locker and face Ash. After he jumped at the chance to avoid playing tennis last time, I know he doesn’t really mean the offer. Besides, there’s something else I want to ask him, and what do I have to lose at this point?
“How was your weekend? Did the team get together to practice on Saturday?” I wish my racket wasn’t in its bag. I could use some string fiddling right now to occupy my hands and work out some tension.
“Yeah, we did. How about you? Do anything exciting?” He stares at me, completely unaware of the hooting in the background over Andre and Grayson, or of the teachers coming to break them up. It’s like he has tunnel vision, and it’s set on me.
“Not really. Same old, I guess.” I tilt my head to see around him, but he still doesn’t flinch.
“I didn’t see you all day. I thought maybe you didn’t come to school today.”
He didn’t see me because I’ve been avoiding him. I just couldn’t handle seeing him with that girl in the hallways. Where was she now? My eyes discretely search the hallway.
“I’m fine. Been here all day. I guess you were too caught up to notice.” I didn’t mean for it to come off that cold, and when his brow furrows in confusion, I want to take it back. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Did I do something wrong?” Ash asks.
Ash never does anything wrong. He was nothing but a gentleman. He let me down easy. It’s not his fault I can’t handle it.
He dips his head so he’s looking me in the eye. “You looked a little sick when I hinted at us hanging out on Saturday. I thought maybe I was coming on a little too strong. I do that sometimes.”
Wait, what? I shake my head, not sure I heard him correctly. “You were going to ask me to hang out on Saturday?”
He nods. “You didn’t really seem like you were up for it, though.” He looks down at his shoes. “That’s why I suggested we see that movie as a group thing. I thought maybe you’d be more open to it if it wasn’t a one-on-one thing.”
Wow. Ash is treating me with kid gloves because I’m sending off weird signals. How did I not know I was doing that? And how do I fix it now? Grayson would grab the front of his shirt and stick her tongue down his throat, but I’m not Grayson. God, no wonder Ash is acting this way.
My cheeks get really warm, and now I really do feel sick. “I’m not feeling so great. Would you excuse me?” I rush past him to the girls’ bathroom and splash cold water on my face, but it doesn’t help. In the mirror, all I see is a scared little girl with a broken heart.
“Meg?” Gray walks into the bathroom and wraps me in a hug. “What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened, and it’s my fault.”
She pushes me back and looks into my eyes. “You’re not making sense again. Is it Ash? Because he’s right outside the door.” She motions over her shoulder with her thumb. “Say the word, and I’ll go out there and—”
“No.” I shake my head. Why is he out there? “Is he waiting for me?”
She nods. “I kind of thought you two had another date, but then I found you crying.”
“I’m not crying. I splashed water on my face.”
“Oh.” She grabs some paper towels and hands them to me. “You mean I’m risking a bladder infection over a little water?” She rushes to the first stall and closes the door. “I’ve had to pee since lunch.”
I laugh, knowing the reason she hasn’t gone to the bathroom is because she’s spent all her free time between periods with Andre. I have no doubt she used the bathroom pass to meet him during classes, too.
She comes back out, washes her hands, and reapplies lip gloss. “Much better.” She turns to face me and leans against the sink. “So, are you and Ash hanging out this afternoon?”
“Well, apparently my schedule is wide open since you left me for Andre.” I playfully smack her elbow.
“About that . . . ” She smiles. “You know I love you, right?”
“Yes. Go have fun. But not too much. You’re going to a school event. There will be teachers there, and they will give you detention for groping Andre on school grounds.”
She raises her hands and stands up straight. “Would I ever do that?” She winks and heads out of the bathroom.
I smooth my hair and make sure my mascara isn’t running before I step into the hallway. Ash is leaning against the wall, but he stands up the moment he sees me.
“Hey. You okay?” His voice is full of warmth.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I guess you were right. I have been feeling a little off lately.”
He picks up his bag, which is on the floor by his feet. “You still practicing, or are you not feeling up to it?”
“I’m kind of feeling like a run. How about you? Race you to Horseshoe Lake?” I smile, and realize I’m flirting again. Just like that. Because now that I think about it, things aren’t so bad. Ash is being cautious with me because I’m giving mixed signals. All I have to do is stop giving mixed signals, and then . . . What? Am I looking for something more with Ash? The more I think about it and how weird I’ve been acting, the more I realize that’s exactly what I want.
“Meg?”
“Huh?” Oh, great. Two seconds into my new plan and I’m already spacing out and ignoring him. Way to let him know you’re interested, Meg.
“I said I’d love to.”
“Great.” I smile and then realize I dropped my racket somewhere. “Oh, where did—?”
“Are you looking for this?” Ash pulls my racket from his oversized duffle bag. “You dropped it back at your locker. I didn’t want anyone to walk off with it, so I picked it up.”
“Thanks.” I take the racket by the strap and sling it over my shoulder. “I guess I can put this back in my locker.”
Ash motions for me to lead the way. I toss my racket inside and grab my gym bag instead. It’s a little chillier today, and I doubt the clothes I brought are going to keep me warm. “I wish I’d brought a jacket.”
