Chapter 17 – Hoes Before Bros
Monday
I wasn’t sure how many times I’d read through those texts over the weekend. I’d asked the kiss thief to tell me his name a couple more times, but he hadn’t texted me back since Friday. Apparently he only felt chatty at two in the morning.
I peered around the side of my dad’s car, waiting for Sophie’s car to pull up. I needed her help. And I also needed to hide from Jacob and Axel. Because if I saw one of them in the hall, I wasn’t sure what to do. Not until I knew who the kiss thief was.
I finally saw RJ pull into the parking lot. Sophie took forever walking in this direction. But when she reached my dad’s car, I grabbed her hand and pulled her next to me.
“Good, you’re alive,” Sophie said. “I haven’t heard from you all weekend.”
I hadn’t known what to say to her. And I just needed time to digest everything that had happened. Part of me thought I should keep the texts a secret. It felt like they were only meant for my eyes. But I needed her help. Desperately. I shoved my phone into her hands. “He texted me.”
“Who?”
“The kiss thief.”
“Ooooh. So who was it?”
“I have no idea.”
Sophie frowned. “What?”
“Just read it.”
Sophie scanned the messages. “Damn. He’s so possessive.” She cringed. “And you’re so needy. You texted him five times without a response. What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I needed to know his freaking name!”
Sophie leaned against the car as she read the messages again. “This is so hot.”
“How is it hot? We have no idea who it is.”
“I know. You have a very mysterious stalker. I love that for you.” She handed me my phone back.
“That’s all you have to say? Sophie, I need to know who this is.”
“Of course. And we have a whole plan for that. The kissing booth at the football game this weekend. Operation Kissing Booth.”
“No! No more operations! Sophie, I’m not kissing the whole football team.”
She smiled. “Would you rather have a blowing booth?”
“What?”
She made a rude gesture with her hand as she pressed her tongue against the inside of her cheek.
I hit her arm. “No, I’m not blowing the whole football team!”
A guy walked by where we were hiding and raised his eyebrows.
Keep walking! I glared at him.
“We’re in the middle of a private conversation,” Sophie said and shooed him away.
He shook his head and kept going.
Sophie turned back to me. “Maybe he was your kiss thief. He was certainly tall. And I bet he has a six-pack. You should go chase him down and plop one on him real quick.”
I groaned.
“I’m kidding. But if you really don’t want to go through with Operation Kissing Booth...”
“I do not.”
“Then we need to start narrowing down the list of potential kiss thieves.”
I hated that thief was now plural.
“We just have to get our hands on a list of everyone on the football team. And their heights. And their phone numbers.”
I nodded. “Right. Do you think the yearbook committee has it?”
“Psh. Who cares? We have inside access. We’ll just talk to the waterboy.”
“We can’t ask Mr. Nigel for the roster. He’s terrible at keeping secretses. His words. Not mine.”
Sophie laughed. “Fair. We’ll just ask Uncle Matt then.”
I bit my lip. It wasn’t a terrible idea. Uncle Matt was the coach of the Empire High football team. But... “Won’t he ask why we need it?”
Sophie shrugged. “We’ll lie.” She said it so casually. As if nothing could possibly go wrong.
And I needed a break. I was too exhausted to go over every scenario that could go wrong when my brain was already filled with so many questions. So I just decided to believe her. I took a deep breath. “How do I face Axel and Jacob when I have no idea who kissed me? Especially because it doesn’t seem like it was one of them. I know both their phone numbers. And the kiss thief texted me from an unknown number.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that. One of them might have a burner phone.”
I’d really only heard about burner phones in movies. “Who on earth has a burner phone?”
Sophie laughed. “Um...I have like five.”
“What? Why?”
“For odds and ends. RJ got me hooked on them. He uses them for almost everything. It’s way more secure.”
First the blueprints and now burner phones? It was like I didn’t know my little cousin at all.
“Do you think that RJ can trace the number?” I asked.
“Not if it’s a burner. But he can certainly try.”
“Great.” At least I had a plan now. Get the roster from Uncle Matt. And if I was lucky, I wouldn’t have to use it. Because maybe RJ could just end the whole mystery really quickly. “In the meantime, what do I do about Axel and Jacob?”
