Chapter 17 Sabrina
“Right this way! Standard wash, ten dollars; sparkle wash, twenty!”
I keep my smile firmly in place as I wave cars through the Hamilton Lakes High parking lot.
It’s a crisp autumn day, the sky bright and blue and the air balanced between summer warmth and the first chill of fall.
I’m wearing a simple, soft T-shirt and faded shorts, my hair beribboned in Hamilton Lakes blue and white.
A perfect day for the annual car wash to raise funds for the Spirit Committee.
I’ve been finalizing plans all week—we do it every year, but it’s a crowd-pleaser every time—and so far, everything’s going perfectly.
The football team is here in full force, and Ryan even delivered on his promise to bring the hockey guys, so he’s scouring mud off the bumpers of trucks alongside Alex, Sam, and some of the JV players.
The line of drivers eager to support the teams spills out onto the street.
I should be happy.
But keeping an eye on the athletes scrubbing cars means keeping an eye on Tyler.
And Ryan’s presence isn’t enough to distract me from the fact that Tyler looks even better than usual today.
His hair has a few lighter streaks near the temples from all those practices in the summer sun, and the way his muscles flex underneath his plain white T-shirt…
well, it reminds me of a lot of things. Of seeing all those muscles on display at our first meeting and kinda wishing I could see them again. Of the kiss I can’t erase from my mind.
Of the totally awkward, fumbling buffoon I was the last time we spoke.
I felt so bad after. I never lie! I just hadn’t known how to talk to him about Kara’s weird rumor, and it felt way too awkward to raise my worries after I kissed him back—emphatically—so I was deeply overthinking and in my head.
My usual approach of keep it smiling, keep it light, keep it moving hasn’t failed me yet.
Until now. Because it’s making me act like a totally cold jerk with Tyler.
I don’t blame him for keeping his distance today.
A car honks cheerily at me, jolting me from my thoughts, and I lift my head with a brighter smile than ever. “Standard wash, ten dollars; sparkle wash, twenty!”
Naomi comes to switch spots after thirty minutes or so, skipping over with her phone already in her hand.
“You sure you won’t be bored?”
She looks at me with wide, disbelieving eyes. “You kidding? Ryan and Gabe are about to start a water balloon fight, and I don’t want my phone anywhere near that. At least here I can scroll in peace and point anyone who gets lost toward the very obvious line of cars.”
I laugh and wave over my shoulder as I head toward the fray. “Okay, well, have fun.”
“Approach with caution!” she calls after me.
I gird my loins as Tyler looks up to meet my gaze, his face flashing with something unreadable.
Approach with caution is right.
I grab a squeegee and head to the opposite side of the SUV they’re currently working on, pretending he’s just another guy. Just another football player. Friendly, not flirty.
“Hang on—we’ve got Sabrina now?” Gabe crows. “We’re gonna start working double time!”
I roll my eyes. “You all better try to keep up.”
Ryan raises an eyebrow. “Oh, we can keep up.”
Across the car, there’s a wet slap as a sponge hits the window with great force. But when I stand on my tiptoes to peer across, Tyler seems to be extremely focused on erasing any streak marks from the glass.
“So, Sabrina… how are preparations for homecoming going?” Gabe asks.
I tear my attention back to the task at hand. It doesn’t matter if Ryan’s flirting, and if Tyler feels any kind of way about it—we’re here for business, and that’s how I’m going to keep it.
“They’re going great.” My stomach tightens at the reminder of my to-do list, and I nod toward the hockey team on the other side of the car. “Thanks for rallying some extra muscle. We need all the donations we can get for the biggest dance Hamilton Lakes has ever seen.”
“Oh, I bet it’ll be magical,” Lauren, flyer on the cheer team, says. “Though some of us are still looking for dates…”
Do I imagine her casting a sidelong glance at Tyler? She wouldn’t, would she? She knows we’re going together!
Wait. We are still going together, aren’t we?
Irrational jealousy rears its head, a fire-breathing dragon in my chest. I scrub faster, my cheeks burning. I bend to get at the muddy spots on the bumper—all the better to avoid Tyler and whoever’s flirting with him.
I have no right to get jealous. We had one kiss, and haven’t spoken about it since, and it’s been two whole weeks. And I’m busy, I don’t need that, I don’t care if someone else is trying to—
And then the breath is knocked out of me in one shocked gasp as ice drenches my entire body.
I slowly straighten, blinking the water out of my eyes. I have to drag my hand across my face, surely smearing my mascara beyond repair, before I can see clearly again.
