Offside

  “She hit a tree,” I said through clenched teeth. I didn’t look at her—I just kept staring at the water and listening to it cascade over the rocks. My head was really throbbing, and the effort to keep the scenes out of my conscious mind was excruciating.

  I felt a cool touch against my arm and glanced down to see Nicole’s fingers slowly running up and down my forearm. The muscles in my arm were hard and tense as I squeezed the railing, but as she touched me, my grip loosened and I started to relax. I watched her slender fingers as they brushed over the hairs on the top of my hand.

  “I didn’t mean to pry,” her soft voice sang up to me. I shook my head slightly, unable to find any words. She must have misunderstood, because she pulled her hand back, running it nervously down her side.

  I didn’t want her to let go of me.

  I wanted her to touch me again because the pain in my head was gone, and the memories weren’t still trying to push through. I wanted to touch her to see if her skin was really as soft as it looked. I wanted to feel the coolness of her hands, still moist from the condensation of her glass in contrast to the warmth of her body.

  Inside, music began to play as couples joined on the dance floor.

  “Would you like to dance?” I asked her suddenly.

  “Dance?” She took a step back. “Ah…I don’t dance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Um…I don’t know how?” Her words came out as a question.

  “You don’t need to know how,” I told her. “I’ll show you.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Please?” I asked as I held out my hand. I just wanted to touch her again…just for a few minutes.

  “Okay,” she finally said as she placed her hand in mine. I led her out to the dance floor and placed my hand at her waist.

  “Put your hand on my shoulder,” I instructed, and she complied. I took her other hand in mine, feeling the coolness of her fingers. “That’s it.”

  She was tense at first, stumbling a little, but it was only a few measures before she relaxed, allowed me to lead, and really began to look stunningly graceful as I twirled her around. She smiled up at me, and then her eyes went abruptly dark.

  “What’s the deal, Malone?” she asked suddenly.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean…are you even the same guy I’ve seen at school?”

  “Well…yes, obviously!” I laughed.

  “You are going to make my head explode,” she mumbled.

  “Excuse me?” I questioned back.

  “You are a total jerk at school,” she pointed out.

  I laughed through my nose.

  “Don’t hold back,” I advised. “It’ll give you ulcers.”

  “You are an ass on the field.”

  “That’s a whole different costume,” I replied without thinking.

  “Costume?” Nicole stopped her rant long enough to look up at me with her brow furrowed.

  I glanced down and tapped the lapel of my tuxedo jacket with my thumb.

  “This is a whole different costume from my team uniform,” I explained.

  “So what,” she exclaimed, “you become a whole other person because you are in a different…costume?”

  The Bard’s words rolled off my tongue without permission.

  “All the world’s a stage, Rumple,” I said with a wink.

  “And all the men and women merely players,” she continued. She smiled and raised her eyebrows at me.

  I spun her around in a slow circle and then brought her back close.

  “They have their exits and their entrances,” I quoted. “And one man in his time plays many parts.”

  Her smile broadened, and she was stunning. My chest clenched, and breathing became more difficult. I lost my step in the dance.

  I wanted to know her.

  I wanted her to know me.

  Not the jerk at school.

  Not the guy in the tux.

  Not the goalie on the field.

  Just me.

  But I didn’t know who that was.

  As my mind raced, the idea of spending more time with her and just…talking to her became more and more appealing. At the same time, it terrified me. I could see myself telling Nicole quite a bit—maybe far too much. What would she think of my drawings? Did she like classical music? Would she think it was all just a stupid waste of time? What if she found out how messed up my head was? She already thought I was an ass, and I couldn’t really deny the fit of the name—I was certainly no sweet-smelling rose. What would she think if she knew even my own father couldn’t stand me? What if she found out why he hated me so much?

  What would she think if she found out I killed my own mother?

  In Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, Launcelot said, “but at the length truth will out.” Somehow, I would have to keep her in the dark about how horrible I really was.