“For now, just pretend nothing happened.”
How on earth was I supposed to do that?
She looped her arm through mine and pulled me out from behind the car. “Head up. This is still our year.”
“It doesn’t feel that way.”
She laughed. “You’re ungrounded on Wednesday, right? Maybe we can just pretend that’s the start of our senior year.”
A do-over certainly sounded like a good idea to me.
***
I thought it would be awkward around Axel and Jacob. But...it wasn’t. And for some reason that just made me even more suspicious. Lunch felt completely normal. Too normal. I knew I was taking turns staring at both of them, trying to figure out if one of them could have kissed me. But...wouldn’t whoever it was be acting differently? That kiss had been epic.
At least, it had been for me.
Gah stop thinking about the dirty kiss thief.
Jacob smiled at me.
I blushed and looked down at my food.
He lightly touched my shoulder. “When do you want to get that ice cream? I think I was promised a date.”
I ignored the feeling of Axel’s eyes on me as I looked back up at Jacob. “How about Wednesday?” That was my new fresh start. And an ice cream date at lunch with him sounded pretty great for a new beginning. I could tell Jacob all about Operation Too Hot to Handle. And how I called it off. I didn’t want to pine over Axel for the rest of my life. And I wanted whoever the kiss thief was to leave me alone. Although for some reason, I kept checking my phone all day again...
“RJ, we need help tracing a number,” Sophie said.
What was she doing?! Talking about this in front of Axel and Jacob was a terrible idea! I turned to look at her.
She winked at me.
That didn’t make me feel any better.
“What number?” asked RJ. He was sporting a black eye from his time in the ring. I had no idea how RJ and Sophie were never grounded. I wished my dad was as cool as Uncle Rob.
“Something private. For Scarlett.”
I stole a glance at Jacob. He was just casually eating his food. And Axel was ignoring us completely. He’d taken one glance at me in his varsity jacket when I’d gotten to lunch, and he’d been on his phone texting ever since. He was most likely chatting with some girl. He was never single for very long. He’d probably hooked up with someone at the party after I’d left. I was surprised there wasn’t some blonde chick draped all over him at lunch today.
RJ shrugged. “Sure. Just text me the number, baby doll.”
“Operation Trap is over, so stop calling me by that weird code name.”
“I got used to it.”
“Then get unused to it.” I copied the number of the kiss thief and sent it to him. “And actually, I take back what I said. That operation isn’t over. We need to figure out how to fix up the hole in the floor.”
“I told you I had it covered, baby doll.”
“RJ.” I gave him a stern look.
“Something wrong, baby doll?”
“What did we just talk about?”
He laughed. “You literally just said the operation wasn’t over after all. So your code name still applies.”
I was going to kill him.
“Question for you boys,” Sophie said. “Has anyone ever mentioned having a crush on Scarlett in the locker room?”
Sophie was out of control right now.
Liam laughed. Like the idea was preposterous.
But Axel and Jacob didn’t respond. They both just glanced at each other and then started eating again.
“RJ?” Sophie asked. “Have you heard any whispers about someone having the hots for Scar?”
RJ shrugged. “No. Why? Do you need a date for something, Scar?”
Was he...offering? I thought about his burner phones. And the fact that he’d hacked the cameras in my apartment. And that he was taller than me. And that he wouldn’t stop calling me baby doll. He was definitely a little pervert. Oh my God. No. Noooo. He couldn’t possibly have kissed me. Right? Gah! What was happening?
“No, we’re just curious,” Sophie said.
“I’ll keep my ears open,” he said.
“Atta boy.”
“RJ,” Axel said as he finally looked up from his phone. He slid it into the inside pocket of his blazer. And it seemed to be the only one in there. No secret burner phones in sight. “That kind of violates bro code.”
I was barely paying attention to what he was saying. There was no burner phone on Axel. But apparently RJ had a ton of them. And I was too busy panicking about the fact that RJ might have kissed me. And then texted me very forward things? But there was no way my actual cousin had kissed me, right? Or had he heard about Phase Incest somehow and taken everything too far? RJ always took things too far...