When I do, Gabe is frozen in horror, empty bucket dangling limply from his hands.
“Oh shit. I didn’t see you there, Sabrina—I was just trying to—”
“Wash the car,” I say through teeth that are already beginning to chatter. “Yeah. Not your fault.”
“But now you’re—” His eyes flick down my body, and I’m sure every inch of my exposed skin turns tomato red. His gaze bounces stubbornly back to my face, refusing to look below the neck, and I hug my arms around myself.
“It’s fine.” I turn away, ducking my head. My hair drips down my neck and chest, water sluicing off my T-shirt and cutoffs to pool in my sneakers. “I’m just gonna find a sweater or something.”
I ignore the burn of eyes following me as I scurry to the edge of the parking lot where my bag awaits.
I guess I should be glad it was a clean bucket of water, but that doesn’t erase the fact that I’m totally drenched, the fabric sticking to me like a second skin.
As if watching Tyler get flirted with wasn’t enough, he’s now seen me take an extremely gross and unplanned bucket shower.
The only way this fundraiser could get worse is a car actively running me over.
I rummage in my bag, and when my fingers scrape the bottom, I let out a groan from the depths of my soul. What was that about the fundraiser not getting any worse? Because the sweater I thought I had stashed is missing.
Of all the times to be negligent with my laundry routine. But maybe I have one of last year’s spirit T-shirts in my locker. I zip my bag closed, ignoring the watchful gaze of the football team—
And then a deep voice says, “Here.”
Goose bumps prickle up and down my arms, and they’re not from the cold. A shadow falls over me, and when I look up, Tyler is quite literally blocking the sun.
Holding out his letter jacket.
In this moment, he couldn’t look more heroic if he tried.
“Oh, you don’t have to—”
“It’s the least I can do.” His gaze is serious. “Take it.”
His voice settles in the pit of my stomach, warming me from the inside out. His eyes are firmly fixed on my face, but I feel more exposed than ever.
I settle his jacket around my shoulders and do up a few buttons so I’m comfortably cocooned. It smells like him, all sun-warmed grass and lemon peels and eucalyptus, and it’s so big, the sleeves reach to my fingertips and the bottom falls past the edge of my shorts. I instantly feel safer.
I can’t hide my gratitude when I smile up at him. “Thanks.”
Only a tiny twitch at the edge of his mouth gives him away. “Now we’re even.”
It takes me a minute, but when I get it, I flush all over. Our first meeting in the locker room. The thought of him enjoying my accidental wet T-shirt contest as much as I’d enjoyed meeting the bare-chested new football player sends a spark all the way to my toes.
Oh, how I’d love to relive that moment—or even this one, with a few less spectators…
because suddenly Ryan’s presence here feels less like a lucky gift and more like a curse.
Because with the warmth of Tyler’s jacket heavy on my shoulders, all I want to do is step forward so his arms can wrap around me too.
He clears his throat. “Should we go back to help out?”
I startle back to my senses. “Oh! Yes, of course. Of course.”
But it’s only when he turns back to the car wash assembly line that I manage to lift my feet to follow him.
The rest of the event goes much more smoothly—other than Ryan joking about how he knew this was a wet T-shirt contest, which I studiously ignore.
Luckily, he takes off for the Lakeside with the rest of the hockey players when the rush dies down, and I try not to read into Tyler’s insistence that he’ll stay to the bitter end.
Or into my own butterflies at the prospect of being around him without Ryan watching.
“This is exactly what we needed,” Kara says, rifling through dollar bills.
“Though it’s not gonna get us all the way to our fundraising goals for the dance this year.
We need to add something else to the calendar…
but now that football season’s in full swing, it’s hard to find an empty weekend. ” She frowns.
After a long pause, I realize she’s waiting for a response. “Oh, good. Great news.”
Kara’s frown deepens. Oops. It’s only then that the rest of her words penetrate my distraction.
“Good news about what we raised, I mean. Not so great about how much we still need. But we’ll find a way! We always do!”
She opens her mouth again—probably to bring that pragmatism I love to hate on—but another car rolls up, pulling her away.
Which lets me get back to my job too: stealing glances at Tyler.
He’s looking back at me every time, tiny sparks of electricity moving through his gaze. Maybe he doesn’t hate me after all. He wouldn’t give me his jacket if he hated me… would he?
Suddenly I’m craving the chance to talk to him one-on-one. To apologize for lying and avoiding him. To figure out where we stand now.
At the end of the fundraiser, I wave goodbye to everyone as I tally up our grand total.