  Now how could I do that?

  CHAPTER 5

  HOOLIGANS

  “You gonna pop that little cherry?” Dad asked as we drove from the banquet.

  “Fuck yeah,” I replied automatically.

  “Damn,” Dad laughed, “that would seriously piss off her father.”

  “Heh,” I smiled a little and wet my lips with my tongue. “Yeah, it would.”

  “Well, get her worked up so she’ll do your biology work,” Dad said. “You need to keep your focus, but string her along a bit if it doesn’t get in the way. Greg was going on about how smart she was, so if you play the game right, maybe she could take care of your other homework, too.”

  “Yeah, that would be good,” I said. I nodded in agreement as my mind relived every moment I had experienced with her.

  Seeing her in the hoodie, behind my goal.

  The warmth of her touch when I ran into her and the deep blue of her eyes as they looked up at me.

  Trying to ignore me during class.

  The smell of her hair as I leaned close and asked her if she was wet.

  The look of incredulity as I held the door open and asked her to dance.

  “Just keep the focus on the important stuff, son,” Dad said. “You know how cherries are. If she gets clingy or something, ditch her before she becomes a distraction.”

  “I don’t do clingy,” I heard myself respond, “but a little cherry sounds appetizing.”

  “Damn straight.” Dad chuckled a bit more but didn’t mention Nicole again.

  Thankfully.

  I relaxed a little since Dad seemed to be in good spirits. It was pretty late by the time we arrived home, so I headed straight to bed to watch the day’s re-runs. I closed my eyes and felt the cool slickness of her fingers as they curled around my shoulder. I felt her initial resistance and eventual relaxation as she let me guide her body on the dance floor. I saw her smile and detected a faint hint of some kind of perfume…flowers or herbs…I wasn’t sure until I went back further.

  Lilac.

  Mom planted one of those shrubs at our old house.

  I opened my eyes and reached my hand across the bed and down to the nightstand. I pulled out my sketchbook and started to draw. First there was the angle of her head as she tilted it slightly to the side, exposing her neck to me as I held her in the proper waltz position. There were the curls of her hair, flowing softly over her shoulders as she spun in a circle. Of course, there was also the vision of her teeth, partially embedded in her lower lip as she looked up at me in contemplation.

  I didn’t stop until it was time for my morning run.

  As I ran, I pushed...hard. When I checked my times, my average mile was five minutes forty seconds. Good deal. I tried to keep my eyes peeled as I ate some cereal for breakfast and tried to gauge Dad's mood. He glanced at my pedometer and gave me a nod, so at least that was good.

  “I'm heading to the hospital,” he told me. “I probably won't be back until late.”

  “No problem,” I replied.

  “You do your weight training this morning?”

&n
bsp; “It's my off-day,” I said. “No weights until tomorrow.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He grumbled something else, but I couldn't hear what he said. I wasn't going to ask.

  After he left, I got the laundry going and went grocery shopping. The mums were still on sale, so I bought two pots of them. As I drove past Nicole's house, I saw both her dad's cruiser and her car were gone, so I left one of the pots on her porch and headed home.

  A few hours of FIFA 2013 on the Wii and several loads of laundry later, I did my homework and finally thought about the biology project again. I wondered if Nicole had actually waited for me at the library and I had missed her, or if she really did just stand me up on purpose. I hadn't thought to ask her last night. I pulled out my laptop and started looking for interesting organisms. I was tempted to look up orgasms but contained myself. Vertebrates were boring, so I discounted those altogether. Maybe something weird like euglena or sea cucumbers or something would be good. I wondered what Rumple would want to use for the project subject, which made me realize I didn't even have her phone number.

  I'd have to fix that.

  I pulled out my phone and dialed.

  “What's up, Thomas?”

  “Hey, I need some info,” I said. “Sheriff Skye's got a daughter named Nicole. I need a cell phone number and any online accounts you can find. Twitter, Facebook—whatever.”

