And for the whole game, Sawyer acted like he always did with me on the field. He could flirt all he wanted and Aidan would never say a thing as long as Sawyer was in costume, because it was a big joke. He danced right behind me and missed the turns, bumping into me on purpose. Several times I slapped him away when he tried to look up my skirt (which wouldn’t have mattered anyway with my boy shorts underneath, but it was the principle of the thing). During halftime he always disappeared to take his suit off in the locker room and pour cold water over his head, but this time he returned a few minutes early. He sat beside me on the players’ bench, slipped his feathered arm around my waist, and watched the end of the opposing marching band’s show.
Sawyer might be angry with me in real life, but the pelican always loved me.
After the game, exhilarated from our big win, I dumped my pompons in the van and snatched Sawyer’s bag for his costume. I wanted an excuse to wait outside the locker room for him. I needed to know whether he was still mad, or the drive back would kill me.
I stood to one side as the football players filed out of the locker room. Brody gave me a high five. Noah shook his freshly shampooed head very close to me, spraying me with water. Then Sawyer emerged in his gym shorts only, carrying the huge foam bird head in one hand, with the rest of the costume draped over his other arm like something dead.
“I brought your bag,” I called.
His eyebrows shot up in surprise, but he walked over. “Hold this.” He handed me his costume and his head, trading for the bag. He fished a Pelicans T-shirt out of the bag and dove into it, biceps flexing as he pulled it over his head. I was sorry to see his bare chest go. Strangely silent, he took the costume from me and stuffed it into the bag.
I ventured, “You could come back to the cheerleader van for the ride home. I’m sitting with Harper, but we could all three move to the back.” As if we were all close friends, and this was the most normal suggestion in the world.
He slung the strap of the bag over his shoulder and eyed me. “That’s okay. I’ll ride with the team.”
“No, you won’t,” a football player called as he passed.
“The fuck you will,” another voice agreed.
Sawyer’s eyes never left my face. He said more quietly, “I’ll ride with the band. Thanks, though.”
“All right.” I stood there uncertainly. He shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other, looking past me at the football players and marching band members milling around the parking lot, not quite ready to board the buses for another long drive. Finally I burst out, “We need to talk.”
“Or, you need to talk,” he said, “obviously.”
I crossed my arms. “That’s exactly what we need to talk about: this attitude of yours.”
“Oh, my attitude,” he said bitterly.
“You’re in the costume and you’re nice to me. You . . .” I glanced at the football players limping by and lowered my voice. “You come on to me.”
“You like that, do you?” he sneered. “When I’m dressed up like a giant bird? That is completely illegal in the state of Florida.”
I held my hands out flat. He was proving my point for me. “Then you get out of the suit, and you’re an asshole, like now. I don’t want to do this dance with you anymore. If this is how you feel about me, stay away from me and keep your hands off me, suit or no suit.” I turned my back on him and stomped toward the van.
As I went, my head was swimming with what had just happened. I wasn’t even sure where my sudden anger had come from. It was just so frustrating for Sawyer to embrace me like I was his favorite—and the instant I tried to show him I felt the same way, he lashed out at me. I wasn’t going to do it anymore.
And I wasn’t going to stop and peer back at him, either, because that would show him how much I cared—again. Five steps later, I couldn’t help it. I looked over my shoulder.
He stood where I’d left him, gazing down at his shoes like he was trying to figure out one of Ms. Reynolds’s calculus equations.
And now I was caught between Good, I’ve hurt him and Oh, no, I’ve hurt him.
Disgusted with myself, I trudged up the steps of the van, only to see that some strange girl had taken the seat next to mine. It took me a split second to recognize Harper.
She was like a hand-knitted scarf. Breaking up with Kennedy and dating Brody over the past month had unraveled her, but she was made of gorgeous yarn. Now she was knitting herself back together in a new pattern. This meant I did a double take sometimes when I saw her, because she wasn’t always wearing her signature glasses with a retro dress. Without them, she was a pretty, dark-haired girl I’d never met.
