Secret Girlfriend Part 23

Not only was this where I wanted to be, but it's where I fit.

Running was for me. Just for me. Yeah, I loved winning. But, like I'd told Mrs. Parker, I could compete anywhere.

I'd found my place there on the boys' soccer team. Who would have thought it?

"Coach, I'm where I'm supposed to be." I nodded, feeling the smile spread. "I can compete on weekends or something if I get the bug."

I swear the man rolled his eyes at me.

"I knew you were going to say that." He waved the man with the briefcase over. "Whalen, this is Coach Melrose."

I had no idea where this was going, but a very strong suspicion I was about to get blindsided shot through me.

"Coach Sarche tells me you beat his entire team." This guy really seemed to love the whole idea of that. He offered me his hand and a grin.

"Yes, sir. Luke Parker dropped out to save his legs for tryouts." I glanced at Coach before letting myself grin. "But I would have beaten him."

Both men looked at me for a long moment and then laughed. It was nice to know they were laughing for the right reasons.

"Coach Melrose and I go all the way back to college. He coaches the women's cross-country team at Monroe State." Coach smacked his ever-present clipboard against his thigh. "You'll be running with his team every Sat.u.r.day morning. You will follow whatever fitness and training schedule he gives you during the week. You will show up at whatever event he tells you to. You will kick the a.s.s of any compet.i.tor he puts in front of you. If you slack, you're fired. I'll get one of those flaky wannabe cheer girls to take your place quicker than you can say World Cup."

I glanced from one coach to the other. Seriously, when had my life gotten so filled with amazing men? After a moment, and obviously without a shred of thought, I threw my arms around Coach Sarche.

"Thanks, Coach. I swear I will not let you down."

I felt him very awkwardly pat me on the back. "Alright, Whalen. That's enough. Get your a.s.s in gear. I want to hear about a scholars.h.i.+p by the end of the season."

I eased back and tried not to laugh at the blush crossing Coach's cheeks.

"Any more hugging goes to your running coach," he said, giving me a slight shove toward Coach Melrose. "Get to work. No slacking."

With that, he stalked off leaving me with my new coach.

Coach Melrose took a small step back. "I'm not much of a hugger either."

"Honestly, sir, neither am I. But he really needed one."

Chapter 29.

The next day, I kept my confidence going with a leap of insanity... I mean, faith.

"Have you lost your mind?" Rachel's "whisper" nearly blew out my eardrum. "This is your worst nightmare come to life and you're signing up for it?"

The ink splotch was growing where pen met paper. There were already three names there. Cheryl's was the first one. Of course.

Before I could think more about it, I signed my name and wrote "item for sale" next to it. Even then I knew there wasn't much chance of beating out a cheerleader half-time kissing booth. But honestly, did she really think the school board was going to let the Rah-Rahs prost.i.tute themselves like that? The only hope I had was if they were shut down and had to come up with a real talent.

"If you win this, you'll be on a stage. In front of everyone." Rachel reached for the pen, probably to cross my name out. "In the spotlight-literally. Literally in the spotlight. Are you having nightmares yet?"

Yes. Yes, I was. But there was only one way I could think of to get Luke back: The Grand Gesture. It had been working for guys for centuries. Hopefully it was no longer gender specific.

If he hadn't been letting Cheryl shadow him for the last two weeks-if he had just talked to me, just given me a chance... But he hadn't and so I was left with nothing but desperation as motivation.

I was out of options and afraid that I was running out of time. Cheryl may have only been his way of avoiding me, but eventually some nice girl was going to cross his path, and then he'd be gone for real.

When Princ.i.p.al Edwards had given the morning announcements the second day back, he reminded everyone of the new Homecoming Court ballot... or lack of ballot. The only qualifications were that you had to be a senior and you had to have raised the most money during the Homecoming Half-Time Auction.

"What if you win?" Rachel stared at the paper with my name scrawled in shaky, black ink. "What will you do then?"

The lights flashed behind my eyes as I pictured myself blinded by the spotlight on the risers in the gym. Everyone looked at me and whispers echoed back while people tried to figure out who the heck I was. But the only thing that slipped through my mind was that Luke would have to listen to me for the length of whatever song the cheesy DJ pumped out for us-he'd be too polite to turn me down in front of the entire school. And then I knew what I'd do.