  “Sure.”

  I hung up with a smile.

  Yeah, sure I could just ask her, but she could also refuse to tell me. Shit, I couldn't even get her name out of her, so the chances of learning anything more personal were just about nil.

  I went to bed before Dad got home, woke up for my morning run, and then got ready for school. I left early so I could take the long way—that is, so I could drive past Rumple's house. Usually by the time I went past, she was either getting into her car to go, or she was already gone. This time, she was sitting in the driver’s seat and beating the dashboard with her little fist.

  Kitten on steroids, not something I could pass up.

  I swung my Jeep around and pulled into her driveway. She looked up at me and narrowed her eyes as she opened the door and climbed out of the car. I couldn't help but notice how nicely tight her jeans were and wished the weather was a little warmer so she wouldn't be in long sleeves. I turned off the car and got out, too.

  “Having problems with that piece of shit, Rumple?”

  “Nice,” she replied with a smirk. “It won't start.”

  “Need help?”

  “Yeah, if you could,” she said.

  I went around to the front of the car and propped open the hood, looking around for a while before I figured out the damn thing just stayed up on its own and didn't have one of those little stick-things to hold it up. I looked inside and wondered what the fuck all the shit in there was and what it did.

  “Try turning it on,” I suggested.

  She got back inside and turned the key. It made a lot of noise, but nothing seemed to be going anywhere. I poked at a big round metal thing in the middle.

  “Try again!” I called out. No difference. “Hold on. Let me try something.”

  I looked around and found a little round piece to pull on. A stick came out and was all greasy and shit, so I figured that was okay. I found a belt that looked loose, but for all I knew, it was supposed to be loose. There was a big blocky thing with two bolts on top of it, which I thought was probably the battery. Could it be dead?

  Fuck if I knew.

  “Okay, Rumple!” I called out. “Give it another shot!”

  She did, and nothing happened.

  I started poking around again and heard the door to the car open and close.

  “What do you think it is?” she asked as she peered over my shoulder.

  “Could be a few things,” I replied, tapping my chin. I turned my head to look at her and smiled when I saw her biting her lip. “The battery could be dead,” I pointed at the blocky thing. “Or maybe a fouled fuel caliper. Could be the sparks or this—” I pointed at the big metal round thing “—which isn't spinning right.”

  “What is that?” she asked.

  “Ah, that's the…um…the manifold destiny.”

  Her eyes narrowed again, and then her lips twitched before she busted out laughing.

  “Manifold destiny?” she squealed. “Thomas Malone! Do you know anything about cars at all?”

  “Well…no…” I admitted, “but this is a Hyundai!”

  “Do you know anything about Hyundais?”

  I couldn't keep it in anymore, and I started laughing too.

  “I don't know shit about any of this,” I confessed.

  “You brat!” she yelled as she slapped me on the shoulder.

  “Sorry,” I shrugged, though I wasn't. Not at all.

  “We've been standing out here for fifteen minutes!” she exclaimed. “I'm going to be late for school.”

  “Most definitely.” I tried to hold my laughter down, but it wasn't really working.

  “You are such an ass,” she said, but she was still smiling a bit.

  “Want a ride?” I asked her. I refrained from adding on my cock.

  “I don't think I have much choice,” she said. “Let me get my book bag.”

  I had to stop myself from bouncing in my seat as she made her way from her car to mine and got in. I was definitely going to stay under the speed limit for this ride. I wanted to spend as much time with her as possible, and the more time I could spend with her alone, the better. If I could just keep this up, eventually she'd fall for me. She'd have no choice against the Malone charm.

  “So what’s your favorite number?” I asked as I pulled excruciatingly slowly out of her driveway. I crawled along at twenty-four miles per hour.

  “Um…seriously?” She glanced over to me with a puzzled expression.

