Ryan couldn’t stand the look of pity his mom gave him, so he turned his face away from her. A few minutes passed in silence before she patted his arm and Ryan heard her footsteps on the carpet as she left the room. He swiped a few hot tears from his cheeks, hating himself for crying like the little kid he was.
Over the next two weeks, Ryan avoided Brooke at school and went home immediately after his games. He heard her calling his name after one game, but he wasn’t ready to talk yet. He didn’t want her pity, and he didn’t want to have to look at the lips that were kissing Steve every day. With sure, deliberate movements Ryan got in his car and drove away, ignoring the sight of Brooke jogging after him in the rearview mirror. He kept driving, though it felt like a load of bricks had been dumped on his chest.
At school the next day, they made eye contact from down the hall, and he ducked into the men’s room. Thirty seconds later he heard the door open and a pair of heeled shoes clicked in. He was leaning against the sink and felt his eyes pop wide when Brooke walked around the corner. Only Brooke Bennett would walk into the boy’s bathroom. It almost made him grin, but the pain inside him shot down that reaction.
A freshman boy walked in after her, ogled the two of them, and then spun back around and left.
“Why are you avoiding me?” she asked with a hand on her hip.
Couldn’t she see? Ryan was sick of being the nice guy. Guys like J.J. could be assholes and everyone still loved them. Ryan tried to do everything right, but it didn’t get him crap.
“I wouldn’t want to piss off Steve by hanging out with you.”
“Steve doesn’t care! He knows we’re friends.”
Friends. Ryan knew his face was hard when he looked at her.
“You have enough friends, Brooke. You don’t need some tenth-grade guy. I’m sick of everyone looking at me like I’m pathetic because of you. Go talk to Jackie if you need a friend.”
He thought it would feel good to say it, but he only felt gutted. Her eyes watered and he wanted to take it all back.
“That’s just great, Ry. Thanks a lot.” Her voice sounded choked, and she turned and walked out.
Before practice, Ryan was in the dugout, leaning his forehead against the chain-link barrier and staring out at the field. He heard J.J. and Steve talking in the corner.
“You and Brooke getting a hotel room for prom?” J.J. asked.
“Are you kidding me?” Steve said. “Her mom’s making her be home by twelve thirty. She even tried to say she was staying with Jackie, but they weren’t buying it.”
“That sucks. Guess you won’t be gettin’ any.”
Ryan bristled and looked over at them against his better judgment. Steve didn’t respond, just shrugged. He methodically pulled on his batting gloves as J.J. analyzed him with his eyes.
“Unless . . . you already did, didn’t you?” J.J. threw his head back and hooted and clapped his hands. Some of the other guys started coming over to see what was going on.
“Naw, come on, keep it down,” Steve told him.
But J.J. kept on, a lascivious grin stretching across his face. “What’d you have to do to hit that, man?”
“Dude. Fuck off.” Steve tried to walk away, but guys were packed around him.
“What’s going on?” someone asked.
“Steve got laid.” J.J. said this last sentence with an indecent move of his hips, and some of the guys started laughing and smacking Steve on the back. Ryan tasted bile, but he couldn’t move and he couldn’t look away. Steve brushed them all off, a hard look on his face.
“How was it?” J.J. asked.
“We’re not having this conversation.” Steve’s voice took an edgy tone, which only fueled that bastard J.J.
“That bad, huh? What’d she do? Just lay there?”
For a second Steve had rage in his eyes and Ryan hoped someone would beat J.J.’s ass once and for all, but Steve was too levelheaded for that. Instead, he pointed a finger in J.J.’s face and spoke through gritted teeth. “Shut up, man. It’s not like that.”
Ryan couldn’t feel his legs as he walked away from the group. He had tunnel vision as he turned the corner behind the dugout, picked up a stray ball, and threw it as hard as he could. With a bang, he dented the door to the concession stand.
Steve came around the corner, his jaw clamped tight. When he saw Ryan, his eyes softened. “Sorry,” Steve said.