Tonight her long hair was pulled into a high ponytail. She wore a simple tank top and a few crazy necklaces with olive cargo pants. She looked as beautiful as ever, only with a lot of the effort taken out—as if she was finally more concerned with her photography projects and her sweet boyfriend than her own self-image. I envied her.
The first thing out of her mouth was “Where’s Sawyer?” She stood up to let me into the seat.
Flopping down next to her, I grumbled, “On the band bus, I guess. Why?”
“Brody told me the football team kicked him off their bus, and Sawyer said he was going to hitch a ride with the cheerleaders. That’s the main reason I wanted to ride back with y’all. I thought I could get some candids for the yearbook before we leave, while the lights are still on. Sawyer is a walking, talking photo op.”
“He was going to ride with us to the game,” I said, “but he rode on the senior band bus.”
She gave me a skeptical look. “But he was all over you during the game.”
“That’s because he loves me with his costume on, and he hates me when he takes it off.”
“I don’t think he hates you when he takes his costume off,” she said.
I shrugged through the first part of her sentence and talked through the rest. “I don’t care anymore.” As the van’s engine rumbled to life and the overhead lights blinked out, I turned to the window and watched the distance grow between us and all our school buses. I had no idea which one Sawyer was on, or whether he was staring out his own window as our van pulled away into the dark.
I turned back to Harper. “How are things with Brody?”
She eyed me. In her pause, I realized I’d jumped from complaining about my relationship with Sawyer to asking her about her relationship with her boyfriend. Basically, I’d admitted I liked Sawyer way more than I should.
If Harper read my mind, though, she kept it to herself, as usual. She said enthusiastically, “Things are good with Brody.”
“Have you . . .” I winked at her.
She looked around us—with good reason. Half the girls on this van had dated Brody in the past. Satisfied that they were involved in their own confabs, she said quietly, “Not yet. I did get on the pill, like I told you, but I still don’t think I’m ready.”
“That’s okay,” I assured her. Harper had never dated anyone for long. Suddenly becoming the steady girlfriend of one of the most popular guys in school must have been a shock to the system.
“But we’ve . . .” She bit her lip and looked guilty.
“You’ve what?” I insisted.
“Done stuff I can’t tell you about on the cheerleader van.” She raised her eyebrows knowingly.
“Sounds serious.”
“I guess we’re pretty serious. But serious makes it sound like we’re under pressure, when we’re the opposite. My dates with other guys have been ex-cru-ci-a-ting. So awkward. Now”—she shrugged—“I’m just making out with my cool new friend. And really enjoying it.”
“Have you thought about what you’re doing after graduation?” I asked. “Will you try to stay together?”
“We’re both applying in state, mostly. Oh!” She gripped my arm. “A scout from the University of Florida came to the game tonight to see Brody and Noah play.”
“That’s fantastic!” Brody was the best
quarterback our school had scored in years. Noah was the right guard who kept him from getting sacked—or tried to. The opposing team tonight had been tough. Despite Noah’s efforts, Brody had landed on his ass a couple of times. “What did the scout think?”
“He told Coach he’s impressed. What if Brody got to play for the Gators? And I’m sending Florida my portfolio. They have a killer journalism department. Maybe I’ll get a scholarship out of it.” She held up her hands. “It might not work out, but we’re trying to go with whatever happens. It’s not a definite plan, like you and Aidan applying to Columbia together.”
“Right.” After all my pining after Sawyer tonight, I still needed to make up with Aidan. The thought made me a little ill.
“I hear you and Aidan had a problem in the student council meeting today,” she said. “Good thing you’re sleeping over with me. We’ll talk through what happened. Or help you forget about him, whichever.”
