“What of it?” I ask, my voice low and abrasive.
Daniel’s smile turns crooked and his eyes travel back to where Aimee is sprawled out on the grass. “I’m just amazed that you’ve turned googly-eyed over a girl. It’s not your style at all.”
I bring my hands up and grip the back of my head. I bite the inside of my cheek. “Man, I’m not googly-eyed. Who even says that? I’m just…”
“Trust me. You’re googly-eyed,” Daniel says, cocking his head back and laughing at me. “So why don’t you grow a pair and ask her out already?”
“For your information, I did ask her out,” I snap.
“And she said no?” He chokes, disbelieving. “Aimee turned you down?”
“Well, not exactly...” I drop my arms and exhale through my nose. “It’s complicated.”
Daniel flaps his hand like he’s not buying any of my shit. “Look, Cole. If you’re going to go after a girl like Aimee, things are going to get complicated. She’s not going to fall for any of your normal tactics or throw herself at your feet and spread her legs like the sluts that you’re used to dealing with. She’s different.” He takes a visible breath and there’s this look on his face like he’s carefully editing himself. “And bear in mind that she’s been through a lot. She doesn’t need to be a part of one of your games.”
“I’m not playing a game with her,” I say firmly. “I don’t know what I’m doing but it’s not a game…”
Daniel says something about being late to practice, but I’m barely listening. I’m already halfway over to that sunny patch of grass—to the girl with the long, dark hair and the freckle on her cheek.
When I reach her, Aimee’s eyes are closed and I hear her say, “This is a nightmare.”
At first I think that she means me and my stomach lurches. But then Jodi answers, barely glancing up from her phone. “No, a nightmare is running from a deranged serial killer who wants to cut your ears off and eat your intestines with a plastic spork. This is just an assignment for class, Aimee.”
“What’s the assignment?” I ask, casually announcing myself as I plunk down onto the grass beside Aimee.
I can tell that Aimee’s surprised to see me. A warm pink blush spills across her skin—probably residual embarrassment that the last time that I saw her, she was crying and drunk and blowing snot all over my shirt.
“Hey,” she says breathlessly.
“What’s the assignment?” I ask again.
Her clear blue eyes search my face. Puzzlement creases her forehead and drags down the sides of her mouth. “It’s nothing. I was just complaining about something for one of my classes. It’s not a big deal.”
Jodi leans forward. “Aimee’s professor informed the class that everyone has to write an article to submit to the student paper. She’s freaking out because she has no idea what to write about.”
The pink spots on Aimee’s cheeks deepen. She shakes her head and sits up. One hand goes across her chest defensively. “I’m not freaking out.” She turns to me. “I’m not.”
The faint tendrils of an idea are reaching into the corners of my brain. I squint at Aimee, who’s fluttering her hands and mouthing something to Jodi—probably something about me. Jodi’s got her hands spread out and a what-did-I-do expression on her face.
I clear my throat to get their attention. “What’s the article supposed to be about?”
Aimee pauses and sniffs before she answers me. “It can be about anything I want to write about—the price of a cup of coffee in the Union, the fall of communism, how to store tulip bulbs before you plant them… I don’t know. He said that it doesn’t really matter what the topic is, but preferably it’ll be something that the paper wants to print—whatever that means.”
“Her professor will weight the grade accordingly if her article actually makes it to press,” Jodi adds helpfully.
After another long silence, Aimee sighs and does this adorable little shiver thing with her shoulders. “I’ve got some time and I’m sure that I’ll think of something decent.”
“You can always write an article about me. All you’d have to do is ask me nicely.”
Aimee looks at me with obvious skepticism. Her nostrils are flared and her jaw is clenched. “And what makes you think that the student newspaper wants an article about you? Just because every warm-blooded girl around here seems to want a peek at what’s inside your boxer shorts, that doesn’t make you a newsworthy topic.”
