“Lion!
Matt Lampert pounded up behind me in the locker room and gave me a friendly punch in the side. “Dude, you rocked today. We’re gonna crush them on Friday night.”
“Yeah.” I pulled my practice jersey off over my head. “I guess.”
“What’s the matter?” Matt opened his own locker and began to undress. “You should be flying high. Coach even said something good about you. That almost never happens.”
“That’s true.” I sat down on the bench. “I’m just tired. It’s been a long week.” It had actually been more like a long month since our game against Franklin Township. We’d ended up playing some of the toughest teams in our conference over the past four weeks, and all those stressful, important games were beginning to take their toll on me. My grades had taken an unusual dip, I’d lost weight, and I wasn’t sleeping well.
“We got a couple of days before the game. Let’s chill tonight. Come on over, and we’ll eat pizza, slay some zombies and knock back some brews.”
I rubbed my hand over my face. “I’m supposed to do something with Sarah tonight. I haven’t taken her out in like, a week.”
“Is she complaining?” Matt grabbed his towel.
“Nah. I just feel bad.” Guilty was a more accurate description of how I felt. I hadn’t intended to start anything serious with Sarah; she was supposed to be a temporary distraction for me and diversion tactic for Quinn. I’d figured we’d have some fun, and then it would sizzle out, like things always did. We’d part friends again, and I’d be off the hook.
But for some reason, that hadn’t happened. One date had led into another, and before I knew it, people in school were referring to us as a couple. Like it was official or something. Sarah, to her credit, never put any pressure on me. If I didn’t call her, she didn’t give me shit. She didn’t insist on hanging all over me in school, the way some girls did with their boyfriends.
And if she’d noticed that I got more interested and affectionate whenever I’d seen Quinn hanging with Jake Donavan, she didn’t mention it.
I wasn’t sure what was going on between Quinn and Jake. They hung out at school, but I couldn’t say for sure if that was happening more than it had before or not. I didn’t know anyone who was friends with them, so I couldn’t just casually ask. I thought about checking with Nate, but he ignored me whenever we passed in the hall. If Quinn really was dating Donavan, I couldn’t imagine Nate was any happier than I was.
Not that I had any right to care. I’d had a chance with Quinn, and I’d thrown it away, on purpose. I’d chosen the way that was better for her. I was sure Jake Donavan was just her type; as a senior and editor of the paper, everyone liked him, even though I didn’t think he was a big partier. I’d seen the way his eyes followed Quinn, and I’d sure as hell picked up on how he looked at her that night at Anders’ party. He liked her.
I followed Matt into the showers, moving on automatic pilot and not paying any attention to the guys’ typical yelling and teasing. Everyone was a little punchy today, after the last few weeks. Even Coach seemed a little worn out, a little more laid-back. Still, I was having a hard time getting into the groove. I nodded when someone shouted out to me, I smiled when I realized they expected it, but inside I was brooding.
I pulled on jeans and a Henley after my shower, stuffed my dirty clothes into a duffle bag and headed out of the locker room. Matt hollered after me.
“Taylor, don’t forget. Tonight. You bring the pizza, and I’ll supply the rest.”
I paused. “Yeah, I’ll see what’s going on, man. I’ll text you.”
Opening the door of the locker room, I stepped into the silent school hallway. A few feet away, leaning against the wall, Sarah sat on the floor, her phone in her hand as she read something on the screen. She looked up at the sound of the door closing behind me.
“Hey.” Pushing against the wall, she rose to her feet in one languid movement. I studied her for a moment, taking in the whole Sarah Jenkins package: the beautiful hair, spilling down around her shoulders, the dark eyes, slender legs encased in her skinny jeans. The shirt she wore had some kind of rounded neckline that hugged her ample tits and dipped just low enough to give me a tantalizing peek. There wasn’t any doubt that this chick was sexy. Any sane man would be turned on, hot for her luscious bod and ready to go as far as she’d let him.
But for some reason, my own body, usually so ready to rock and roll, wasn’t playing along tonight. If dicks could sigh, mine would have been doing just that.
As if she could sense my feelings, Sarah hesitated. “We were meeting here, right? I thought ...” Her voice trailed off.
“Yeah, sure.” I rubbed my jaw. “Sorry. I’m just tired.” I repeated the same excuse I’d given Matt. “Matt invited us over, so maybe we can pick up some pizza and take it over there.”
“Oh. Okay.” The hint of disappointment in her voice was unmistakable, and unreasonable as it was, this only irked me. And then of coursethatmade me feel guiltier.
“Look, do you want to skip tonight? I won’t be very good company. I just want to lay around and maybe watch a movie. Play a littleZombie Chase. That’s not going to be very much fun for you.”
Sarah nodded slowly. “Okay. That’s fine.” She bent over to pick up her bag, and I averted my eyes from her ass. Straightening, she glanced over her shoulder at me. “Maybe tomorrow night we could see a movie or something.”
“Can’t. Tomorrow’s Thursday, and this week we play Friday night, so we have curfew.” As a cheerleader, she knew that.
“Oh, right. I forgot. Well, there’s always Saturday.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of us moved. Sarah’s face was carefully neutral, giving no hint about how she was really feeling other than where she’d caught her lip between her teeth. I waited, unsure of what to say next.
The painful silence was broken by the buzzing of my phone. I stretched back, reaching into my pocket to dig it out, frowning as I scanned the text. “Hey, I need to go. That was my mom, and she, uh ... she asked when I was coming home. I guess my brothers are both in town unexpectedly.”
