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“Oh, yeah. Nothing I’d rather do than spend more time with you,” A
“No, no, no, no, no.” Faith shook her head facetiously. “I will be on stage under the spotlights. The stage crew stays back behind the curtains, in the dark, where they belong.”
I was surprised when A
The whistle blew and the guys jogged back out to the field. A
“I gotta say, Chloe looks unreasonably hot for someone in her delicate condition,” she said casually.
I choked on my own saliva. Sha
“Her what?” Sha
“Chloe’s not … you don’t mean she’s …” Faith watched from the corner of her eye as Chloe went back to the sideline with the other backslappers to cheer on the team. For the first time, I thought her butt looked maybe a teeny bit wide in her denim shorts. “She’s pregnant?”
“Omigod. That’s why she scarfed that entire bacon cheeseburger yesterday!” Sha
A
I dropped my head into my hands. There was a crushed Wendy’s cup in the dirt below the bleachers, Wendy’s face mashed down the middle so that her eyes had combined to make one big Cyclops eye.
“How do you know?” Sha
“Ally? A little help here?” A
Their heads swiveled slowly to look at me. So slowly I could practically hear their neck bones creaking.
“Ally? What the hell is going on?” Sha
“A
“What?” they screeched in unison.
Now everyone in the bleachers was watching us, either intrigued or a
“Can we just keep it down, please?” I said through my teeth.
“No. No way.” Sha
Out on the field, Hammond slammed into Jake’s side as if he was blocking out the other team.
“Well, at least one of us is trying,” I said, lifting my chin toward the action.
Hammond stuck out his leg, tripped Jake, then shoved him with both hands into the dirt. The ref blew the whistle, but then looked around, confused. Could he red card a player for fouling a member of his own team? Instead, Coach Martz shouted for Hammond to come out and replaced him with my friend David Drake.
“Yeah! Go, David!” I shouted at the top of my lungs, mostly because the i
“What’s she going to do?” Faith was so pale I was actually a little concerned she might faint. “She’s not going to have an abortion, is she?”
“I love how you only turn religious when babies come into the picture,” Sha
“You guys, it’s none of our business, so can we just drop it?” I blurted. The last thing I wanted to admit here was that I had no idea what Jake and Chloe pla
She lifted her black-clad shoulders. “Sorry. I figured they knew by now.”
I sighed and shook my head, feeling suddenly exhausted. Jake was going to be so mad when he found out Faith and Sha
“Is he okay?” Sha
My heart was heavy as I tried to sit up straight. “Not exactly. He’s gone into complete zombie mode the past week. He barely eats, I don’t think he sleeps, he hasn’t been studying, and he’s skipped a couple of practices…. There are scouts coming next week, people he invited, and if he doesn’t pull it together, he’s screwed.” I swallowed hard and looked over at Sha
“Have you talked to him?” Sha
“Of course. But I can only give so many pep talks before I start sounding like my mother, and that is not attractive,” I said with a pathetic smile.
Sha
“We have to tell Chloe we know,” Faith said quietly. “She has to know we’re here for her.”
“We’ll talk to her after the game,” Sha
Faith pouted her lips and crossed her arms over her eyelet tank top. “Fine. I promise.”
I sighed and turned my attention back to the game. I supposed I was going to have to tell Jake they knew. That conversation was going to be a real laugh and a half. Note to self: There’s a reason why you never get your Crestie friends and your Norm friends together in the same place. Nothing good ever comes of it.
jake
“I can’t believe you told A
“Shhhh!” She closed her door quietly and faced me. “I’m sorry, but I had to talk to someone. After Co
I stared at her. We both knew how lame that was. “And now Faith and Sha
God, Chloe was going to kill me. No, she was going to torture me, then kill me. And then probably torture me some more. I sat down on the edge of Ally’s bed, my palms sweating like crazy. First we lose the game because Hammond’s too busy putting the beatdown on me to bother trying to score, and now this.
“Well, they were going to find out eventually, right?” Ally said.
“Not necessarily,” I said quietly.
There was a long moment of silence. I could hear Ally breathing.
“What do you mean? Is she … I mean, are you guys go
“No. I don’t know.” I pressed my fingertips into my eye sockets so hard I thought I might pop the suckers out and into my skull. “I have no idea what she’s go
Ally sat down next to me carefully. Like I was a piece of glass and she was afraid to knock me over onto the floor. “You guys haven’t talked about it?”
“Oh, we’ve talked about it,” I said, flopping onto my back, making her bounce. “We just haven’t decided anything. Every time it comes to deciding anything, we choke.”