“We’re having a party next Friday.” Taylor got in on the action while Lucky’s insides caught flame. “You should come.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” she said on a rush, clearly not used to the attention.
“If you need a ride, one of us can pick you up,” said Dell. “Maybe O’Leary?” Dell met his gaze across the table. “Or if he can’t, maybe I can swing by and—”
Lucky interrupted. “I’ll do it.”
Taylor stood up and tapped Lucky’s shoulder. “Good. It’s settled then. My brother O’Leary here will take good care of you. C’mon Dell. We should let him get back to work. He’s got all that studying to do.”
“I’m coming home too.” Lucky stood up, catching the confused look on Beth’s face. “I’m not as hungry as I thought. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay.”
He couldn’t even look her in the eye.
* * *
Lucky kept looking at her funny.
Beth couldn’t figure out what his deal was. Since Tuesday, he was just off. Too nice, too chivalrous, too attentive. And when he looked at her, he started really looking at her.
“All right, dreamboat. You are weirding me out,” she finally said on Saturday.
He was walking her home again. Another new strange behavior that began on Thursday. “Why? Hey, do you want to go to the zoo tomorrow?”
“What? No. I mean why?”
“I don’t know. It just sounds fun. And you have a day off and I don’t have practice. If you don’t like the zoo, we don’t have to go. Maybe we could catch a movie.”
Lucky took a few more steps before he realized she’d stopped.
He spun around, all grace and dexterity. “What, you don’t like movies either?”
She wished he weren’t so good looking. Or so athletic, or smart, or funny. Or so goddamned nice. If he could only be less of each of those, she would maybe be able to not feel like she was drowning every time he came around.
“Aren’t there any girls at your school?” Because at the bottom of it all, the rock in the pit of her stomach told her this was pity. And she would rather die than have him pity her.
He closed the distance between them. “I like you. I have a shortage of friends I like right now. Haven’t you ever had a guy friend before?”
She thought about it for a minute and shook her head. “No.”
“Having a guy friend is pretty awesome if you’re a girl and you pick the right guy.”
“And why is that?” she asked.
“You always have someone to open mayonnaise jars and you don’t have to shave your legs for him.”
“I never thought of that. That makes me the luckiest girl in the world, doesn’t it?”
He smiled at her. In the moonlight, he lost some of that perfect All-American polish and looked heartbreakingly human. Part of her wanted to unlock her soul and hand him the keys. It would be stupid. He was a great guy, but he was too great a guy for her. At some point, he was going to stop feeling out of place and homesick, which he was even if he wouldn’t admit it. He’d start acting like the other guys on the team, start dating pretty girls, and he would slowly drift away from her. He would do it with perfect courtesy of course, but he would do it just the same.
Lucky threw his arm around her and pulled her down the sidewalk, tying another brick around her ankle while she fought just to tread water.
They spent the whole day together on Sunday. And Monday, he hung out her entire shift and walked her home. Tuesday night, she went to his game. It was a mistake. He was too good and so talented. She hadn’t seen him in shorts before. He was like a work of art. She shrunk further and further into her corner of the bleachers, leaning her misshapen face against the wires and wanting to cry.
He found her there, still clinging to the cyclone fence long after everyone had gone. The bleachers shook as he took the steps two at time. So sure of his body because it had never betrayed him.
“Thanks for coming,” he said after a few minutes of charged silence.
“I’m sorry I’m having a nervous breakdown at your game.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“God no.”
Lucky reached across her and loosened her fingers from the fence. Then he pulled her into his chest and held her. Just held her. He’d showered after the game. He smelled like soap. He was so clean. She’d never feel that way. But she was glad he could. It occurred to her that if given the choice, she’d take the defect again if it meant he could keep this life for himself.
The stadium lights went out all at once, leaving her outside environment as dark as her inside environment. Except that Lucky’s squeezed her a little closer, and all her synapses started firing different messages at once.
“Your eyes will adjust in a second.” His voices soothed her senses like warm honey.
“Okay,” she squeaked.
Every sense but her sight sharpened. The sound of his steady heartbeat, the softness of his sweatshirt, the scent of his soap and the grass of the field…she could have stayed in the moment forever. But he was right, there were enough security lights from campus to slowly return the black world into the real world again.
He stood and carefully helped her down the bleachers. On the last step, her foot slipped and she tumbled into Lucky and her very first kiss.
* * *
He didn’t know what the hell he was doing. Every day, he dug himself deeper. At first, Lucky told himself that he was only trying to make up for his friends being such jerks, even if she didn’t know they had been. He needed to undo the karmic damage or something. He’d make her see how great she was, maybe help her with her confidence. And no way was he taking her to that party. He’d figure something else out.
