Page 12 of Playing with the Heartbreaker

“It’s not the right time,” I mumble.

“Dude. She’s finally single. It’s been, what, three months since she and Graham split? That’s plenty of time.”

I shake my head, grimacing, and breathe in the diner aroma—fry oil and syrup. “I’m not looking to be a rebound.”

Dillon leans forward on the Formica table. “Rhoads, my man. Sometimes, the guy who gets the rebound also scores a basket.”

I understand what he’s saying, but I’m still in my head. I’ve waited so long for a shot with Chloe that I’m afraid to screw it up. Her seeing me flirt with Katie isn’t exactly going to help my case. As soon as Katie walked away, I realized how things looked. I’ve spent so long projecting a playboy image that it’s not exactly easy to turn it off. It’s like a very dumb reflex I have to retrain.

The last few drops of Dillon’s milkshake slurp into his straw. “If you wait too long, someone else is going to step up.”

I blow out a breath. “I know.” My fork scrapes my plate as I push the remaining three bites of hash browns around and mix them with the ketchup until they’re all the same shade of reddish pink.

I’d planned to go in with confidence, to woo Chloe with my charm. I had one serious girlfriend, and after she broke up with me and moved away, I met Chloe, and it was game over.

Of course, like a scared idiot, I didn’t ask her out fast enough, and Graham swooped in.

My paper napkin turns into a tight ball in my clenched fist as I remember.

I was cleaning machines in the weight room, grunt work for the freshmen soccer players, while Graham got in an extra lifting session on the football team’s night off. We’d been friends since I was in fourth grade and he was in fifth, and though we played different sports, we still hung out a lot.

“Spot me, Simpson?” he asked.

I tossed the wipe into the trash and stood behind him at the bench press. “Ready?”

He nodded, and I assisted as he lifted the bar up over his chest, brought it down, then pushed it back up. “So, how are you liking high school so far?”

“It’s good.”

“Any girls catch your eye yet?”

I flushed. “Maybe.”

“Dude. Tell me.” Down, up. Down, up went the bar.

“There’s this girl on the soccer team. Chloe something?”

“No way. She’s in my study hall. I can hook you up.” Down, up.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Of course.”

A few weeks later, after Graham was supposed to have talked me up, he met me after school. “I can see why you’re interested. She’s cool. And, uh, listen. I was trying to talk you up, you know, get her interested in you.”

“And?”

“She and I actually kind of hit it off. So I…”

My stomach wrung out like a sponge. “You, what?”

“I asked her out.”

The words echoed in my head, but they might as well have been another language for all they made sense. My friend wouldn’t do that to me. “You asked out the girl I like?”

Graham stared into my eyes as if he hadn’t stabbed me in the back. “But I kind of did you a favor, right? If she liked you, she wouldn’t have said yes. And now you don’t have to feel weird or rejected when you see her. No hard feelings, right?”

My fists clenched at my sides.