Winger

  “No, Ryan Dean. I’m just saying. You think every girl you ever see is ‘hot,’ right? Maybe Annie wants to be more than that. That’s what I’d think about, if I was you.”

  “I don’t think every girl is hot,” I said. There was, after all, Mrs. Singer downstairs. “And, anyway, if you were me, I’d be gay, in which case every girl would look exactly like Mary Todd Lincoln.”

  Joey laughed.

  “But I think I know what you’re saying,” I said.

  I envied Joey. He hadn’t shaved since Friday morning, and he had some pretty impressive stubble going. I mourned that one whisker I’d shaved off, because I would have shown him. At Pine Mountain, if a boy showed up to class with facial hair like Joey had, they’d take him into the bathroom and make him shave on the spot with a nasty old, used razor. But on weekends, guys like Joey and Chas could just skip the whole grooming thing entirely.

  I sighed.

  “I shaved this morning, Joey. I had one whisker. Here. Can you see it?”

  I held my chin up and pointed.

  Joey leaned close and laughed.

  “Yeah. Sure.” And then he asked, “How was her place?”

  “Incredible. I am so in love with her, Joe.”

  “I can see that, Ryan Dean. More than I can see that nonwhisker, that’s for sure.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  I CALLED MY MOTHER FROM the airport.

  Well, to be honest, I called home hoping I’d be able to talk to my dad, but no such luck.

  RYAN DEAN WEST: Hi, Mom. It’s me, Ryan Dean.

  I know. I’m an idiot.

  MOM: Hi, sweetie! Are you back from Seattle?

  RYAN DEAN WEST: I’m at the airport in Portland.

  MOM: Did you have a good time, Ryan Dean?

  RYAN DEAN WEST: It was the best weekend ever, Mom.

  MOM: Oh.

  I thought she sounded . . . sad? Awkward pause. Very awkward pause.

  MOM (cont.): Is everything . . . okay, Ryan Dean? You sound different.

  I can’t believe it. Is she actually crying?

  RYAN DEAN WEST: Are you crying, Mom?

  MOM: I’m sorry, baby. You just sound so grown up all of a sudden. Did you and your girlfriend, you know . . .

  Please, someone, kill me now.

  RYAN DEAN WEST: No!

  MOM: Well, did you get the package I sent? Did everything work the way the booklet said it would?

  Sniff.

  Why is it a guy can have an entire conversation with a girl and it’s like she’s hearing something entirely different from what is coming out of his mouth?

  RYAN DEAN WEST: Mom. I am not calling to talk about sex.

  This was so creepily disgusting. Here was the one person in the world with whom I would never want to talk about the one thing I think about constantly.

  RYAN DEAN WEST (cont.): I’m calling to ask you to FedEx me a new pair of running shoes. I lost mine on the island.

  MOM: Oh. I’m so sorry, sweetie.

  She sounded crushed.

  RYAN DEAN WEST: It’s okay, Mom. They were getting too small anyway. I gained ten pounds and I’m two inches taller now than when you saw me in September. I need size ten-and-a-half. Nikes or Asics, okay?

  MOM: Ten-and-a-half? Ten-and-a-half?

  She started crying again.

  Crap.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  TWO THINGS KIND OF HIT me when I saw Chas and Megan get off the flight from Los Angeles together.

  First, they looked like they were tired of each other, like an old married couple who’d gone on too long of a vacation together and did not have fun; and, second, I was kind of jealous that Chas got to spend the weekend with Megan.

  I know that’s stupid.

  Does that make me a bad person? No matter what Joey said, I wasn’t ever going to be able to stop thinking of Megan Renshaw as smoking hot, and in some ways she was more accessible to me than Annie.

  I’ll be honest. Seeing her coming off the plane and realizing I was jealous of Chas did make me feel terrible about the whole situation. And I thought, maybe I just felt that way because in some ways I was convinced that Annie was going to throw me away again. Maybe Joey was right that Annie didn’t want to get hurt, but, goddamnit, neither did I. So maybe I just looked at Megan as some type of five-out-of-five-sizzling-white-hot-crescent-wrenches on the Ryan Dean West Safety Net Tool Chart.