“For what?” Ryan shrugged and stood frozen in defiance of the sickening emotions crashing through him. “Let’s just play ball.”
CHAPTER FIVE
The next day, Ryan found Brooke leaning against his car after school. He saw her red eyes a second before she turned away from him. He rushed the last few feet until he was at her side, dropping his backpack to the pavement.
“What happened?”
“Me and Steve broke up.” She sniffled, and conflicting feelings burned inside Ryan—happiness that she was single and sadness to see her hurting. “Do you think you’re allowed to be my friend now?”
Without a word, Ryan opened the passenger door and she climbed in. She stared silently out the window the whole drive home until he pulled up in front of her house.
“Why’d you break up?” Ryan asked.
“Oh, you didn’t hear?” Her tone was laden with sarcasm. “I guess it hasn’t leaked down to the underclassmen yet, but it will. Steve told a bunch of the baseball guys we had sex.” She blinked hard and tears fell.
“He was so nice. Jackie told me we should slow down, but it felt different with him.” She sniffled loudly. “Now girls are like ‘Oh my God, they weren’t even together a month and they did it!’ And guys are staring at me like . . . ugh!”
Ryan’s jealousy of Steve almost kept him quiet. Then he remembered the regretful look in Steve’s eyes.
“I was there, Brooke. Steve didn’t tell him. J.J. guessed, and he was egging him on. Steve didn’t even want to talk about it.”
“I don’t care how it happened. He could have denied it to shut J.J. up. He swore he wouldn’t tell. Now it’s two days until senior prom and I have no date, but I have to freaking go because I’m on the stupid prom court! And I begged my mom to buy me that stupid dress that was on the clearance rack, so it can’t even be taken back.”
Her tears were really streaming now, and it tore at Ryan’s heart. His instincts screamed for him to fix this. But how? He ground his teeth together and thought. Senior girls should not have to miss their prom, and they shouldn’t have to go alone. He knew that kind of stuff mattered to them.
“I can take you . . . if you want. I mean, I know I’m not a senior, and I don’t have money for a limo. We’d have to take the toy box, so I understand if you don’t want to.” Ryan held his breath. Brooke stopped crying and looked at him.
“You would take me? You’re not embarrassed?”
“Embarrassed?” What the hell was she talking about? “I could never be embarrassed of you.”
Ryan’s mother took him to five different tuxedo shops during those two days, before they found one that still had an available tux in his size. Then she took him to a flower shop and helped him pick out a wrist corsage with a little white rose. He wanted everything to be just right for Brooke.
Saturday night, Ryan posed for about thirty pictures.
“You have to bring Brooke back here so I can get a picture of you two together.”
“No time, Mom.” He kissed her cheek and rushed off, calling over his shoulder. “We’ll buy pictures!”
When Ryan got to Brooke’s neighborhood, he almost didn’t see her sitting on the curb at the end of her street. He pulled over and jumped out of the car.
“What are you doing down here?” he asked.
“Ry, wow, you look great.” She stared up at him and then stood, wobbling slightly in her high heels. Her hair was up in some fancy twist thing and she wore a black strapless dress that looked silky. It was tight and flattering all the way down to her high heels.
Looking at her mad
e the blood rush hot through his veins.
Unable to say anything, he just opened the passenger door and let her in.
When he got in on his side, he held out the corsage. Her eyes watered when she saw it. He slipped it on her wrist and she hugged him. That’s when he smelled the liquor. His chest constricted with worry.
“Why aren’t you at your house?”
“My mom and Ron are fighting.”
“About you?”
She nodded. “I was going to do my hair myself, but my mom was all excited, so she took me to have it done. So now Ron’s mad that she spent more money than what he’d budgeted for prom.”
What a jerk.
“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go and have a good time, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered.
When they got on the highway, Brooke pulled a miniature plastic bottle of rum out of her purse. Ryan looked from the road back to Brooke as she tilted her head and drank.
“What are you doing?!” He grabbed for the bottle, but she snatched it away.
“Uh-uh! You can’t have any, mister, ’cause you’re driving.” She giggled.