The guys didn’t understand what a great kid she was. She didn’t deserve to be called a rover or a butterface. She had a couple scars that barely saw the light of day, and a slightly rounded jaw. No big deal.
So he decided to be a mentor to her, be the big brother she never had. It wasn’t a hardship to spend time with Beth. Her sharp edges smoothed the more he got to know her, and the harder he worked to gain her trust, the more he wanted it. Spending time with her was refreshing. More than anything, he wanted to be that guy she saw when she looked at him.
But then he’d seen her wearing a tank top.
She didn’t like to wear her uniform home, so she changed in the bathroom one night, coming out in jeans and a little pink tank top. It hit him like an anvil Wile E. Coyote ordered from the Acme Co.
Jesus Christ, she’s a girl. His palms tingled and his mouth went dry. And all the virtue he thought he’d been stocking up on by taking this mission on was gone. One small shirt undid it all. He was no better than the jerks he lived with.
He recovered quickly enough. Mostly. He tried to push his shallow feelings to the corner of his mind and concentrate on being her friend, and he did a good job for the most part. He still liked her after all. He didn’t have to stop liking her just because he had inappropriate feelings. So what if he noticed that her eyes were just as green as they were brown, depending on what color she was wearing. And if something tugged on his gut whenever she bit her lip, he could live with it. If he dozed off at night thinking about that tank top and the breasts underneath it, nobody had to know.
But he never intended to kiss her.
Finding her clinging to the bleachers had punched like a fist. He hated seeing girls cry, but it never made him feel like that before. Helpless. There wasn’t a villain in sight—how does a guy slay dragons for a girl when they’re all in her head?
He swore to God he never intended to kiss her.
They had been moving slowly down the bleacher, awkward and hindered by the lack of light and powerful emotions swirling around them. He was guiding her, but had no idea where he was leading her to. She trusted him, and that made him feel like a god.
And then she fell into his arms and there was nothing left but to kiss her.
* * *
/>
When Beth opened her eyes again, she was startled to find that the world hadn’t changed despite the fact that everything was different.
“I’m sorry,” Lucky said.
“You’re sorry?”
“Not really.” It wasn’t so dark that she couldn’t make out his smile.
“Me either. I wasn’t expecting that.”
Lucky hadn’t let go of her yet. “I’m a little surprised myself.”
“I sort of figured kissing wasn’t in the same equation with the mayonnaise jars and unshaved legs.” Did she really just say that? “If you want to take it back, you can.”
“I can?”
She nodded. Damn it. Way to go Beth.
“I can just take it back like it never happened. You’ll just forget that I kissed you?”
She nodded again. I am the biggest loser ever.
“Then I didn’t do it right.” His mouth covered hers again. This time, he was serious. Insistent. Glorious. Beth trembled as equal parts fear and excitement coursed through her body. The first kiss had been an accident of circumstance and attraction. The second kiss was as far from happenstance as she’d ever been.
When they finally parted, she was delighted to see he was shaking too.
And for the next two days, her cheeks hurt from smiling all the time. She couldn’t study, couldn’t read, and couldn’t keep her orders straight at Bing’s. She’d catch Lucky looking at her, and he’d duck his chin to his chest and pretend he was studying. She barely ate, she hardly slept. She felt consumed.
Thursday night, he kissed her sweetly at her front door and she actually sighed. Like a girl. She wanted to kick her own ass. But something in his eyes changed at that moment, like they caught flame. Suddenly, he kissed her so hard she found herself crushed to the wall and whatever had sparked in his eyes roared to life in that kiss. It wasn’t sweet. It set fire to her blood and melted her bones into molten lava.
At this rate, she was never going to be a lesbian.
When Lucky pushed away, he stared at his hands while he caught his breath. Beth stared at them too. Just a minute before, it seemed like they were everywhere. It was hard to believe there were only just the two.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped.
“Really?”
He chuckled and she felt the tremor low in her belly. “No.” Lucky reached for one of her hands. “Sometimes, you look at me or you sigh, and I just feel invincible. I don’t know how else to explain it.”
She really didn’t have a reply for that. She already thought he was bulletproof, invincible wasn’t such a stretch. “What time are you picking me up tomorrow?” she asked. “For the party?”
His face changed again. “I don’t want to go to the party.”
“Oh.” As the air left her tires, all she could think of was how stupid she was. Of course he didn’t want to take her to the party. If she had invested any thought at all into the last week, she’d have realized that they spent little time in the company of other people. She couldn’t deny he had feelings for her, but showing her off to his friends was something else. She couldn’t blame him. All his friends were soccer gods, just like him. They probably had goddess girlfriends. It would be like parking your 1982 Celica in a Rolls Royce lot.
