Shut Out

But I was laughing now. I couldn’t help it—he just looked so abashed. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll be gentle.” The words slipped out of my mouth before I remembered that I was referencing our night over the summer—the night I was pretending never happened.

Cash chuckled and winked at me. “How do you know I don’t want it rough?”

Okay, that time it definitely wasn’t an accident.

But Cash walked away toward the bookshelves, leaving me with my eyes clenched shut in embarrassment. It wasn’t like I could tell him off for flirting with me when, admittedly, I’d kind of started it.

I grabbed a few children’s books and ran upstairs to shelve them, putting an entire floor between Cash and me. Unfortunately, less than ten minutes later, Je

“What are you doing?” she asked, raising an eyebrow at me.

“Nothing,” I said, pretending to re-alphabetize the shelf in front of me. “My job. Why?”

“That shelf is fine,” she said. “But Cash needs your help downstairs. I just checked in a bunch of books and I need you two to put them away.”

I sighed. I’d hoped to avoid him for the rest of the afternoon. I should have known it wouldn’t work.

I started to walk toward the stairs, but Je

“Yes?” I was hoping she would change her mind, assign me to do something away from Cash.

“Is, um… Is your brother picking you up tonight?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“No reason… Okay, what are you waiting for? Chop, chop. Cash is waiting for you.”

I rolled my eyes and kept walking. Oh, God, Je

Cash smiled at me when I reached the first floor. “Hey,” he said. “I’ve already piled the returned books here.” He gestured to the cart. “Now we just need to put them away.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything. It seemed like every time I opened my mouth around Cash, I said things I shouldn’t. I had a boyfriend, after all. One I really loved. I didn’t know what it was about Cash, either. I wasn’t normally the flirting type—far from it. And I didn’t even like him. Not anymore.

I also didn’t understand why he was working at the library with me right now. Didn’t he have soccer practice? Friends to hang out with? Other girls to reject?

“Why are you here?”

Crap. The words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. We’d just pushed the cart against the wall of the Fiction section, and I was crouched on the floor, staring up at Cash as he handed me a copy of It by Stephen King that needed to go on the bottom shelf.

“Huh?”

I bit my lip, taking the book and putting it on the shelf, making sure the spine was even with those around it. “I-I mean… Why are you working today? Don’t you have soccer practice or something?”

“Oh.” Cash laughed. It was a deep, mature laugh. Not like Randy’s loud, goofy cackle.

I shouldn’t have been comparing the two. God, I was a terrible girlfriend.

“Well,” Cash said, handing me another Stephen King book, “I do technically have practice, but I’ve talked to Coach Lukavics and he’s agreed to let me miss for work on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“Why?” I asked. “Don’t you need the practice? I’m not saying you’re bad and need practice—you’re good at soccer—I mean, when I’ve seen you play before, which was, like, once when I was passing by the field to get to the concession stand during a football game, so I didn’t see much, but…” I took a deep breath. I was a babbling idiot. I hated it. “I just meant, don’t you need to go to practice with the other guys?”

Cash gri

“I’m actually working here to help out my parents,” he said as I checked to make sure all of the books on the shelf before me were in the correct order. “My dad just got laid off, so we need a little more money around the house. My mom didn’t want me to, but I decided to get a job to help pay the bills and stuff until Dad can get work again.”

I looked up at him, surprised. “So the money you make here is going to your parents? Wait, sorry, that isn’t my business, I guess.”

“You’re fine,” he said, reaching down a hand. I took it reluctantly, and he pulled me to my feet. “But yeah, it will go to them. They’ll hate taking it from me, but it’s the least I can do to help. I don’t make much here—well, I guess you know that—but I plan to cash the checks and sneak the money into Mom’s purse every two weeks. She’ll find out I’m doing it, but money’s tight, so she can’t really afford to fight me.”

“God, Cash, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“It’s okay,” he assured me. “We all have tough times once in a while, right?”

“Yeah. You’re right.”

I couldn’t help but think of Logan. He’d given up going to grad school to come home and help take care of Dad and me after Mom died. And Cash was doing the same thing—giving up his time, his practice, to help out his family when they hadn’t even asked him to.

Suddenly I realized that my hand was still in his from when he’d pulled me to my feet a few seconds before. I jerked my arm away and stumbled backward, accidentally ramming my hip bone against the nearly empty cart of books. “Ouch! Damn it.” I rubbed my hip, hoping it wouldn’t bruise.

“You okay there?” Cash was staring at me, looking a little amused, with one eyebrow raised like he was about to laugh at me.

“I’m fine.”

“Careful,” he teased. “Those carts… They can be dangerous.”

“Ha, ha,” I mumbled. “All right. We should get back to work; we’re moving too slowly, and there will be other things to shelve soon.”

“Okay, Je

I buried my face in my hands. God, he was so right. I sounded just like her. “Ugh, sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he said, reaching around me to grab a John Grisham book off the cart. “To be honest, Lissa, there is no one I’d rather shelve with.”

Right, I thought. That’s some consolation there. He liked me enough to work with me but not enough to give me a real chance. Not enough to call me back.

We worked in silence as we put away the remaining sixteen—yes, I counted—books. No matter what I told myself, I knew I couldn’t hate Cash, especially now that I knew his reason for working here. The fact was, he was a good guy.

A good guy who just… didn’t want me the way I’d wanted him.

Even though I loved Randy and didn’t want to be with Cash anymore, I knew it would be a while before I completely got over his rejection. It was out of my control.

chapter ten

“Pass the popcorn over here, Chloe.”

“Keep your panties on. Let me get a handful first.”

“Is there any more Diet Coke?”

“Here you go…. Don’t you dare spill it on my rug, or my mother will kill me!”

Sixteen girls squeezed into Susan’s bedroom on Friday night after the Hamilton Panthers lost to the Oak Hill Tigers (I said my boyfriend was a quarterback, not that he was a good one). Sixteen girls in one bedroom—and believe it or not, that wasn’t even everyone who’d taken the oath. Ellen reported that she’d gotten all of the soccer players’ girlfriends to join the cause. But, as to be expected, a few girls couldn’t make the sleepover for various reasons.

But sixteen of us showed up, and that was more than enough to have me on edge. I found myself on the floor, in the corner of Susan’s room, with my knees pulled up to my chest, counting and recounting the girls, the tiles in the ceiling, the Lakers posters on Susan’s wall—anything just to relax a bit. But with everyone talking over one another and tossing pillows and carelessly passing around overflowing bowls of food, relaxation seemed pretty far out of the realm of possibility.