Holy crap, she’d had more than he thought. Ryan managed to grab the bottle on his second try. Then he rolled down his window and threw it out. Brooke gasped and broke into a fit of laughter.
“Litterbug!”
He couldn’t bring himself to smile or laugh with her. “You don’t need that shit.”
Her demeanor changed, and the smile fell from her face.
“Don’t be mad at me, Ry. I hate when you’re mad at me.”
Her eyes stared at his face, imploring.
“I’m not mad.”
Brooke grabbed his hand and twined their fingers together, then pulled it to her lap and held it there.
They were silent the rest of the ride. At the prom they sat quietly at their table while waiting for her friends to arrive. Her eyes were somewhere far away. Ryan didn’t know if Brooke was sad that she was there with him instead of Steve, or if she was still thinking about her parents. Maybe she was sleepy from the alcohol.
Ryan saw two girls, juniors, staring at them and whispering, obviously gossiping about Brooke. Ryan stared back until they looked away. Worry about your own damned business, he thought.
When Jackie got there, she and Brooke disappeared into the bathroom for a while. Ryan nodded at a few of the senior ballplayers, who all seemed amped up in their tuxes. Steve wasn’t there.
Someone hooked an arm around Ryan’s neck from behind and scrubbed a knuckle on top of his head. He struggled out of the grip and turned to see J.J. looking sharp, laughing. Ryan ran a hand over his head and grinned. He sort of had a love-hate thing when it came to J.J. The guy could be a total dick, but then he could be so cool.
“Whatcha doin’ here, Kid?” he asked, pulling out a chair and straddling it.
“Nothing, man. Just . . . brought Brooke.”
J.J.’s eyebrows went up, but for once he had the good sense not to say anything. Ryan wondered if he felt bad about what had gone down with Brooke and Steve.
“Aren’t you just a sweetheart?” J.J. gave Ryan a punch in the arm and then pulled a can of snuff from his pocket. He peered around before offering the tobacco to Ryan.
“Nah,” Ryan said. “Thanks.”
J.J. shrugged and stuffed his lip full of the black stuff before leaving Ryan without a word and heading for the dance floor.
When Brooke and Jackie emerged from the bathroom with two of their friends, Ryan breathed a sigh of relief. She looked happy.
Brooke went straight to him, taking his hands.
“Come on!” she said. “Let’s dance.”
The relief Ryan felt faltered into worry at the smell of alcohol on her breath again. She tugged his hands, but he shook his head. A fast song was playing.
“I don’t dance. You guys go ahead.”
Brooke studied his face until he gave her a small smile. It must have appeased her because she turned for the dance floor. Ryan grabbed Jackie’s arm.
“Don’t let her drink any more,” he whispered.
Jackie gave him the kind of look girls normally reserved for puppies and kittens.
“She’s okay,” Jackie said. “She just needed to relax.”
He watched as she joined the girls inside the cluster of moving bodies.
The rest of the night went by without too much drama. The prom court was announced, Brooke being one of the princesses. She was ready to leave soon after they fit the tiny tiara on her head.
On the way home, Brooke leaned over toward Ryan while he was driving. Her eyes were half-closed and sleepy . . . so freakin’ sexy. When he felt her warm breath on his ear, he momentarily swerved out of the lane lines.
“Thank you for tonight,” she whispered. She stayed close, her warm vanilla scent holding him hostage. His grip on the steering wheel tightened. He came to a stoplight and worked up as much nerve as he possibly could to turn his head two inches to the right and look at her.
His heart pounded, aching, sending a fiery burn down his limbs. He refused to look away from her but was terrified to make a move. She reached up and ran her fingers along the straight edges of his hair. Then she pressed her soft lips to his. Ryan felt a deep part of himself soar. He opened his mouth enough to make Brooke open hers, until their breaths came together.
A shrill honk sounded from behind Ryan and he jolted to see the light had turned green.