  I still felt bad, though, and I grabbed Joey by the collar while we were waiting at baggage claim and whispered, “Joey, tell me to grow up again.”

  And he said, “Ryan Dean, grow the fuck up.”

  ’Cause he saw how I’d been looking at Megan.

  You know, there’s this lesson in cheesy stories that says be careful what you wish for, but I was never one for cheesy stories, much less morally condescending messages, so it was kind of like dying and going to that special place with Great-Grandma and that two-dimensional Chihuahua of mine when pissed-off-at-Megan Chas grumbled that he wanted to sit in front so “Asswing can sit in the back with the other two girls.”

  Yeah. Whatever, Betch. Call me a girl. Call me Asswing. But, for a two-hour car ride, my legs would be simultaneously touching the legs of Megan Renshaw and Annie Altman, and I fully believed that would precipitate the all-time lowest blood-pressure reading north of Ryan Dean Westworld’s metal-detector-tripping equator.

  And then again, there was still that unopened bottle of piss, too, so call me whatever you want.

  Do things like that explode? I wondered, since I’d never actually kept a bottle of piss around for more than three days—tops—before.

  And I was also fully aware of how incredibly stupid I can be at times like this, so I told myself (or, Ryan Dean West said it to the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island) that I’d better just shut up, keep my eyes forward, and not cop any obvious feels.

  Yeah, right. Okay, to be honest, I can abide by the limitation of obviousness, but the “feels” part was a done deal as far as the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island was concerned. Oh . . . and eyes forward? Are you kidding me? So that meant shutting up. Hmm . . . That was probably out too.

  We got all our stuff loaded into the SUV and piled in.

  The back windows immediately fogged up. I felt myself beginning to sweat. I slipped my shoes off and kicked them under the seat, quietly contemplating the beauty of that hump in the floor, which allowed me to touch Annie’s foot with my left and Megan’s foot with my right.

  Suddenly, I found myself in a battle of epic proportions, pitting good and pure Ryan Dean West against the crazed urges of the Humping Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island, who, undoubtedly, had been somehow infected from the saliva of that sex-starved gay pug dog and, as a result, felt a helpless compulsion to hump anything with a pulse.

  I am such a loser.

  I didn’t even make it out of the goddamned parking lot.

  RYAN DEAN WEST: Stop trying to play footsie with two girls at the same time. You’re getting mud on my socks.

  WILD BOY OF BAINBRIDGE ISLAND: I can take them off if you want. You know how I feel about wearing clothes, anyway.

  RYAN DEAN WEST: Oh my God. You wouldn’t.

  (Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island loosens his tie and begins unbuttoning his shirt.)

  “It’s really hot in here,” I said.

  Megan smiled at me. She’d slipped off her shoe and was playing with my foot right under Chas’s seat, where no one could see what was going on. I felt like I was melting. I had to do something to pull myself back away from the Wild Boy urges.

  I fought.

  I slipped my hand into Annie’s, interlocking our fingers. I squeezed tight, our hands resting on the soft fabric of her skirt where it draped over her thigh.

  God! I think I actually began hyperventilating, creating my own microclimate in the backseat, where it was as humid as a rain forest in the Amazon. Worse. It actually started raining in the goddamned backseat.

  Megan saw that I was holding hands with Annie. She didn??
?t look happy. She pulled her foot away and slipped it back inside her shoe. She turned her face toward the window and put her hand down on the seat between us. That’s when . . . she . . . touched . . . my butt.

  That gave the Wild Boy renewed strength, and good, pure, and kind Ryan Dean deflated to a wasted and wimpy 152-pound sack of crap. So in a last-ditch effort, I squeaked “I had a really great weekend” to Annie, but I sounded like a third grader on helium.

  I cleared my throat. I don’t know where this new Ryan Dean West came from, but I realized that everything Joey had been cussing me out about was totally true; and, worse, that Megan Renshaw was every bit as evil as Mrs. Singer.

  “And, Annie, I never told you this, well, at least not the right way, but the things you make at your house—everything: the sculptures, and how your room is, your Wonder Horse, and the sounds and smells and everything—is so beautiful. It makes me feel lucky just to know you.”

  Score.