Only Tyler lingers.
Ryan’s gone. I shouldn’t hope Tyler and I will carpool home. Like we used to.
How did a brand-new routine start to mean so much to me?
But when I straighten up, grinning at the amount of money a bunch of sudsy athletes managed to raise, Tyler’s there watching me hopefully.
“Hey. Any chance you’re heading in my direction?”
My cheeks catch, warming. I nod despite myself, and we head to my car in silence.
He climbs in like it’s his own, perfectly at home with the seat belt that catches and the seat that doesn’t quite scoot back the way it should. “Want me to get out and do a touchdown dance to make sure she starts?” he asks with a crooked smile.
I’m so overwhelmed by his scent in my car—better than any air freshener—that I can’t even laugh. I just send gratitude to the automobile gods when the ignition catches without a hitch and check my blind spot three times before pulling out onto the road.
When I merge into traffic without a word, Tyler turns to me, gaze serious. “Sabrina, can we talk? Please. This is too weird.”
“I don’t know what you mean—talk about what? I’m not weird, you’re weird—” I’m babbling nonsense, desperately pretending there’s nothing to talk about. As I’m draped in his letter jacket, still feeling the press of his lips on mine from days and days ago.
Tyler levels a glance at me, not fooled for a minute. “I miss you. Just having you around as a friend, okay? I promise I won’t kiss you again if it bothered you, if you don’t want me to—”
“I never said that.”
The air in the car turns electric. I keep my eyes focused on the road ahead, rolling through the Hamilton Lakes late-afternoon streets, down the hill that’s just turning golden with the earliest fall leaves.
When I sneak a glance at Tyler, his face is dappled by the pattern the sun makes through the foliage.
My thoughts are spinning, but the sight of him oddly grounds me.
As much as I get in my own head, when I’m with him I feel strangely reassured. At peace.
Like maybe I can be more honest with him than I am with most people. Maybe not talking about things isn’t always the best method, actually. And maybe with someone like Tyler—someone new, where the stakes are lower—it might be safer to try something different.
“I heard a weird rumor about why you transferred,” I blurt. “Kara said you got kicked out for bad behavior?”
His expression clouds over, shifting into an emotion I’ve never seen on him before.
Resentful? Ashamed? Regretful? “I wasn’t kicked out of school, just to set the record straight.
There were a lot of complicated reasons things weren’t working out with the team there, so I transferred.
But I swear to you, I didn’t do anything wrong. ”
He turns in his seat to face me directly. I’m pulling into Ryan’s neighborhood, unconsciously slowing the car so we have time for this conversation. I don’t want to tell Tyler goodbye without getting some more answers.
I hold my breath as he continues.
“Last year was really shitty for me, Sabrina.” His voice is steady and low.
Serious. “But I’ve been thinking maybe it all worked out how it was supposed to, because now I’m here.
And I’m really enjoying every moment I’m spending with you.
If this is all too weird, though, I get it—we can cool off, just be friends—”
He’s withdrawing, and I reach out instinctively to keep him here with me. As I park in front of Ryan’s house, I turn to him and rest a hand on top of his. “It’s not,” I blurt. His eyes lock back on mine. “If you say I shouldn’t worry, I won’t. I trust you.”
Tyler’s whole face softens into a smile, and it’s like the sun coming out after a storm. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.”
I nod. He wouldn’t. He’d just hang up my posters, and offer to bring me chicken noodle soup, and jump my car, and watch Gilmore Girls for me—even season one.
And that’s when all the barricades I’ve built collapse entirely, and I lean in to kiss him.
His lips start off slack against mine. Like he couldn’t really believe this conversation would end in a kiss. But when I press against him a little more firmly, he melts into me.
We’re in front of Ryan’s house, and I’m breaking all my rules for this guy—that if we get caught, it could ruin everything for me this year—but my nerves aren’t enough to stop me. After a few seconds of kissing Tyler, I wouldn’t notice if Ryan himself walked up to rap on the window.
Because a deeper part of me has never felt so sure what I’m doing is right.
When Tyler pulls back, there’s fresh color in his cheeks and a sparkle in his eyes. He doesn’t look haunted anymore. He looks hopeful. “See you Monday?”
My face hurts from smiling back, my lips tingling. I’m still surrounded by the scent of lemon and eucalyptus.
I was so, so wrong about Tyler being a safer person to be vulnerable with. I like him too much for that.
He might be the most dangerous of all.
“See you Monday,” I breathe.
It’s not until I drive away that I realize I’m still wearing his jacket.