“So you’re saying someone has mentioned having the hots for Scar?” asked Sophie.
“Bro code,” Axel repeated.
Jacob shrugged. “My abuelo always says that bro code means hoes before bros.”
I laughed. “There’s no way Mr. Tanner says that.”
Jacob laughed. “Actually he does.”
“Well, he’s wrong,” Axel said. “Obviously.”
Jacob didn’t agree or disagree.
Sophie leaned in to whisper to me. “Someone has definitely said they have a crush on you in the locker room. Or more accurately they said they wanted to bang you. It is a locker room after all.”
I knew my face was scarlet.
***
Sophie laughed when I told her my theory about RJ. “Why would you want RJ to be your kiss thief, weirdo?”
“I didn’t say I wanted it! I just asked...what if?”
She laughed even harder. “Could you even imagine? You having the hots for your little cousin?”
“It’s not funny. And I don’t. I didn’t say anything about my feelings toward him.”
“And what are your feelings toward my brother?”
I shouldn’t have voiced my fears out loud. I ignored her as we walked toward the stadium.
But she just kept giggling.
“Sophie, I don’t have the hots for my cousin.”
“Um...false. You have the hots for both Axel and Jacob.”
“They’re not my cousins.”
“They’re practically your cousins. Who’s to say you didn’t take the leap to your blood cousin?”
“He’s 14.”
“I know, you’re totally robbing the cradle.” She was laughing so hard now that tears were starting to roll down her cheeks.
“I’m not robbing anything.”
She wiped off her cheeks. “I can’t even right now. This is too funny.”
“Focus. We need the football roster.”
“But we already know it’s my little brother texting you saucy things...”
I hit her arm. “Sophie, this an emergency.”
She wiped the rest of her tears off her cheeks. “Okay. Yes. Let’s focus. Because it definitely wasn’t RJ saying he was going to steal all your firsts.” She pressed her lips together, holding back her laughter.
Ugh. I did not want her to keep talking about this. It wasn’t that bad of a theory. But yeah, saying it out loud did make it seem ridiculous.
Sophie laughed again.
I think I knew how to make the teasing stop. “Do I need to remind you what you wanted to do to my dad the other day?”
Sophie’s eyes grew round.
“Something about being beneath his desk...”
She choked on nothing but air.
“And against his chalkboard...”
“I did not know that the new teacher was Uncle James!” She bent over and pretended to hurl.
“I won’t mention that if you don’t mention my stupid RJ theory.”
“Deal,” she said. And then she shuddered. “I’m glad we’re starting fresh on Wednesday. Hopefully we’ll know who your stalker is by then.”
I really preferred the term kiss thief over stalker. He hadn’t felt like a stalker. It had felt like he really liked me. I pressed my lips together. But I guess stalkers did like their prey.
We walked into the stadium and over to our uncle.
“Hey, Uncle Matt,” I said.
“Hey, kiddo.” For just a second, he stared at the number 10 on the sleeve of the varsity jacket I was wearing. But then he pulled me into a hug and hugged Sophie too. “What are you kids up to? Were you going to watch practice?”
“No,” Sophie said. “We actually came to ask for a favor.”
Uncle Matt raised his eyebrow. “What kind of favor?”
“We need the roster for the football team. Including everyone’s heights and phone numbers.”
“And why would you need that?”
Sophie laughed and waved her hand through the air. “Because we joined the yearbook committee and we’re responsible for getting all the football stats.”
“Oh. Okay then. What’s the email for the yearbook committee? I’ll send it over after practice.”
“Can you actually just email me right now?” asked Sophie. “We were supposed to ask days ago and we need it right now before the committee meets up in a few minutes.”
Uncle Matt narrowed his eyes at her for a moment. “Wait, I thought the two of you didn’t do any extracurriculars?”
That was true. I didn’t want to do any without Sophie. And Sophie always said she “juggled too many real balls” to need to juggle any more.
Sophie laughed. “Yeah, but we have to be in charge of our senior yearbook. I wouldn’t trust anyone else with that responsibility. I’m the only one that knows my good side.” She pointed to the left side of her face. Which looked exactly like the right side of her face.