  I rallied my strength and pulled my right foot over the hump, away from Megan, so both of my feet could be tangled up around Annie’s. I leaned my head back and looked at her. Megan pinched my butt really hard, but I stifled my jerk reflex, and since it hurt so bad it made tears well in my eyes, it was a potential grand slam as far as Annie was concerned.

  But the play in the outfield didn’t quite unfold the way I’d imagined.

  Chas said, “I just threw up in my mouth, Pussboy.”

  Pussboy.

  Another new one.

  Nice.

  Megan said, “I think Ryan Dean is one of the sweetest, hottest boys I know.”

  Okay, I’ll be honest. She actually did say that. And her hand was still under my butt.

  Chas gave me an over-the-shoulder, “You’re fucking dead, Pussboy” look.

  And Annie gave me the it-was-vacation-craziness-we-are-not-ever-ever-going-to-kiss-again look.

  Crap.

  I was hosed and I knew it.

  I sneezed. I suddenly felt terrible. Not terrible because of how much of a loser I was, but terrible because it dawned on me exactly why I was so sweaty and my voice wasn’t working.

  “Are you okay, Ryan Dean?” Annie asked. She was leaning forward in her seat, looking square at my face, so close.

  “I feel like I’m getting sick,” I said.

  Then, as happens in my reality, all these things occurred at once:

  1. (Fight or Flight) Chas turned around and said, “If you fucking puke in my car, Pussboy, I’ll make you lick it up.” This made me feel a little queasier.

  2. (Nice) Annie gave a sympathetic “aww.” She put her hand across my forehead (Bliss) to see if I had a fever and said, “Well, you shouldn’t have been running around naked in the woods in the rain this morning.”

  3. (Hot) Megan’s hand warmed up considerably, her fingers played inside my back pocket, and she said, “You were running naked in the woods? That’s so incredibly sexy.”

  4. (Kind of thing the Wild Boy of Bainbridge Island lives to hear) Annie said, “You are really hot, Ryan Dean.”

  Okay, I’ll be honest. I know she was talking about my having a fever. But with Megan cupping her hand under my butt cheek and cooing on one side of me, and Annie touching my face and looking so compassionately Florence-Nightingale-hot on the other, a guy can hallucinate, can’t he?

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  BY THE TIME WE GOT back to pine Mountain, I had been sleeping with my head on Annie’s shoulder for over an hour. I woke up when the cold air rushed in on me from the open doors.

  I felt Annie let go of my hand.

  “We’re back,” she said.

  I felt sick.

  “Make it be yesterday again.”

  Annie smiled.

  The others were already around back, pulling their bags out of the SUV. Chas and Megan weren’t talking to each other. Megan didn’t seem to mind. She wheeled her bag away in the direction of the girls’ dorm and said, “I hope you feel better, Ryan Dean.”

  Then I knew Chas was going to do something to get even with me.

  Probably something painful, but at the very least humiliating.

  Annie helped me out of the car. I put my feet down in a puddle of rainwater, then realized my shoes were still sitting on the floor beneath the backseat, where I’d left them.

  I am such a loser.

  “Oh my God! I’m so sorry, Ryan Dean,” Annie said. But she was laughing about it too.

  Of course it was funny. I just felt like crap.

  I slipped my soggy socks back into my shoes and wiped the sweat from my forehead.

  “You need to take a hot shower and get into bed,” Annie said.

  I wasn’t so sick I couldn’t say, “I might need some help doing that, Annie.”

  “You are such a pervert.” She smiled, and those eyes almost made me feel better.

  Joey put my bag over his shoulder and said, “Come on, I’ll take this back for you.”

  We walked through the main gates to the campus together, and just as Annie was turning off toward her dorm, I saw Seanie and JP coming up from the lake path. I turned to Annie and grabbed her hand.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I moved a little closer. I really felt like we were supposed to kiss or something, but I didn’t know. I mean, isn’t that the normal thing to do after people go away for a weekend together?

  “I really did have a great time, Annie. Sorry I got mad about things this morning. You know, I just feel like . . .” I looked down at my sloshing feet and said, “Whatever.” I didn’t want her to go.