“Yeah.” I did look forward to spending the night at Harper’s tiny cottage where she lived with her mom, behind their huge Victorian bed-and-breakfast. Harper and Tia and I didn’t have much time left together. We’d be going to different colleges next August. And if Tia and Will both got into drum corps like they wanted, we wouldn’t see much of her past June.
But tonight I would get to hear about Tia’s night in marching band with Will, her polar opposite. I would hear more about the mysterious experiments Harper and Brody had been performing on each other. If I couldn’t pry the details out of Harper, Tia would. And they would ask about Aidan and me, kissing and making up and then exploding again in the student council drama . . . but they would be reserved with their questions. I could tell their enthusiasm about my relationship with Aidan had waned over the years. Kind of like Aidan’s own enthusiasm, and mine.
That was normal when two people had been dating for all of high school. Aidan and I had something good together and, moreover, long term and stable. Hardly anybody else in our school could say that. It didn’t make sense for us to break up just because we’d been dating forever and there might be someone better around the corner—like Sawyer, of all people. That kind of search would drive a person crazy.
Harper leaned toward me to whisper, “There will be a surprise waiting for you when you come over.”
“Oooh, what is it?” I couldn’t imagine. Her parents’ divorce was finally going forward, which she said was good. But her mom had a hard time keeping the B and B afloat. There was definitely not any redecorating going on.
Harper looked around the van again before she said, “Sawyer.”
I felt the blood rush to my face and goose bumps break out on my arms in the air-conditioned van. “What do you mean, Sawyer?”
“You know,” Harper said, “he and his dad have been living in a rental house on the same street as my granddad.”
“No, I didn’t know.” It made sense that Sawyer lived near our little downtown, which enabled him to get drunk outside the Crab Lab, then walk to our friends’ parties and then home without getting behind the wheel and killing anyone. But I’d never given a lot of thought to where home was for him. He just appeared.
“He had a big fight with his dad a few nights ago,” she said, “and he left. He stayed with my granddad at first. They know each other because Sawyer cuts my granddad’s grass. Anyway—”
“How could Sawyer leave?” I’d had some huge fights with my mother before, but it had never crossed my mind to sleep at someone else’s house because of it.
“He and his dad don’t get along, apparently, and this was the last straw. Unfortunately for Sawyer, my granddad has finally rejoined society and gotten a girlfriend. I told you about Chantel. My granddad says Sawyer is cramping his style. Granddad talked to my mom about it, because they’re actually speaking again. It just so happens that my mom has been looking for someone to help with breakfast at the B and B, since I refuse to do it anymore.”
“I’m so proud of you for standing up for yourself.” Harper was introverted. Serving breakfast and associating with her mom’s guests at the B and B—different ones every week—had been a special kind of torture for her, like a cat in a room full of toddlers.
“Me too. But I’ve felt awful that it left my mom in the lurch. Along comes Sawyer, who’s willing to work just a couple of hours a day as long as it doesn’t interfere with his evenings waiting tables at the Crab Lab. And he needs a place to stay.”
“Sawyer is serving breakfast at your B and B?” I asked incredulously.
Harper nodded. “He does a great job, much better than I ever did. After he’s fed everybody, he actually sits down and talks to them if he has time before school, whereas I made up any excuse to hide in the kitchen. He can be very charming to the elderly and people he doesn’t know. You’d be shocked.”
“Wait a minute.” The full meaning of what she was saying finally hit me. “Sawyer is living at your B and B?”
She laughed nervously. “Actually, no. We don’t have an empty room. It’s too soon after Labor Day. But one of the rooms will be empty Monday, and he’ll move over there. Mom says he can stay through hurricane season, until business picks up again around Christmas. Right now he’s staying at our house.”
I gaped at her. “The house where you live?” Harper’s place was a two-bedroom. When she and Tia and I had sleepovers there, one of us had to take the couch in the living room.
“Yeah.”
She’d told me all of this so calmly that I sensed I was protesting too much again. I asked logically and rationally, “Doesn’t that weird you out?”