“I think I have an extra sweatshirt in my locker if you want to borrow it.” Before I can answer he says, “Stay here,” and rushes off to his locker.
I could definitely get used to this. I smile as I wait for him. He hurries back with the gray Treemont football sweatshirt in his hand. “You’re probably going to swim in this, but it should keep you warm.” He raises it over my head, and I slip my arms into it, even though I’m not in my running clothes yet.
I try to resist the urge to smell the sweatshirt, but I can’t. I breathe deeply, letting Ash’s scent fill my senses.
“Oh God, please tell me it doesn’t smell.” Ash’s face turns bright red. “I wore it on Saturday after the game at the park, but I washed it.” He leans forward and sniffs the shoulder of the sw
eatshirt. His face is right next to mine, and despite the sweatshirt, goose bumps pop up all over my arms.
“It smells great,” I say.
Ash’s eyes meet mine, and neither one of us moves. My eyes lower to his lips, and try as I might I can’t pull them away.
Ash clears his throat and stands up tall again. “Um, good. I guess we’re good to go then.”
My mind swims with thoughts, and every one leads back to one question—why hasn’t he tried to kiss me yet?
We part ways to change in the locker rooms and then meet on the field out back. There’s a commotion over by the baseball game, which must have just started.
“Sounds like something exciting happened,” I say, trying to pretend I know what I’m talking about even though I don’t follow baseball.
Ash squints into the distance. It’s too hard to see what’s happening that far away, though. “I don’t know. No one’s on base. It seems like most of the commotion is going on in the crowd.”
“I hope Grayson and Andre aren’t giving everyone a show.”
Ash nudges me with his hand. “Come on. Let’s go see what it is.”
We run past the football field and tennis courts to the baseball field. Ash is right. All the activity is happening in the stands.
“What’s going on?” he asks the first person we see.
“Someone got hit with a wild pitch.” The guy points toward the center of the stands behind home plate. My eyes immediately find Grayson. She’s holding her left shoulder, and tears are streaming down her face.
“Oh no, Gray!” I rush over to her.
“Meg,” she chokes out when she sees me.
I squat down in front of her and gently remove her hand from her arm. “Let me see how bad it is.”
She lets me remove her jacket from that arm, but she winces several times in the process.
“We weren’t paying attention,” Andre says, his eyes going from me to Ash. “We were . . . ”
I nod. We all know what they were busy doing. I pull the top of Gray’s shirt down past her shoulder. She has a nasty purple bruise right on her shoulder bone. “I think we should get you an x-ray to make sure you didn’t break anything.”
She nods.
“I’ve got to stay,” Andre says, motioning to his brother on the pitcher’s mound.
“I’ll drive you,” Ash says.
“I have my car,” I tell him, meeting his eyes. The warmth in them calms me instantly.
“You’ll be too worried about Grayson to pay attention to the road. Let me drive. That way you can sit in the back with her and make sure she’s all right.”
I could kiss him right now in front of all these people, but Grayson winces and I help her to her feet. Ash goes to her right side and wraps his arm around her waist for support. He directs me to try to steady her left arm and keep pressure off it.
“I’ll call you,” Andre says to Gray. I can’t even look back at him. I get that his brother is pitching in his first game, but Gray is seriously hurt.
“How did this happen?” I ask.
“Andre’s brother was warming up in front of the stands and he lost control of the ball. It all happened so fast.”
We reach the edge of the fields, and Ash stops. “Can you hold her up for a second? I’m going to get my car and pull it over so she doesn’t have to walk any farther.”
I nod, once again really grateful he’s here.
As soon as he’s running for his car, Grayson says, “Did he kiss you yet?”
I laugh, trying to take her mind off her pain. “Oh yeah. We were all over each other when you interrupted us with your screams. Couldn’t you have picked a better time to get hit with a ball?”
She eyes me knowingly. “So no kiss yet.”
“Nope.” I sigh, but I can’t dwell on it for long because Ash pulls up to the curb and hops out to help me get Gray into the back seat.
“Watch your head,” Ash says, putting his hand on the top of the doorway so Grayson can’t hit her head on it.
Once she’s in and Ash closes the door, I turn and grab his hand. “Thank you for this.”
He smiles. “Of course. She’s your best friend. I’m not letting anything happen to her. Well, anything else.” He fumbles over his words, and it’s incredibly adorable. I stand there staring at him, but he says, “Let’s go.” And then his hand slips from mine.
When I get to the other side of the car, Ash has my door open for me. I slip inside and Grayson winks, which makes her cringe. That ball must have done a number on her shoulder. Gray is curvy in all the right places, but her shoulders are bony. And that ball definitely hit bone.
Ash takes all the bumps and turns as slowly as possible so he doesn’t jostle Grayson too much in the back seat. And as soon as we’re there, he opens my door and then rushes around to get Grayson.
“If things don’t work out between you two, can I have a stab at him?” Gray whispers to me. “I could get used to this treatment.”
I laugh, which makes Ash narrow his eyes at us both.
“Did I miss something?” he asks.
“Not yet,” Gray says, “but you’re going to if you don’t move a little faster.”
Ash must misinterpret Gray’s words because he rushes to get her out of the car, having no idea she was talking about moving faster with me.