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He smiled. I’m not sure how I could tell he smiled from where I sat all the way on the other side of the court, but something about the change in the atmosphere around him told me everything in him brightened. He lifted his hand and gave a quick, little flick of the wrist, waving as if acknowledging he saw me watching him. The player behind him nudged him in the back, making him return his attention to his warm up just in time to catch a ball flying toward his face.
I spun away and sucked in a breath. “Oh, my… Oh, my…” I looked to Bridget for guidance. “What do I do?”
“Well, what happened? Details, woman, details.” She snapped her fingers in front of my face like that would speed along my brain.
It didn’t. As shaken and mixed up as I was, I didn’t know up from down.
“I…” Feeling absolutely rattled, I could only stare at her. “I…”
“You what?”
“Well, I... And he… But then I turned him down and he…he…”
“You turned him down? Him?” Bridget spun to point at forty-two.
By the scandalized way I grabbed her hand and jerked it toward the floor, one would’ve thought she’d just aimed a gun instead of her finger. “I didn’t…I didn’t…I…”
Bridget thumped me on the back, right between my shoulder blades as if I were choking and needed air. And like some kind of old record player that had slipped back on track, I was able to stop sputtering. I spilled out the entire encounter in hyper speed, not even pausing to breathe.
“Technically, I couldn’t really turn him down. He never asked me out. He just asked for my name, and I said, ‘Not interested,’ because, well really, what else could I say? Then he went totally weird on me, talking about the words ‘not interested’ as if they were my real name, asking if it was from German or Irish decent.” I looked at Bridget and sucked in air since my head had gone a little light from lack of oxygen. “Then he said we should name our firstborn child ‘Absolutely.’”
Bridget’s eyes widened to the size of marshmallows—not the minis but the big marshmallows you put on s’mores. “He did not,” she whispered.
I nodded. “He so did.”
“Holy Hosanna, Grace. That’s just awesome. Totally awesome. What’s his name?”
“Ryder,” I uttered in a hollow voice. “He said his name was Ryder. Not that I believe him. But that’s what he said.”
“Ryder,” she murmured huskily. “I like it. Ryder what?”
I shrugged.
“Oh, for the love of—” Snatching an abandoned roster off the bleacher seat behind us, Bridget ripped it open and bit her bottom lip as she ran her finger down the column. “Forty-two. Forty-two. I don’t see a forty-two.”
I glanced over her shoulder and found her scanning the wrong team’s list, so I helpfully suggested, “Probably because you’re looking at Hillsburg’s roster.”
Bridget growled out a sound of irritation and turned the page. “Hey, here it is. Forty-two. His name really is Ryder. Ryder Yates.”
“Ryder Yates,” I repeated in a reverent manner.
“Holy Hosanna, Grace. He’s gorgeous. Just gorgeous.” She patted me approvingly as if it were my fault Ryder Yates was gorgeous.
I rolled my eyes and clenched the back of my teeth. But I forced myself to relax a moment later, remembering what my new stepfather always said to me about dental care and how bad gritting one’s teeth was. The thought of braces didn’t appeal; I immediately loosened my jaws and ran my tongue over my molars, apologizing to them for the possible harm.
Needing another escape outlet, I glanced down at my fingernails. I didn’t see any dirt or gunk under them but picked them clean anyway. “Why do you say Holy Hosanna?” I muttered, hoping that’d be a sufficient change of subject. And honestly, I had always wondered. She said it more than I said “honestly”, which the nerd herd teased was my special catch phrase.
Bridget gave a half shrug, lifting her camera to focus on number forty-two through her lens. “’Cause.” She sounded distracted as she concentrated on her task. “It’s like cussing, but not. You know.” She shrugged again. “My dad doesn’t freak if I say Holy Hosanna.”
I cast a brief glance across the court only to see him sitting on the bleachers with his team. Not paying any attention to where his coach knelt in front of the group, avidly talking with his hands and pointing at a clipboard on the floor to give last minute instructions before the game, Ryder Yates turned his head my way.
I whipped my attention back to my friend and cleared my throat. “But technically, isn’t it still taking the Lord’s name in vain?” Her dad was a preacher and didn’t approve of commandment breakage. He’d probably prefer to hear a real curse word than someone deriding God.
Bridget lowered her camera with a dramatic sigh and a roll of the eyes. She swiveled her head to send me a dry stare. I swear, no one held a stare like her. She could get her meaning across on facial expression alone. If I were Bridget, I don’t think I’d ever speak. I’d just look, and people would know.
“I just say it. Okay? Holy Hosanna. I’ve always said it. Why are you taking issue now?”
I gave my own half-hearted lift of the shoulders. If I told her the truth—I was trying to divert her attention away from Mr. Still-couldn’t-take-his-green-eyes-off-me—she’d read too much into my answer and realize how truly traumatizing this was for me. Best friends sucked that way sometimes. It was nearly impossible for a girl to keep anything to herself with such a close companion like Bridge.