Uncle Matt just laughed. “Okay, one sec.” He pulled out his phone and started typing on it. “You need the JV team roster too, right?”
Good lord, did we?
“Yup,” Sophie said.
I hated that for me.
Sophie’s phone pinged. “Thanks, Uncle Matt. You’re a lifesaver.”
Uncle Matt looked over her head and smiled.
I turned to see Jacob approaching. I wasn’t sure how I’d never noticed how handsome he was before.
“Hiya, Coach,” Jacob said. The two of them did some weird handshake.
I’d never seen Jacob greet Uncle Matt in any other way. Even when Uncle Matt wasn’t his coach, Jacob had always called him that. I knew that Uncle Matt wasn’t his real father. But he’d helped raise Jacob ever since he was four. And I sometimes wondered if Jacob calling him coach stung. Jacob rarely ever talked about his real father. At least not to me. And I wondered a lot about that too. All I really knew was that he’d died in a terrible accident before Jacob and his mom moved to the city.
Jacob’s attention turned to us. “What are you guys doing here?”
“A top secret mission,” Sophie said.
Uncle Matt gave her a weird look, but didn’t mention the yearbook committee. Which was good. Because I didn’t really want to have to join it.
“Are you staying to watch practice?” Jacob smiled at me.
And my heart started beating funny in my chest.
“Can’t,” Sophie said. “We have a thing. Right, Scar?”
I nodded. I was much worse at lying than she was.
“I’ll catch you guys later then.” He winked at me and ran onto the field.
“Thanks, Uncle Matt,” Sophie said. “We owe you one.”
I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the rosters or the fact that he didn’t mention we’d joined the yearbook committee.
Sophie started to walk away.
“A word, kiddo,” Uncle Matt said to me before I could follow her.
Oh no. Was the lie on my face? Sometimes that happened. I forced myself not to wipe my cheeks. That definitely wouldn’t help hide the lie.
His eyes fell to the right sleeve of my jacket where Axel’s jersey number was stitched on. “Is that Axel’s varsity jacket?”
“Mhm.” I tried to say it casually, but failed.
“Are the two of you dating?”
All of my uncles acted like surrogate fathers. Didn’t they know that my one father was plenty? They were friends with him, after all. “No, not exactly.”
“Care to elaborate on that?”
“There isn’t really anything to elaborate on.” Axel had given me his jacket last week. And he’d also held my hand. I wanted those things to mean something. But...it didn’t seem like they did. Axel had pretty much ignored me since Friday. After I told him I was going to give my first kiss to someone else.
Uncle Matt smiled. “Players don’t just give their varsity jackets out for keeps unless they’re dating someone. And I don’t recall Axel ever giving his jacket to someone. Even though he’s had quite a few girlfriends.”
He didn’t need to remind me how many girlfriends Axel had had.
“Just...” his voice trailed off. “Remember all I taught you, kiddo.”
Uncle Matt had taught me a lot of things. How to play poker. And how to own a table in pool. I was pretty sure I even remembered him teaching me how to play beer pong when I was little, sans the beer. I wasn’t sure which game he was referring to here...
“You deserve the world,” he said. “And don’t you ever forget it.”
Oh. Yeah, I guess he’d told me that a lot over the years too. But for some reason, the way he said it today sounded more like a warning.
He glanced at Jacob on the field and cleared his throat. “I need to start practice. But come over for dinner sometime soon. Aunt Brooklyn has a new cupcake recipe she’s trying out and I’m sure she’d like your feedback.”
“I’ll definitely take you up on that.” Jacob’s mom made the world’s best cupcakes.
Uncle Matt blew his whistle and walked onto the field.
“What was that about?” asked Sophie when I jogged up to her.
I shrugged. “I have no idea.” I looked back over my shoulder at the field. Actually, I was worried I did know what Uncle Matt was talking about. He was warning me to stay away from Axel Stevens.
“Think your dad will let me come over so we can study these rosters together?”
I hoped so. I needed her help more than ever since we had a JV and varsity list to go through now.