Chapter 24
Twenty-Four
RHOADS
Well, that could have gone better.
Everything was going really great up until the point when Chloe realized she was late for curfew. I run my hands through my hair and blow out a breath as I stare into the dark night.
She’s going to be in trouble and have tension between her and her mom, and it’s all my fault. I should have known that she had a curfew, or I should have at least asked before I took her to my house. She said she had a little time after we left the party. So, I just got caught up in the moment.
I almost kissed her in my workshop. The way her auburn braids shone in the light and the openness and understanding in her eyes held me spellbound. I think she would have kissed me back.
My jaw clenches at the missed opportunity. I turn up the car’s heat and roll my window down as I drive to the place I do my best soul-searching. I need the freshness of the outside air to clear my thoughts, but it’s too cold to just lie in the back of my truck like I want to.
It seems like every time I get closer to Chloe, something pulls me back again. One step forward and two steps back seems to be the cadence of our relationship.
Acquaintances or training partners, or friends. Whatever it may be.
My phone buzzes with an incoming text. I park in the lot before reading it, holding my breath in anticipation.
It’s not from Chloe, though.
My shoulders sagging, I throw on my spare cleats and sweats.
“Yo, Simpson! You gonna tell us why you called a late-night scrimmage?” Jake slides from the driver’s seat of his car, the remnants of his pirate costume makeup ringing his eyes.
Piper climbs out of the passenger seat, her cleats clacking on the parking lot’s rocks. No clue what she’d been dressed as earlier. She’s beaming until she registers I’m alone. “Where’s Chloe?”
I sigh and pinch between my eyebrows. “I screwed up. She missed curfew. She’s probably getting grounded right about now.”
Kyle arrives next and tosses me a ball. “Tough break.”
“It’ll be fine,” Piper assures me.
“I don’t know.”
“It will.” Jake points to the field. “Take that attitude of yours and leave it out there.”
Kyle sets up the portable floodlights we use to see since there’s none on The Field.
We’ve been coming here to chase away bad days since we were young and our parents let us bike here.
Not this late, obviously. Not until last summer, when we all got later curfews.
But it’s where our friendships were forged and strengthened.
Now, it’s the place we celebrate and heal, trash talk required.
“Piper, aren’t you on the wrong side of the field?” I ask.
She rakes the ball over to me. “Nope. Jake and I made another bet. If I score on him, he has to decorate the inside of his locker with cutouts of my favorite celebrities. And I can’t wait to see those big headshots front and center.”
I snicker.
“Not happening,” Jake says.
“What if he scores?” I ask.
“She has to get a fake tattoo of my name in a heart and wear it on her arm for a week.”
Piper glowers. “Which is so tacky.” She turns to me. “And we are not going to let that happen. Right, Rhoads? I’m trusting you.”
“Oh, I’m totally on your side.”
We play a fifteen-minute half that ends in a zero-zero tie and take a short break.
“You ready to talk about it?” Kyle asks. He squirts water into his mouth and spits it out.
I groan. This is why we’re here, after all.
For the game, but also for emotional catharsis.
“I’m wondering now if I’m only going to be a distraction for Chloe, like she originally thought.
That was one of the reasons she didn’t want to date this year in the first place, and now I’m proving her right.
She’s already in trouble for hanging out with me.
How bad of an influence would I be if we were actually together? ”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?” Jake says. He wipes his face with a towel.
“You’re good for her. And vice versa.” Piper tightens her bright red ponytail.
“But am I being greedy by taking up her time when I know she doesn’t want to date? Is it selfish to hope that by spending time together she’ll change her mind?”
As I speak my fear aloud, I remember the look on Chloe’s face after I told her about the snow globes. The way her blue eyes sparkled and her face relaxed, and her lips parted.
It’s like she’d started to glimpse the real me and not the version of me that everyone thinks they know.
“What if I’ll just always be—what did you call me over the summer?”
Piper smirks, bouncing on her toes. “The school’s most notorious flirt.”
“Ugh. I’m an idiot.”
“You’re not.” Kyle slaps my shoulder. “And your behavior has been different lately. Not a single person has asked me to hook them up with you since the music wing shenanigans.”
“That’s something, I guess.” I tip my head back, face skyward, as if the wind might pull away the reputation I accidentally created for myself by waiting for Chloe to be single.
It felt good to share a deeper part of myself with her, and I don’t regret it. I just hope it wasn’t too much. That it doesn’t make her take another step back.
Did I mess this up on purpose, because I think I don’t deserve to have Chloe in my life?
Sometimes bad or terrible or annoying or unfortunate things happen, and that’s just part of life. I didn’t get Chloe in trouble on purpose, and I didn’t force her to come with me. Her missing curfew isn’t my fault, because I didn’t even know about it to begin with.
Still, my confidence is waning.
“Break’s over,” Jake calls. “First goal wins. Because if we’re out here much longer, we’re all grounded.”
Piper freezes me with her stare. “I. Am. Not. wearing a tattoo of his name. Got it? Show me why you’re the best striker in school.”
Two minutes into the game, Piper wins the ball and passes to me. We both streak down the field. It’s risky leaving our goal open, but she trusts me.
I spin around Kyle and pass to Piper, who cackles as she heads toward Jake.
“I am going to relish seeing your locker.”
“You mean empty except for my books?” Jake counters as he approaches.
“Piper!” I call.
Jake hesitates for half a second, checking to see if she’s going to pass.
She stutters as if she’s going to give me the ball, then cracks a shot. It sails into the goal.
“Kyle, what the heck? Where were you?” Jake complains.
Kyle jogs over. “Oh, sorry. I must have fallen behind.” He cracks up. “And I, too, am also very interested to see your locker makeover.”
Piper slaps me a high-five. “Thanks. I knew we could do it. Big risk, big reward, right?”
Jake apparently said that to her the night they hit it off.
“Yeah,” I answer as we collect our equipment. “Thanks, guys, for this.”
“Anytime.” Kyle switches off the floodlights.
The ghost of their light freezes the scene in my mind. We’ve only got one life to go after what we want. On and off the pitch.
If I’ve learned anything from Jenson’s situation, it’s that.
Outside my truck, I take another deep breath of Midwest October air and ask the cloudy sky for help. It’s one in the morning. There’s not much I can do now except send an apology text.
I pull out onto the deserted back road and head home, drowning out my thoughts with a new piano song and sinking back into the playful bliss of studying and playing one-on-one. Of leaving the party together and cruising in my truck and talking about memories.
By the time I fall into bed, Chloe still hasn’t responded.