My eyebrows go up. “Every warm-blooded girl…” I repeat blithely. “Do you include yourself in that category?”
Aimee sputters. Jodi laughs.
“You don’t have to answer that,” I continue. “And I don’t think that the paper is going to want an article about me. I know it because they’ve been hounding me for an interview for at least two weeks.”
Aimee sucks her bottom lip between her top and bottom teeth. Her blue eyes darken a shade. “Really?”
I try not to smile at the surprise in her voice. “Really.”
“Well…” She scrunches up her nose and twists her hair over her shoulder. “What kind of article do you think they want?”
“Oh you know… the usual fluff piece. You could write about what I’m doing to train during the off-season, and then you could ask me how I think the team is going to do this year, and what makes me tick. That kind of stuff.”
Words move beyond her eyes. She’s thinking, weighing her options. Finally, she says, “But you want something from me.”
Her voice is flat as a board. It’s not even a question. I cock my head to the side and lift my eyebrows. “Maybe.”
“I already told you that I don’t date,” she says. Her expression is laced with determination. Strangely, it makes me like her a little bit more.
“I must have missed something.” I chuckle. “Did I just ask you out?”
Aimee looks down at her hands, a small smile tugs at her mouth. “No.”
“Well, then…”
Her blue eyes swing back to mine. “Spill it already. What do you want from me, Cole?”
“It’s simple,” I shrug, trying to ignore the way my name sounds coming out of her mouth. “I want answers.”
“Answers?”
“Yeah.” Fuck. She’s so close that I can see a tiny bead of sweat dripping down her neck and disappearing under the edge of her grey top. I want to follow it with my tongue. “If you’re going to write about me, you’re going to have a lot of questions. The deal is that for every one of the questions that I answer, I want you to answer one of mine.”
We stare hard. At least a half-minute passes. I catch the uncertainty flicker in her eyes and I almost tell her that I’m joking—that, of course, she can write an article about me and I won’t make her tell me anything about herself. But just before I can take the proposition back, Aimee nods her head and tells me that she’ll do it.
I rock back.
Shit. There’s this feeling inside of me like… I don’t know what. It’s like a balloon’s been inflated behind my ribs. I can’t seem to stop smiling at her.
“Wow,” Jodi mutters, and I realize that I’ve forgotten that she’s been sitting here with us the whole time. “That was so hot.”
Aimee turns to her friend. Tiny lines ripple across her forehead. “What do you mean?”
Jodi makes a movement with her hands. “You and him. Him and you.” Her eyes drift between us. “You guys are off the charts, like world-bending, air-pulsing H-O-T.”
Aimee looks ready to die. She bends her body inward and dips her head so that her hair shields her face. “Jodi, have I told you that sometimes I want to kill you?”
My laugh is uproarious. “Jodi, have I told you that sometimes I want to kiss you?”
CHAPTER SIX
Aimee
Earlier today Cole asked me to meet him at seven in the parking lot adjacent to where the track team practices. I spent most of the afternoon debating whether or not I should actually follow through. At six forty-five, I
finally broke down and asked Mara for a ride.
“Be careful with him.” Mara’s voice is loaded with implication. “He has a reputation. If you could hear a few of the stories that Jenn has told me…”
Honestly, I’ve already heard enough “stories” about Cole Everly from Jodi to keep me mentally occupied for the next fifty years.
“Did Jenn date him or something?” I hate the way my stomach clenches when I ask the question.
Mara taps her manicured fingernails on the steering wheel. “No, but she’s got the inside scoop on a lot of the athlete gossip because her cousin plays basketball for the University. And the stuff about Cole is always entertaining, if you know what I mean.”
I click my tongue. “I think I get the gist. Player, womanizer, totally out of my league.”
“Look,” she says sedately. “I’m glad that you’re putting yourself out there, Aimee. I really am. And Cole is hot, but...”
