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“I think I have that right as the loser,” he replied. He yanked the puck out of the slot and placed it on the table as I clicked my scorekeeper down to zero-zero. “Here we go.”
I held my paddle on the table, feeling the tickle of the air under my arm. I was totally on my game tonight. David was going down. Poor dude had no idea.
Behind him I saw a couple of pairs of legs coming down the basement stairs. The second David hit the puck, the first person arrived in the doorway. It was Jake Graydon. What. The eff. Was he doing here?
“Yes! One nothing!” David shouted.
Half the crowd cheered. As David turned to high-five with a couple of the guys, I tore my eyes away from Jake. Sure enough, the red puck was sitting in the slot right in front of me. Jake smirked at me. I narrowed my eyes. Thanks a lot, buddy.
Did he not know that this was a Norm party? Didn’t he have somewhere more Crestie to be? Somewhere fabulous and expensive where he could be surrounded by a hundred drunk hotties to choose from?
We hadn’t spoken once since our basketball game in the rain, and part of me had started to feel that the Jake chapter of my life—short as it was—was officially over. That I’d only be seeing him from afar for the rest of my life. And I was fine with that. I was. Because I had David. And in the past few weeks we’d been hanging out together a lot. And kissing a lot. And I was even getting used to it. It was . . . nice.
But now here Jake was, and instantly the Jakesession was back full force. The entire atmosphere of the party changed with him in the room. The air actually thickened and sizzled. No one could tear their eyes from him.
Or maybe that was just me.
I took the puck out of the slot and placed it on the table. “Lucky shot.”
“Yeah, yeah. More like the begi
Slowly, Jake slid behind David over to the wall at the side of the table. I wished he would just go away. Go find some freshman to scam on or get himself a beer and a spot on the couch.
But he didn’t. A couple of the guys made room for him, and he leaned back against the wall to watch. He was wearing a black sweater with a half-zip and a high collar that just about grazed his perfect cheekbones. And he was staring at me with those light blue eyes. I felt as if my blood were thi
“What’re you, scared?” David taunted, oblivious.
I looked at him. My boyfriend. David Drake, my boyfriend. Adorable David in his Adidas hoodie who had just last night selflessly saved me from alone time with my potential step-family. What was wrong with me?
Taking a deep breath, I leaned into the table.
Jake is not here. Jake is not here.
“Go, Ally!” Jake cheered.
I slammed the puck. It ricocheted right off the far wall and zoomed into my goal without David ever touching it. Laughter and cheers filled the room. My face burned. This was going to be a very short game.
When I made my first goal, Jake slow-clapped for me. When David scored three in a row, he put his fingertips at the corners of his mouth and made a little sad-clown face. When I was down three to fourteen and about to lose, he simply stood there, smiling and shaking his head.
And as a
“Game point,” David a
I decided at that moment to do something I’d never done before in my life: let someone win. Considering I’d spent the past fifteen minutes obsessing not about him but about the guy silently mocking me from the sidelines, I figured he deserved it. Besides, chances were he was going to win anyway. I was just putting myself out of my misery.
He hit the puck. It went wide. I sent it back, right to him. He slammed it off the sidewall, and it sailed into my goal.
“Yes! That’s game!” David said, double high-fiving anyone who’d reciprocate. “All right. One more.”
I didn’t think I could take one more game. I dropped my paddle onto the table. “How about we just call it a tie?” I said.
“Oh, come on! You’re just scared I’ll beat you,” David replied.
“No. I’m just scared I’ll beat you and your fragile male ego will never recover,” I replied.
A bunch of people responded to that one, but David placed his paddle down and raised his hands in surrender.
“All right, all right. I’ll take the tie.”
We walked around the table and met in the middle, about two feet from where Jake was standing.
“Good game,” David said, putting his arms around me.
I felt hot and conspicuous all of a sudden. Jake’s gaze burned a complete hole in my cheek. “Good game,” I replied.
Then David leaned in to kiss me, and everyone awwwed and jeered.
“Get a room!” someone shouted, earning a round of laughter.
When I pulled away, David gave me a hug and I rested my chin on his shoulder. Jake was right there, staring into my eyes. My heart tap-danced like mad. He smiled at me, shaking his head. I wasn’t even sure what the joke was, but I finally let myself smile back.
Kissing and hugging one boy, smiling behind his back at another.
This was very not me.
december
Ally Ryan is coming to Sunday di
No.
I swear. I was at Song’s getting my mani-pedi, and Faith
and Chloe were there and they could not stop
talking about it.
But how? Norms never get invited to Sunday di
I heard her mom is dating Dr. Nathanson.
Qui
Wow. Looks like Mrs. Ryan is trying to claw her way
back up the social ladder.
Like mother like daughter.
What do you mean?
I heard Ally Ryan was totally flirting with Jake Graydon
at some Norm party over Thanksgiving.
No way. Isn’t she going out with that David Drake person?
Yeah, but why drink the milk when you can get
the crème de la crème?
There is no way those girls are going to let that happen.
I don’t know. She is Ally Ryan.
What does that mean?
Somehow that girl always gets what she wants.
ally
It was weird, being back in Chloe’s house. Aside from the fact that pretty much everyone in the library was staring at me or whispering about me, not one detail had changed. The antique velvet chaise we used to get yelled at for climbing on still sat in the corner beneath the green glass reading lamp. There were fresh flowers on every table—red and white poinsettias, just like every other December. The leather couches at the center of the room still looked like they’d just been reupholstered, and the same five coffee table books were displayed on the table between them: Victorian Homes of San Francisco, The Art of Georgia O’Keeffe, Covered Bridges of Massachusetts, The Life of Paul Newman, and The True Story of the Titanic. I could still remember the day we’d flipped through that last one fifty times, page by page, looking for a photo of Kate Winslet and being thoroughly baffled when there wasn’t one.
On the other side of the room, next to the twin study desks, Jake was talking to Hammond, both of them keeping their eyes on the crowd. Suddenly I caught his eye, and he tilted his head in an almost imperceptible nod. My body temperature skyrocketed to nuclear levels. I turned around and studied the spines of the books, pretending not to notice him. My phone beeped, and I fished it out of my clutch purse. It was a text from A