Ryan pressed the gas hard enough to squeak the tires and thrust them backward in their seats. She didn’t move away from him. While Brooke nuzzled his neck, he stared straight ahead for half a mile before speaking.
“I’m going to marry you someday, Brooke.”
He felt her shiver before she pulled away, biting her lip. She lifted her knees and curled up on the seat, closing her eyes.
“You’re too good to me, Ry.”
CHAPTER SIX
After graduation everyone hung out on a sandy patch at the river. It was mostly baseball players, both JV and varsity, and the groupies of the teams, like Brooke’s friends. Ryan wasn’t as ripped or big as the other guys, so he kept his shirt on unless he was going in the water. Brooke and all the other girls were in bikinis, sitting on towels in the sand. Ryan tried hard not to stare. He really did. But he ended up pulling the bill of his hat down low and allowing himself a moment to take in all of her shining skin—she must have been wearing some sort of tanning oil. She looked happy with her hair pulled up on top of her head, laughing with her friends.
He thought about the kiss—that too-brief moment they’d never again mentioned. He knew it had been her way of saying thank you, but it meant so much more to him.
When Brooke stood up to walk down to the water with Jackie, Ryan thought he might die from the beauty of it. Her body was his exact idea of female perfection. She had curves that showed she was soft in all the right places, and a waist that dipped inward. And, oh God, when Ryan saw she had those little dimples at the bottom of her spine, just above her bathing suit bottom, he had to breathe deep and get control of his thoughts.
He could hear two girls talking a few feet away.
“. . . should really wear a tankini or a one-piece.”
“Or at least a cover-up.”
It was two of his classmates, Michelle Vasquez and Sarah Picard. They were looking at Jackie and Brooke, but they couldn’t possibly be talking about their weight, because neither one of them was fat. Then again, Michelle and Sarah were skin and bones. Ryan wasn’t scared of girls his age, so he scooted right over and boldly asked, “Who are y’all talkin’ ’bout?”
They looked at each other and giggled.
“Nobody,” Sarah said, bringing her knees up and swishing her long blond hair to cover more of herself.
Michelle was wearing a tiny black sundress, but he could see the red bathing suit tied at her neck under her curly, dark hair. “Let me ask you a question,” she said. “Does it tota
lly gross you out when you see a sort of . . . chubby girl wearing a bikini?”
“Uh . . .” Ryan scanned the entire riverfront of students and didn’t see anyone who matched that description. “No. I guess I don’t really think about it.”
“I mean, like, when you see thighs rubbing together when she walks?” she prompted.
He looked at Brooke and Jackie standing knee-deep in the gentle waves. Brooke’s toned thighs met in the center. It was so hot. Seriously, they could not be talking about her.
“Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” he asked. He didn’t really like the thought of skinny legs with a gap between them. He didn’t want to worry about breaking a girl someday when he was lucky enough to hook up.
Michelle rolled her eyes. “Never mind.”
“Why are you worrying about that kind of stuff anyway?” Ryan asked. The only girl he was used to hanging out with was Brooke, and she never bad-mouthed herself or her body.
“Because it’s gross,” Sarah said. She pinched the skin on the underside of her arm.
“That’s skin,” Ryan informed her. “Not fat.”
She made a face like he didn’t know what he was talking about.
“I know!” Michelle said to Sarah. “When I sit down it squishes out my thighs and they look so big.” Both girls straightened out their legs and compared how the nonexistent fat spread out.
“Whatever,” Ryan said, standing up. Girls were so weird. “See y’all later.”
“Bye, Ryan,” they both chimed.
He went down to the water, and Brooke splashed at him with her foot.
“You better take your shirt off before you get a farmer’s tan,” she said.
He didn’t really want to, but at least he’d put on a little bit of weight that year, so he didn’t have a complete bird chest like he did last summer. Trying not to look nervous, Ryan pulled his T-shirt over his head and tossed it up to the sand. Jackie and Brooke openly checked him out as he rubbed a hand over his bare, smooth chest.
Dude, Ryan thought, girls can get away with all kinds of shit. Guys have to be stealthy about it or they get called pigs.