Now I’m annoyed. “I already told you that I’m meeting Cole for his help with a class assignment. This is not a date, Mara. It’s not even close to a date so you don’t need to go all protective-big-sister on me because I’ve got this covered.”
She pauses thoughtfully and I’m not sure if it’s skepticism or disappointment, or possibly a little bit of both that I see on her face. I shake my head and step out of the car into the dancing orange and pink lights of evening. As I turn, a soft breeze moves in, tossing my hair around my face and kissing the bare skin of my arms. In front of me, a grey building that houses a ticketing office and locker rooms rises from the black asphalt.
Pulling away, Mara rolls her window down, leans out and adds: “Just don’t go thinking that I didn’t notice you changed your outfit four times… and that you put on mascara and lipstick!”
With a huff, I wipe at my mouth with the back of my hand and watch my sister drive away. When I’m sure that she’s out of sight, I sit down on a narrow concrete curb cradled between an overflowing trashcan and a bench and I wait. Cole told me that practice usually gets over just before seven and that he’d grab a quick shower in the locker room and meet me afterward. Trying to stay inconspicuous, I duck my head as the runners slowly trickle out of the east entrance of the building into the parking lot.
I see him before he sees me.
He’s wearing a yellow short-sleeved t-shirt and loose black athletic shorts that show the outline of his thighs when he walks. The strap of a dark green gym bag cuts diagonally across his chest, further emphasizing the hardness of those muscles, solidified by hours on the track and in the weight room. In the dwindling evening light, his wet hair looks silvery and he’s got it pushed back from his face so that I get the full-effect of his features. Even from this far away I can see the startling green hue of his eyes against his tan skin and the sharp cut of his unshaven jaw.
Maybe Jodi is rubbing off on me but all I can think is: W-O-W. I have to look down at my lap just so that I can get my crazy heartbeat under control.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Hey!” Cole stops about five feet away and smiles at me. “You came.”
I order myself not to stare at his full lips or the way that the fabric of his shorts clings to his damp, just-showered skin. Swallowing down the building moisture in my mouth, I say, “I told you that I would be here.”
“Still… I’m surprised.” Cole sways back on his heels and looks away—out over a crop of jagged trees silhouetted by the sinking evening sun. “Are you ready to go?”
“I—ahh—where are we going?”
“To a pizza place over on Second Street.”
My eyes stretch. “But I thought maybe we could just do the interview here.”
“Here?” Cole looks around at the fast-emptying parking lot and grimaces. “Aimee, I’ve just been killing myself in the heat and I’m starving. I vote that we do this interview thing where I can sit in a comfortable booth and shove garlic knots in my mouth. If we don’t, I’ll have to resort to eating week-old cracker crumbs off the floorboard of my truck.”
I don’t say anything right away and he continues, “And, if it’ll make you feel better, you don’t even have to eat pizza with me. You can drink water and suck down a few of those little sugar packets while I sit across from you and enjoy the best deep dish on the planet.”
I can’t help it—I laugh. Brushing my palms off on my cropped jeans, I stand up. “Well, I don’t want you eating moldy crumbs so lead the way.”
***
Cole asks the waitress to bring out two orders of garlic knots. When he looks up and sees my raised eyebrows, he grins crookedly. “What?”
I shake my head and smile back. “Nothing. I totally respect how determined you are to have bad breath. It’s refreshing.”
“Well…” Cole squints his green eyes a bit. “Bad breath is definitely the kind of thing that I would be concerned with on an actual date, but since you’ve made it clear that this,” he gestures between us, “isn’t a date, I thought I’d be safe. However, if you’ve changed your mind, I’m more than happy to forego the second order of garlic knots. I’m pretty sure that you’d be worth it.”
My cheeks go warm and I drop my eyes to the table in the vain hope that Cole won’t notice how affected I am. With fumbling fingers, I reach into my oversized purse to find the pen and pad of paper that I tucked in the inside pocket earlier.
