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Immediately, his face clouded with annoyance. “I’ll be glad when you’re done with that bullshit.”
“One more season,” I told him as he got out of my car.
“Good. After the last game, I’ll be the only person to see you in your underwear. You’ll be naked for me alone, for the rest of your life. Forever.”
“We don’t wear underwear on the field,” I said as he closed the door but I smiled to show that I wasn’t arguing, only joking. But my mind stuck on something else he’d said: “for the rest of your life. Forever.” I was thinking so hard about those words that I wended out of the long Woodsmen Stadium drive and reached the main road without really realizing what I was doing. Then I made myself pay attention, because the last thing we needed was another car accident.
The rest of my life was a long time. Ward and I had already been together for six years, but the rest of my life was maybe sixty more than that. Ten times as long, in other words.
I thought back to when we’d met, back when I’d just started my sophomore year in high school. Ward had graduated the year before but was still hanging around sometimes, because a lot of his friends were younger. They’d all been in the most popular group of guys, kind of a fratty bunch that played some sports but mostly just liked to party. He hadn’t gone on to college like some other kids in his class because he had a family business to join, the marina and boat rental service that his dad and mom owned. That was where he still worked, kind of. He did work there, I meant, but not as steadily as his parents would have liked.
They thought that his problems were because of his friends, a lot of the same guys he’d hung out with when I’d been a sophomore. He was still with them all the time and they were doing the same things they always did: playing cards, drinking beer, smoking weed, and getting into trouble. Except now, he was twenty-five instead of nineteen and those friends didn’t seem cool or interesting to me anymore. They were juvenile and silly and I didn’t want Ward to be influenced by them.
His mom and dad were willing to forgive that sometimes he came in late to their marina or sometimes forgot to show up at all, that sometimes he was surly to customers, that he messed up on contracts and billing because he didn’t pay close attention. “I’m sure he’ll settle down,” his mom had told me. Unlike his grandma, his parents liked me a lot and I felt the same way about them. They had a great marriage and worked really hard to make their business a success. I admired them as role models for us. “Ward just needs to grow up a little,” his mother Valerie liked to say. “We’re so glad he has you to help him, Sissy.”
I was also glad that I could help him. I really was, honestly. I’d met him when I’d been a dumb kid but somehow, Ward had liked me anyway. He’d been popular and outgoing while I’d been quiet and shy, and although I had some friends and was a cheerleader, I definitely wasn’t the kind of girl that someone like him would have gone after. After six years of being together, I still wasn’t quite sure why he had.
Instead of getting lost in thought about it all, though, I kept my attention on my driving. No more accidents.
When I turned onto the sandy road that led to our cottage, I saw that my dad’s car was gone from the driveway and my stomach lurched. He wasn’t scheduled to work today. He was supposed to be home tonight and now I had no idea where he was. He refused to let me track him the way that Ward did to me and since I knew how that monitoring felt, I hadn’t insisted.
I should have. I went into the house to count the cans in the refrigerator but that meant nothing. It was a free country and he had money, because I didn’t keep a grip on his bank account, either. He could have headed to any gas station or grocery store and bought whatever he wanted. I stood for a moment, looking at the silver cans, and then I went back out on the road. I drove by some of his usual haunts but I didn’t see him or his old car anywhere. He didn’t respond to my texts and my calls dumped directly into his voicemail, which was already full.
I gave up. Wherever he was, he didn’t want to be found right now, so I unhappily turned back toward home to get into the shower. I spent a while singing under the hot water and trying to cheer up, but I didn’t want to run up the utility bills so I didn’t take as long as I wanted to, and I still didn’t feel warm or cheered when I got out. I layered on clothes, some of mine and some of my sister’s hand-me-downs, and I decided that an ice pack for my foot and also something to eat might help my mood. I hadn’t bought any food at the stadium because Ward was right that the prices at the concession trucks were disgustingly high. The players got free meals served to them on Fan Day, but we cheerleaders didn’t—
I screamed as I rounded the corner into the living room.
Chapter 4
“Oh, damn! You didn’t hear me?”
I clasped my hands on my chest so that my heart wouldn’t escape from it. “Hear you?” I asked Garrett Bowman.
“You told me to let myself in the next time I came over. I did and I called, ‘Hey there, Lissa, I’m here!’ I heard the shower running but I thought I heard you answer me, too.”
“I was singing,” I said. My words still sounded breathless.
“You sing?”
“Not really. Not very well.” Our little bathroom had great acoustics, though. I released my hands but my heart remained behind my ribs.
“I’m sorry. Next time, I won’t come right in,” he assured me.
“I didn’t know you were coming at all.” My hands went next to my wet hair, which I hadn’t brushed out yet, and then to my face which I’d washed clean of all the makeup I’d worn for the Wonderwomen performance. Not that it mattered, but I looked terrible.
“I thought we had a date. No, not a date,” he quickly corrected. “We talked about meeting up after Fan Day so you could teach me some dance moves.”
We had said that, but I hadn’t actually expected him to follow through. “Oh. You were serious?”
“Kind of. I would like to be a better dancer so I don’t resemble a woolly mammoth every time I hit the floor.” He studied me. “You’re probably pretty tired. For me, the worst thing that can happen on Fan Day is hand cramps from all the signatures, but you worked your tail off.”
“Not really.” I took a spot on the opposite end of the couch, noticing how much closer I seemed to be to him than to any other person who I’d shared it with before. He was pretty mammoth in size. “We hardly did anything today compared to what we do in games. But I am tired,” I admitted. “I think it’s because it was the first time we were out for real and also the stress of it all with the wet stage and the girls falling.”
“You know, if we have poor field conditions, we can protest and not play. It doesn’t happen too often in the Confederation, but it can. The last time was about fifteen years ago in New York, when groundhogs took over the Garnets’ old field. It was like a clown show over there.”
“We didn’t have the option not to play. I mean, we didn’t have the option not to perform,” I corrected myself, and yawned. “Sam talked to his boss and that guy said we were a go.”
“Who’s his boss?”