"Beg."

There comes a time in every person's life when they face their biggest fear head on and become the hero of their own story.

This was not that time.

Instead, it was the time I faced my biggest fear and hid in the girls' room for the entire Half-Time Auction.

As soon as I'd signaled the end of the first half of the game, I rushed up to the gym, not sure what I hoped to see. The silent auction list had grown way longer than I'd expected. But, I'd gotten a little pick-me-up seeing Cheryl frown enough to crease her makeup when the school committee had let the squad know they had to rethink their sales plan. The half-time kissing booth had been banned and they had to go with Rah-Rah plan b: auctioning off a date with Cheryl to the highest bidder.

Those were the moments I just wanted to find any other girl on the face of the planet and ask, "Really? Is it only me or is that just as s.k.a.n.ky?"

Adults and students pressed through the doors, some heading straight to the snack bar, others wandering table to table, reading the descriptions. My painting was propped on the far side of the room. People milled about in front of it. My heart dropped. I'd known people would see it when I'd scribbled my name on that stupid list but I couldn't believe it was out there. Not just because I was showing my work for the first time, but because I couldn't believe I could give it up.

In my mind, I pictured the details of the beat-up, old pickup truck's headlights catching the heavy rain dousing it. Water licked at its tires. The door had obviously just been thrown open, one Converse covered foot stepping out into the floodwaters.

The moment before I threw myself into Luke Parker's arms. The moment I wish I could rewind to and start over from. The moment my heart left my body and rested in his hands for good.

A blue flash of a soccer jersey caught my eye and I s.h.i.+fted to see which guy had snuck out of the Half-Time "pep talk." Coach was going to kill whoever dared to slip his grasp. Part of me realized I should check it out. Coach would kill me twice if he knew I'd seen one of the guys and not sent him back to the locker room. The whole I'm-A-Girl thing was the only reason I didn't have to be in there as it was.

Before I could make up my mind to track down the AWOL player, my art teacher Mrs. Cleary headed my way from table thirty-three where an undersized easel propped up my painting. Of all the people to not want to disappoint, she topped the list. There was only one thing I could do. I did it well, so it wasn't a problem. I ran. Straight to the girls' room.

If no one bid on my entry, I'd rather know after the game than sit at the stats table thinking everyone behind me was looking at the back of my head with pity.

"Amy?"

Sometimes I wondered if Rachel had BFF radar.

"In here." I kicked one of my feet under the stall door so she knew which one I hid in.

"We're alone. You might as well come out."

I pushed the stall door open and faced her. The girls' room was the best place for this conversation since I was still a little queasy anyway.

"How are you feeling?"

Out of habit I crossed to the sink and washed my hands.

"Not bad." Lies. Lies. Lies.

She nodded as if both of us ignoring the truth would make it disappear.

"They just announced the five minute warning. Coach is bringing the guys back down to the field." She reached in her purse and pulled out a cherry colored lip gloss. "Here."

That was so Rachel. Every time stress. .h.i.t her, she put on lip gloss or changed her s.h.i.+rt or did something with her hair. I knew it wouldn't make me feel better, but she was obviously feeding off my anxiety so I put the funky tasting stuff on and forced a smile.

"Ready?"

What was I going to say? With a nod, I handed her back the gloss and headed toward the door.

The second half of the game flew by. We won, no big surprise. And then the afternoon was over. Everyone headed home until the oh-so-socially-climactic dance that night. All there was left to do was wait.

I'd never been very good at waiting. I put on my new Nikes and ran. Forget marathons. I ran like I was training for a 100k Ultra. At the little bridge, I was careful to turn west out of town. Away from the Parker household. The idea of seeing Luke, of watching him ignore me again, was more than I could take.

If he was going to blow me off today, it was going to have to be under the tacky dis...o...b..ll and in front of the entire school.

Note to self: Google "free sanity test" after run.

Chapter 30.

It was time. And this time, there'd be no hiding out in the girls' room.