“No. The garlic knots are just fine.” I try to regain my lost composure by clearing my throat. “So, why don’t you start by telling me a little about yourself?”
Cole takes a sip from the icy coke in front of him. He watches me carefully over the rim of the glass and I get a sensation like he can read all of the crazy thoughts sloshing around in my head.
He asks, “What do you want to know first?”
I’ve never done an interview before so I have no idea how this is supposed to go, but I figure if it has any chance of working out, I should probably start with his track career. That’s fairly safe territory.
Internally, I command my voice not to wobble. “Let’s talk about your races and titles. Last year, as a sophomore, you dominated the conference in the mid-distance races, but you lost the 4oo meter at the Semifinals to Noah Whitman. Have you amped up your training at all this year and what are your predictions for the coming spring?”
Cole leans back and crosses his arms over his chest like he’s assessing me. I shift nervously and the corners of his mouth curl up in amusement. His green eyes blaze with excitement. “You looked into me,” he says.
I’m not about to admit that I searched him online almost two weeks ago and that in addition to his running and hurdling stats—I know he dressed up as a bare-chested Thor last Halloween and back home his family has a pug named Babs. Instead, I shrug and say, “I did a little bit of prep work. Always be prepared, right?”
“Okay then…” Cole uncrosses his arms. “It’s the off-season so right now our scheduled practices only go about three or four days a week, but that doesn’t mean that I’m slacking on my workouts and training.” He pauses. “I thought a lot over the summer about ways that I could improve after I lost in that last heat to Whitman. I should have won and I know that, so this year I’m making some changes. I’m working out more with the team trainer and I’ve started prepping for a triathlon that I’m doing with some of the guys in a few weeks.”
“Is the triathlon University-sanctioned or just something you’re doing for fun?”
“Fun,” he says with a shrug. “If you could call running and swimming and biking in the Florida heat fun.”
As Cole continues to talk, I watch the way that his mouth moves and how the soft light catches the golden flecks in his eyes. He talks about races and his teammates. He tells me about the playful bets that they have going and the dirty word game that the guys play on the bus on the way to meets.
“It wasn’t dirty,” I say. “But when I was on the swim team in high school, we’d do this one where you take one letter out of a book title and c
ome up with an entirely new book.”
He pushes his thick blond hair back from his forehead. “Like what? Give me an example.”
I think about it. “Okay… To Ill a Mockingbird is an obvious choice. And The Sound and the Fur.” I hold up a finger for every made-up title that I list. “Rapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Me, and my personal favorite… Mob Dick.”
Cole cracks up. “I’m afraid to ask what that one’s about.”
I’m grinning, pleased with myself. “Now it’s your turn.”
He clears his throat. “How about… Rave New World?”
I nod my head in approval. “Good one.”
“Okay, I’ve got another.”
“What is it?”
“The Da Vinci Cod. It’s the absorbing tale of a detective who follows the trail of a murder at The Louvre and uncovers a two thousand year old disagreement between the Priory of Scion and the Catholic Church over whether or not Jesus was a pescetarian.”
I laugh so hard that I almost spit out my drink. We go back and forth with titles until neither one of us can think of any more. I prop my elbows on the table and lean forward. “So, um, getting back to the interview… Tell me how a Nebraska boy got into running to begin with.”
“A Nebraska boy?” He’s amused. “I like that. It makes me sound like a wholesome farmhand just trying to get an honest day of work done.”
“Wholesome isn’t exactly the first word that comes to mind when I think of you.”
“Fair enough,” Cole smirks. “The way that I got into running is that when I was eleven we had this neighbor who coached a local boy’s track team. My mom thought it would be a good idea to get me into an activity. She told me that it would be great for me—build confidence and strength and all that shit.” He hesitates, swallowing audibly. “I… I was sort of small back then and kids at school picked on me and she seemed convinced that athletics was the answer to my problems.”
I try to picture Cole as a little kid with scrawny arms and a head full of blond floppy hair. “And was it?”