Chapter 9 #3
“Don’t act like you don’t know that it would be an enormous problem.
My entire family would be there, and there is no way I could show up in your colors while my own brother’s team is on the field—so thank goodness, but also—” I dropped back onto my bed, staring up at the pink canopy like it might offer some kind of guidance.
“Red and gold. In public. Where people who know me could see me.”
“That’s generally what ‘dressing up for a soccer game’ means, yeah.”
“You understand that’s a problem for me, right?”
“I promise you nobody at Crofton is going to recognize the girl from Parkhurst wearing my jersey number.” He said it easily, but there was an edge underneath it that hadn’t been there a second ago.
“Besides, it’s not optional. Kelcey’s coming.
And when Parkhurst is playing, she goes in full Parkhurst gear cheering for Justin, despite the fact that she goes to school with me and has zero actual stake in a Parkhurst game, purely because that’s what girlfriends do.
If you show up looking like you got dragged there against your will—”
“I am being dragged there against my will.”
“Which is exactly why you need to look like you’re not.
” A pause, and when he spoke again his voice had dropped into something almost coaxing.
“You need to outdo her. Whatever she does for Justin’s baseball games, you do it louder for me.
Bigger sign than she’s ever made. More enthusiasm than she’s ever shown.
If Kelcey’s out there at a baseball game in a Crofton jersey with his number painted on her cheek, you’re doing that and then some at my soccer game tomorrow. ”
“You want me to paint your number on my face.”
“I want you to commit to the bit, yes.”
I flopped backward onto my pillows, one arm thrown over my eyes, and let out a groan loud enough that I heard him laugh properly this time, low and startled, like it had slipped out before he’d decided whether to allow it.
“This is insane. My entire life has become an elaborate theater production and I didn’t even audition for the part. ”
“You auditioned the second you kissed me in a coat closet.”
“Actually, you’re the one who started it by announcing to Justin and Kelcey that I was there for you.”
“Semantics.” Something shifted in the background of the call and his voice dropped a little quieter, like he’d moved somewhere more private.
“Look, I know it’s a lot to ask. I know the whole thing isn’t exactly low-risk for you because of your family.
But if this doesn’t look convincing, all of it was for nothing, and neither of us gets what we actually need out of it. ”
“Fine,” I said instead, sitting up and pushing my hair out of my face. “I’ll come. I’ll wear your stupid colors. But I am not sneaking a giant Crofton jersey out of this house past my entire family, so you’re going to have to work with me on logistics.”
“Already ahead of you. Kelcey’s picking you up from the dance studio after your class and you get ready in her car.”
“You’ve clearly given this an unsettling amount of thought.”
“I think about you constantly,” he said, in a tone so flat and deadpan that it took me a full second to register it as a joke rather than an actual confession, and by the time I’d processed it enough to fire something back, he’d already moved on.
“Bring makeup and clothes you can change into fast. Kelcey’s not exactly known for patience. ”
“This just keeps getting better.”
My phone buzzed against my ear with a second call trying to come through, and I pulled it away just long enough to see Nora’s name flash across the screen before I let it go to voicemail, already composing the lie I’d have to tell her about why I hadn’t picked up.
“Who was that?” Rhys asked, immediately, like he had some kind of radar for exactly when my attention drifted. Or, more likely, he heard the beeping of the incoming call.
“None of your business.”
“Doesn’t your boyfriend deserve to know who’s competing for your attention?”
“Nobody’s competing for my attention. You called me. I was doing homework.”
Somewhere in the background on his end, a door opened, and I heard his stepmom’s voice call something I couldn’t quite make out, muffled and distant, and Rhys’s tone shifted immediately.
“Yeah, I’m off in a second,” he called back, before returning to me at his normal volume. “I have to go. Family dinner. As you might have guessed, it’s mandatory.”
“Enjoy your forced family bonding.”
“Tomorrow, six. Don’t be late.” He paused, and something in the shift of his voice made me sit up a little straighter, phone gripped tighter than it needed to be. “And turn your music back up. It’s a good song.”
He hung up before I could process that, and I sat there for a full ten seconds staring at my phone screen going dark, feeling significantly warmer than the room’s temperature reasonably explained, before I reached over and cranked the volume back up exactly as loud as it had been, purely, I told myself, out of spite.
I spent the rest of the night doing chemistry with one eye on the window, watching the gold light in that upstairs room flick off sometime around ten, and told myself, unconvincingly, that I hadn’t been waiting for it.