When Rachel picked me up for the Homecoming dance she had not one, but two Parker boys in her car. Of course, neither of them was the right one. Justin looked a little apologetic when I slid into the back next to him. No idea if it was because he wasn't Luke or because he watched me have to crawl over the front seat in one of Rachel's shorter skirts.

In the front, Rachel and Jared discussed... something. I couldn't have told you what if my life depended on it. After a minute of trying to follow their conversation over the music, and my own mental noise, I finally gave up.

"You ready?" Justin reached over and squeezed my hand.

It had taken losing his brother to see what a great friend I was gaining in him. No matter what happened with Luke, I knew Justin would be there. For the first time in my life, I had a guy friend. A big-younger-brother. A boy to look out for me. And vice versa.

The warmth of him seeped into my hand like a hug and suddenly, yeah, I was ready.

I nodded, forcing everything from my mind and just waited, enjoying the ride to the school and the safety of the people who surrounded me.

The parking lot was full of kids getting to the dance and everyone else showing up to see if they'd won anything at the auction. At this point, I was just worried no one had bought my painting. It would likely be Rejection Number One if it was still there.

At the doors, Jared stopped to make time with his future teammates, signaling for Rachel and Justin to join him. Justin's hand fell to my lower back, steering me through the crowd.

"Don't you want to hang with the guys?"

"Nah." He glanced over his shoulder as we stepped through the crowed. "I'd rather hang with you."

I stopped and met his gaze, about to tell him I was used to being alone and that I could handle it, when Luke walked in. That was almost enough to make my stomach drop, but it was the not alone part that did me in. I wasn't even sure who she was, but the only thought going through my head was, at least she isn't Cheryl. If he ends up with someone else, at least let her be nice.

"Ignore him." Justin gave me a little shove toward the tables where all the auction items were lined up. As we cleared a group of freshman, he whispered in my ear, "Plus, I'm not supposed to know this, but he picked her up for one of the guys. He couldn't get off work early enough so Luke volunteered."

That was so Luke. I started to turn toward them again, just to see if she really was acting like a random girl.

"If you look at my brother one more time, I'm going to think I'm not charming enough for you."

Justin's hand still rested on my back, pus.h.i.+ng me forward, away from Luke. Away from social disaster. I glanced up at Justin, my heart cracking anew at that familiar Parker grin.

"Sorry." I rolled my shoulders, trying to ease the knots out. "You know you're one of my favorite people right? If, after tonight, you're the only Parker talking to me, I'll count that a win."

I prayed I was telling the truth. Every part of me screamed that if I left this wannabe dance club in Rachel's Honda instead of Edith the Pickup Truck, everything would still be okay. Justin flashed that grin again. Yeah, it would be okay. It might hurt, but it would be okay.

He peered over the heads of the people in front of us. "What number are you?"

"Shhhhh." I covered his mouth with my palm, glancing around to make sure no one heard him.

Over my hand, his eyebrows went up, one c.o.c.king to the right.

"Can I trust you to not repeat that if I take my hand away?" I glanced around again hoping now was not the time people started seeing me.

He nodded, wagging my arm up and down with his head.

As soon as I let him go, he took my arm and led me to a quiet place next to a broken water fountain.

"Amy, when will you realize people are going to notice you? You're pretty and you're part of the most popular group at school. Not to mention nice and talented."

I c.o.c.ked my head enough so I could look up at him in the close quarters, surprised by every word coming out of his mouth.

"I'm none of those things, and I'm definitely not popular." Amazing that guy friends could be as delusionally supportive as girlfriends.

"The minute that soccer ball landed in your hands... no, the second you joined the soccer team, you were one of them. You're going to have to deal with the fact that people will notice you. And there's nothing wrong with that."

Part of me knew if I won Luke back I'd have to deal with the whole popularity thing. There was no way that boy could be anything less than everything every girl ever wanted.

I nodded, understanding what Justin was telling me. Knowing he was right, I could do this.

"Okay, let's go see if anyone even wanted a still damp oil painting of a foolishly brave rescue attempt."

We walked down the hall, his hand still on my back, him shouldering away undercla.s.smen not paying enough attention. Near the end of the row, we found it. Table Thirty-three. My table. My heart stopped when I spotted the empty s.p.a.ce where my painting should have sat.