And … and …
I score.
I actually make a goal.
A whistle blows. Rough hands seize me and yank me into the air. Still dazed, I realize that most of the team has lifted me off the ground and is carrying me down the field, toward the sidelines. The coach is waving his hat around in the air.
“We won!” someone yells.
“You did it!” Vic, the only other player who’s name I actually know, yells in my face.
I did?
It takes me a bit to come back to reality, but I realize that, somehow, I won the game with that interception. Me. I did that. Apparently, I was we’d been losing a bit because Heath wasn’t there, and he’s our star player. But because of me, we won.
Because of me. Now I’ll never be able to get out of playing lacrosse.
That thought is still not enough to dampen the heady rush that’s left me floating over the crowd as it converges onto the field.
A lot of the teams’ girlfriends come down to see them before we pack up and head back to the locker room; which means Olive comes sauntering down while the girl I’ve named Becky attaches herself to Beck like some sort of suckerfish on the bottom of a shark.
But Olive doesn’t run up to congratulate Jasper. Instead, she walks straight up to me.
“Hey, Alex,” she says, “I didn’t know you were actually good.”
There’s no hint in her voice of the cattiness that has been her signature way of addressing me ever since break, so it takes me a minute of blinking stupidly at her before I reply.
“I mean …” I let out a little breath, glancing back over at the field, “me neither.”
She laughs. It’s different from her mocking laughter the other day. This is low, almost sultry. And I didn’t even say anything funny.
Oh, shit. This is flirting.
“Well, you’ve certainly improved.”
“Amazing what you can do when your ribs don’t hurt,” I say with a shrug. She giggles, and for the first time I wonder if Rafael was actually right. Maybe she actually has developed some sort of crush on me just because I’m not interested in her.
Girls are weird, but I’m not one to talk. I’m a girl, after all, and I’m about as weird as it gets … especially where crushes are concerned.
Speaking of crushes …
Jasper squeezes between two other players to get to us and reaches out to wrap an arm around Olive’s waist, but she steps just out of his reach. He scowls.
“What’s going on here?” he asks darkly.
“Olive and I are just talking,” I reply, taking a step away and keeping my voice cool.
“Yeah,” she says to him. “Calm down.” Olive tries to take Jasper by the arm, but she shrugs her away and stalks off.
Fuck. This isn’t going to be the last I hear of this.
I try to slip away, but Olive isn’t going to let me go as easily as she did Jasper, apparently. She steps in my way and bats her long lashes in my direction.
“He really can be such an ass, you know,” she says. She glances once over her shoulder, then leans a little closer. “Unlike you.”
I find myself floundering for words, but fortunately, Olive doesn’t seem to expect a response. She just grabs my hand, scrawls her phone number across it—as if she hasn’t sent it to me a dozen times already—and then winks at me once.
She smiles and walks away while I tuck my helmet under my arm and head off toward the locker rooms as fast as I can, leaving the guys and girls attached at their hips behind. Jasper’s cleared out, thankfully, so I can change in peace—but Heath is nowhere to be found. His gear’s gone, too.