  “It’s okay, Ryan Dean. Get better, okay?”

  Then she let go of my hand and turned away. I sighed. I really wanted to grab her and turn her around right there in front of everyone and just kiss her, the same way we kissed in the sawmill, but I knew Annie wasn’t like that, and that no matter how I felt, it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. So I slumped my shoulders and followed Joey toward O-Hall, my feet slosh-slosh-sloshing behind him as he carried both of our bags.

  “Hey, Nutsack, welcome back.” Seanie jogged up to me. “How was the trip?”

  Of course, JP stayed back on the path, away from me. And when I turned around to talk to Seanie, I saw that JP was saying something to Annie. And I saw her smile at him, and I wondered if we had that same kind of tired-of-each-other look that Chas and Megan did.

  No. I knew we didn’t.

  “Dude, did you even hear what I’ve been saying?” Seanie said.

  I wasn’t really listening to him. I was watching Annie give JP a hug. And then JP looked right at me. It felt like getting kicked in the balls by both of them. I turned away. God, I hated him.

  “Huh?” I said. “Oh. I had a great time, Seanie. It was great.”

  He followed along as we walked to O-Hall, and we talked about things, but I wasn’t paying attention at all. I know I told him I’d gotten sick, and I know Seanie was laughing about something he’d done to someone on the Internet over the weekend, and it was probably me and probably had something to do with a Band-Aid, but it was all fogged through the filter of my sickness and how much I wanted to kill John-Paul Tureau at that moment.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  AT MIDNIGHT, SOME ASSHOLE PULLED the sheets off my head and beamed a flashlight on my face.

  “Get up, Pussboy, we’re playing poker.”

  Ugh.

  “Let me sleep, Chas. I’m sick. I don’t mind if you guys go ahead and play.”

  My throat felt like I had swallowed a handful of sewing needles. Sideways.

  Sheets.

  Off.

  On the floor.

  Gravity.

  Hands grabbing my legs. Being pulled over the edge.

  My feet slapped down onto the cool of the floor, and someone held me up by my armpits to stop me from recracking my head open.

  Crap.

  I really hate Chas Becker.

  I yawned, and when the fluid cleared from my eye
s, I could see Joey, Casey Palmer (of all people—why’d Chas ask that dickhead to play?), and Kevin Cantrell, standing there in front of me with his right arm folded inside a black cloth sling.

  “Kevin. Wow. Are you okay?” Awkwardly, I shook his left hand.

  There is something really weird about being cornered into shaking a guy’s left hand. It felt creepy and dirty. Standing there in my boxers didn’t do anything special to make it feel closer to normal either.

  I picked my sheet up from the floor where Chas had thrown it and wrapped it around me. I was shivering a little, and sweating, but I wasn’t going to get dressed. I refused to.

  I fully planned on going back to bed.

  Chas began setting up the game, and the guys sat in a circle on the floor. I stayed on my feet.

  “I’ll be okay,” Kevin said. “They have to see if there’s going to be nerve damage. The season’s over for me, though.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Chas said. “I don’t know who we’re going to get to lock with me now.”

  In rugby, locks came in pairs, like training wheels. Like balls. Chas and Kevin were arguably the most important guys in the forward pack.

  Chas began shuffling.

  “Get your twenty dollars out and sit down, Pussboy.”

  I guess he’d gotten used to my new name.

  It did have a lyrical sound to it.

  I said, “Pussboy’s going back to bed.” I looked at Casey and started to climb back up to the top bunk. I still couldn’t believe he was there in my room.

  Then Chas said, “Sit the fuck down and get your fucking foot off my bed.”

  And he sounded seriously dangerous. I knew he was pissed off about Megan. I knew we were going to have to settle it.

  Joey said, “Leave him alone, Chas. He doesn’t want to play.”

  Chas started to say something, and I could tell it was going to be horrible, too. You know how you just kind of get that oh-here-comes-Chas-Becker’s-fucked-up-comment-about-me-and-Joey-being-gay-together-when-he-knows-goddamn-well-his-smoking-hot-girlfriend-loves-to-make-out-with-me feeling? So before he even fully got the first word out of his mouth, I rasped, “No big deal, Joey. I’m in.”