Chapter Twenty-five
Elena
Thingsweregoingwell.So smooth, I was coasting. It troubled me.
My therapist would have told me it was because I’d spent so much of my life looking for a fight—and finding it—I’d walked around with my dukes up, detonating at the slightest sign of being crossed or someone having something I felt I deserved.
There was no one to fight, not even the assholes in New Ventures. They’d left me alone all week for the most part—which might have had something to do with Lachlan escorting me to and from class.Orit could have been due to the fact that two of the boneheads had been placed on disciplinary probation and booted from the class for tampering with my chair. Either way, their absence made it a lot easier for me and Sal to get some meaningful work done for our startup project.
The last week of calm led me to my current need for storming. Luck would have it, it was Saturday night, and I was in the stands with Lachlan on one side of me and my cousin Pen on the other while her boyfriend, Gabe, tore up the soccer field. Helen and Theo were a couple rows down with Zadie and Amir. The whole gang was here. Rah, rah, rah.
Maybe I’d accepted Gabe in Pen’s life, but he was still my nemesis. A good-natured nemesis these days, but I was looking forward to sparring with him when the game was over.
Hopefully he’d lose.
I would never tell Pen I thought that. She knew I was thinking it, but we had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” agreement when it came to Gabe. And it wasn’t like I wanted him to get hurt or anything. Just…you know, knocked down a peg so he was grumpy enough to tangle with me.
Lachlan pulled me into his side. “He’s got major talent.”
I touched my forehead to his. “That is my nemesis you’re talking about. Watch it.”
The grin he gave me was indulgent, like I was this adorable little thing. “Tell me again what he did to become your nemesis.”
“He stole my cousin.” I drew a circle in the air in front of my face. “There’s nothing rational about my feelings toward Gabriel Fuller. I have grudgingly accepted his existence.”
Pen leaned around me. “She loves him. He loves her. They just won’t admit it. But they’re nice to each other because they love me.”
I shook my head adamantly. “That isn’t true. Stop spreading vicious lies.”
She tugged on my T-shirt. “You wearing Gabe’s number says otherwise.”
Lachlan swiped his thumb over my cheek. “And painting his school’s colors here.”
I would have covered my cheeks, but I didn’t want the stripes to smear. “Once a cheerleader, always a cheerleader. It means nothing.”
Pen smiled at Lachlan. “She loves him, but we can pretend we don’t know.”
Penelope and Lachlan had met in passing a time or two last year when she and Gabe had visited Helen and me, but this was their firstrealmeeting. My cousin was the opposite of me in a lot of ways—science minded and unfailingly kind, serious but friendly, Pen had never cared about popularity and the things that came with it. She did her thing, confident in who she was, not giving two shits about others’ opinions of her. She was more like Lachlan than me, and though there’d been a faint twinge of jealousy at their immediate camaraderie, I squashed it like a grotesque bug.
Something exciting happened on the field because everyone around me started screaming and standing. I hopped to my feet, zeroing in on Gabriel fucking Fuller flying down the grass like he was floating, winding around other players without so much as a stutter in his movements. His feet moved so fast, it should have been illegal. Come to think of it, it probably was. This was Gabe.
He made it to the goal, throttling the ball into the net. I guess it was impressive or whatever. I might havescreamed his name and clapped so hard my hands tingled. And maybe I hugged Penelope and told her her boyfriend had mad skills.
He was still my nemesis.
After the game, we met Gabe outside the locker room. He ran up the ramp, a madman grin on his face, and scooped Penelope into his arms. When he’d committed enough PDA to last a decade, he moved around the group, shaking hands with Amir, smiling at Zadie, and high-fiving Theo and Helen.
Gabe stopped by Lachlan and me. His curls were damp and wild. He needed a haircut.
I pumped my fist. “Good job, mister. You really showed that ball who’s best.”
He took my fist and bumped his against it. “Thanks for the enthusiasm, but you know, you don’t have to cheer so loud. I was a little embarrassed for you.”
“Oh no, those were screeches of horror at how terrible you look in blue. Can you convince your team to switch colors?” I took Lachlan’s hand in mine. “Also, this is my boyfriend, Lock. Be nice to him.”
Gabe and Lachlan shook hands and patted backs in that way guys seemed to come out of the womb knowing how to do.
“Nice game,” Lachlan said. “We spent at least half of it on our feet cheering.”