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “I figured it was a get-to-know-you kind of thing,” I replied.

  “Shouldn’t you ask my favorite color then?” she finally said.

  “Nah,” I said with a shrug. “I prefer numbers.”

  “Eight,” she said.

  “Eight?” I repeated. “That’s a weird favorite number.”

  “It is not,” she retorted. “It’s very symmetrical.”

  I couldn’t really argue with that, but still—eight?

  “What kind of music do you like?”

  “Lots of different things,” she said. “I like some of the trendy stuff, but I also like jazz and classic rock. Mostly I listen to heavy metal.”

  Interesting.

  I continued to pepper her with questions all the way to school, trying to figure her out. I didn’t really make a whole lot of progress until I asked about her favorite flower just as I was pulling into the school parking lot.

  She turned full on to look at me, her expression both curious and accusatory.

  “Mums,” she said bluntly.

  I pushed my lips together, trying to hide the smile.

  “Really?” I asked. “Why is that?”

  “Well, they are very magical flowers,” she said, the look on her face not changing as I parked and turned off the car.

  “Magical?”

  “Yes,” she said with a nod. “They just appear out of nowhere.”

  “Do they?”

  “They do.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I think so.”

  “We’re late for first bell,” I told her. I jumped out of the car and grabbed my book bag from the back seat. I was pretty sure she said something else, under her breath a bit, but I only caught the word deflect. “What’s your first class?”

  “History,” Nicole replied.

  “Well, you missed about half of it,” I said with a smile.

  “What class are you missing?”

  “Trig,” I replied.

  “Are you going to be able to get caught up?” she asked.

  “Not a problem.” I laughed through my nose.

/>   She looked at me with a strange expression before she looked away again.

  “Well, I hope I didn’t miss too much,” she said, and she started walking faster. “See you in biology!”

  “Oh yeah!” I called out as I quickened my pace to catch up with her. “What the fuck was with the blow off last Friday? Are we doing this project or not?”

  She slowed and looked at me sideways.

  “Don’t feel as if you have to put yourself out,” she said. “If you want, we can meet in the library after school.”

  “I have weightlifting.”

  “How long is that?”

  “Just a half hour.”

  “I’ll still be there.”

  “Promise?” I asked.

  “Promise.” She smiled.

  “Okay.” I returned her smile as she turned down the hall. I called out, “See you later!”

  She waved and kept going.

  Classes were extremely slow that morning.

  When lunchtime finally rolled around, I jumped right out of my chair and grabbed my lunch out of my locker. As I walked into the lunchroom, I saw Mika and Jeremy waving frantically at me. They were at a table with about half the starting team. I made my way over to them after I grabbed a Gatorade.

  “Hey T—you fucked Heather, right?” Frankie Ronald, one of the team’s midfielders, asked.

  I smirked, rolled my eyes, and nodded.

  “Yeah,” I acknowledged as I plopped down in the seat next to Jeremy. “So?”

  “Thomas has fucked every cheerleader on the squad,” Robin spat out.

  “Jealous,” I shot back at him. “Besides, that’s not true. Some of them only gave me blow-jobs.”

  “But you fucked Lones, right?” Frankie asked for confirmation.

  “You want me to draw you a fucking picture?” I tossed back at him. “My cock, her cunt. Cum everywhere!”

  I lifted my arms up and out in a grand gesture, and raucous laughter ensued. I leaned back in my chair until the two front legs were off the floor and tipped back my bottle of Gatorade.

  “So, Klosav needs advice,” Jeremy said as he continued to laugh. Clint snickered, too. “She asked him to the dance and he wants some ac-tion!”

  Within about thirty seconds, the whole group had sunk into near-hooligan mentality. I was surprised they hadn’t managed to start a food fight or at least flip over a couple of tables. Jeremy stood up on the chair and started thrusting his hips back and forth in time with some goofy arm movements. Frankie started making noises that may or may not have been his attempt at singing.