“Don’t,” he said simply.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t shrink like I just slapped you.” Lucky scrunched down, forcing her to look at him through a haze of stupid girl tears. “The guys on my team are jerks. We should do something else.”
“Sure,” Beth said. Where are you, Beth? Did the real Beth still exist under all the new layers of estrogen, sugar, and spice? Was she really prepared to live like this now? It was one thing to hide behind your own armor, but it was something else to be hidden. “No, I take that back.” Begin like you mean to carry on. “I want to go to the party. Even if we just go for a few minutes. It’s important to me.”
“Why?”
Because I’d rather be alone than know you’re ashamed to be seen with me. “Because, it just is.”
They left it there. Somewhat uneasily, but with him agreeing they could drop in for a few minutes. Goodbye was more awkward than usual, he seemed distant and reserved. She didn’t know if she was proud of herself for forcing the issue, or mad at herself for risking what little happiness she’d found. Reasoning with the new Beth seemed nearly impossible. She wanted smoldering kisses and shy smiles. She didn’t care about things like pride and self-respect. She didn’t know that they were important lines of defense in a world that was sometimes cruel. She just wanted to stay in her happy place with all her hopes and dreams wrapped up in the hands of a boy.
Which is exactly why the new Beth was devastated in the girls’ room at lunch the next day.
She ran all the way home. She never even stopped at her locker. She just had to run. Aware of only the roar like the ocean in her head and the snippets of the overheard conversation repeating on a loop; she didn’t look for cars or people. The tape just kept playing over and over. Men’s soccer team...annual party…that poor fat girl, Clara, didn’t know it was a dog dinner…like anyone would really want to invite her on a date…she must really be stupid…ugliest date wins a prize.
They didn’t know she was in the stall, but they didn’t know her and wouldn’t have cared anyway. They were talking about some poor fat girl who’d been invited to a college party and thought someone really liked her.
Poor Clara.
Beth ran until she couldn’t breathe. She staggered into her bedroom and then she lost it. She didn’t realize, for a long time, that she had climbed into her closet. She cowered in the corner, holding her knees to her chest thinking the pressure would stop the tears. The ugliest date wins a prize. Oh God, how had she allowed this to happen? She replayed every moment of his complex deception. Every sheepish grin singed her all over again. Every false tender moment gutted her. Her tears were so hot they stung her skin, but didn’t she just deserve that? God, he’d invested a lot of time into wooing her. He must really think she had a chance to take first place.
Her scars itched.
Finally, she reached the end of tears. She was blessedly hollow now. And the new Beth was sufficiently dead. She wouldn’t miss her or her newly acquired stupid girlheart. Life was back to normal now. Almost.
There was still just the one thing left to do.
* * *
Lucky was too young for an ulcer, but try telling that to his stomach.
Everything burned.
God if he could just talk her out of this party.
She’d never looked prettier. He was surprised to see she’d worn her hair pulled back off her face. He wondered if maybe he could take credit for that. It was stupid; it probably had nothing to do with him. But still he wondered and kind of hoped. Maybe she wasn’t so shy about her scars now.
She was quieter than usual and didn’t eat much. Neither did he. Food was like adding coal to the furnace his stomach had become. He tried to make small talk, but every word tasted sour in his mouth. Tonight, when she looked at him, it didn’t feel like she saw that guy anymore—the one he wanted to be. Instead, she maybe was looking at the same guy everyone else saw. He didn’t like it.
The walk from the street to the front door of the house was like the Green Mile, every step like slogging through thick mud. Lucky grabbed her wrist at the bottom step.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“I don’t feel well.” Please.
“Well, we’re already here. Let’s just go in, make sure everyone sees us, and then we’ll leave, okay?”
He never should have confided to her that the team questioned his commitment. That’s probably why she’d been so insistent that they make an appearance this whole time. He couldn’t catch his breath. He was on the edge of a cliff, and she was gonna push him off.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. Only the rookies were required to bring ugly dates. There weren’t that many, it’s possible it would escape her notice
altogether. They could stay for a few minutes, so she knew he wasn’t ashamed of her, and the guys would see he was a team player. Then they could go. The acid in his belly mellowed a little and he exhaled a deep breath. Maybe he’d take her back to the soccer field. He had a blanket in the car. They could sit on the grass in the middle of the field, and he could ask her what she thought he should major in. Because it was really bugging him that he didn’t know yet, and she had a way of making him see clearly.