“Not really. He basically comes in, grumbles, and wanders away again. He’s a lot like my granddad.”
“But your whole reason for telling your mom you didn’t want to help at the B and B anymore was that you’re not a people person,” I reminded her. “You need your personal space. You invite friends over occasionally, sure, but people hanging out too long drives you nuts.”
“I don’t have to entertain him,” Harper explained. “He doesn’t say much. It’s like he’s not there.” She looked past me out the dark window, searching for a reason that would make better sense to me. Finally she settled on “I feel safer while he’s over.”
“Safer from whom? Your dad? I thought the divorce was finally going through. You think he’ll come back?”
“Probably not,” she said vaguely. “I just don’t mind Sawyer being there.”
“Doesn’t Brody mind?” Brody didn’t strike me as the jealous type. He was way too confident for that. But bad boy Sawyer living with Brody’s girlfriend? That was different.
“Sawyer called Brody to tell him,” she said. “And anyway, it’s only for a few more nights. Next week he’ll move over to the B and B, and it’ll be like we’re neighbors, that’s all. We were neighbors before.”
“Now you’ll be neighbors who eat breakfast together every morning,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, I’ve thought about that, but Sawyer put it best. He said a lot of people in the same class at school might feel uncomfortable moving in together, so to speak, but he and I have gotten all that out of the way and have nothing left to feel uncomfortable about, because he’s already slipped me the tongue.” She laughed.
She stopped laughing when she saw the way I was looking at her. “I told you about that,” she reminded me. “Two weeks ago, when I thought Brody was getting back together with Grace. Sawyer was doing me a favor.”
“He sure was.” Brody and Harper’s relationship had worked out now, but they’d had a rocky start, complete with Harper and Sawyer trying to make Brody jealous—and succeeding. When I’d heard about this, I’d burned with jealousy myself. Sawyer never offered himself up when Aidan and I had trouble—which, lately, was all the time.
“Why didn’t you tell me before now that Sawyer moved in?” I complained. These were big changes in Harper’s home life, and they’d been going on for half a week. I couldn’t imagine why I’d been left out of the best friends call tree.
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“Because.” Harper lowered her voice and bent toward me again for privacy from the cheerleading van, a.k.a. the school’s rumor mill. “Ever since you figured out that you and Sawyer were really the ones elected Perfect Couple That Never Was, you’ve acted strange about him.”
Before I could protest—Strange, how?—she went on. “I didn’t want this to be a big deal. It’s not a big deal. He’ll just be there when you come over. Of course Tia won’t care, since the two of them are such good friends. I figured you wouldn’t mind either, now that you know why he’s there. And I wouldn’t want to give him the impression he’s not welcome, when he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Harper wasn’t one to throw her weight around or scold, but I was almost sure she was giving me a warning look.
The next second I grabbed her shoulder to keep her from tumbling into the aisle as the van hit the on-ramp for the interstate too fast and we lurched around the curve. My stomach spun with the van. I’d just realized Harper’s warning not to kick Sawyer when he was down had come too late.
As the van straightened and Harper was no longer in danger of sailing across it, I took my hands off her and slapped them over my mouth. I opened them to tell her, “Sawyer got mad at me and went to ride on the band bus because I told him he didn’t have any plans after graduation and he’d be living in a box under the interstate.”
Harper gaped at me. “Kaye!” When even she acted outraged, I knew I was in trouble. “Why did you say that?”
“I didn’t know he was actually homeless! It seemed like a clever reaction to . . . He was . . .” I tried to remember exactly what he’d been doing to me when I insulted him. My most distinct impression was of him running his fingers through my hair, whispering in my ear, and making chills rush down my arms. That’s what I’d pushed him away for.
“He teases you and bugs you,” Harper said gently. “But he’s a real person.”
“I know that,” I said, careful not to snap at Harper, who never deserved it.
It was a night of firsts. As soon as we arrived at school, I would have to tell Sawyer I was sorry.