Above All Else (9 page)

chapter twenty-one

We learned a lot that day. First of all, Greg is about the worst keeper you can imagine. We also learned that you can lose and walk off a field with your head high.

And we really did lose, 4–1.

It was actually pretty embarrassing.

Jared had cleared out of the change room by the time the rest of us arrived. I'd felt totally alone as we walked off the field, but when the door closed behind us, Oz came over and put a hand on my back.

“You did the right thing, Del,” he said. “And you played a hell of a game too.”

“Thanks.”

Riley sat down beside me on the bench. “I bet Jared is pretty angry now.”

I shrugged. “Let him be. You okay about not winning?”

“I guess. Winning would have been better though.”

“But not that way.”

While we were outside waiting for the team bus to arrive, Kira pulled up and rolled the window down.

“Need a ride?” she said.

I looked at Riley. “I think she means you.”

“Sure,” he said. “Where's Elsa?”

Kira opened the passenger's-side door. “I don't know.”

Riley got in and closed his door.

“Wait a second,” I said. “Could you drop me off somewhere?”

“Sure,” Kira said. I slid into the back seat and waited for Kira and Riley to disengage their lips from one another.

I directed her to Beacon Hill Road and had her drop me at the path leading to the lifts.

“What are you going to do up here?” Riley asked.

“Think,” I said. He looked at me strangely. I bent down beside the window. “Sorry I ever thought it could have been you.” Riley put his fist out the window. I gave it a quick bump.

“No worries,” he said.

I stepped back from the door and Kira gunned it down the hill.

I passed Elsa's van in the parking lot and carried on to the lifts. Elsa was on the top chair, staring straight ahead at the city below. I could tell she'd noticed me coming.

“Hey,” I said when I got to her. “You want company?”

“Sure,” she said. “How did you know I would be here?”

“I was actually just really hoping,” I said as I hopped up. “Otherwise, it would be a long walk home.” She shifted slightly away from me, and what I had been suspecting cemented in my gut. “You have some thinking to do?”

“Yeah,” she said. She had only briefly looked at me and given me a very quick, very fake smile.

“Does he know?” I said.

“Who?”

“Doug.”

She looked at me then. “Know what?”

“That you like him?”

It seemed as if she was going to deny it but then changed her mind.

“No,” she said.

“So what was this all about?” I asked. “You and me.”

“I like you, Del,” she said. “That's what it was about. Just, I guess, not in the same way.” I thought about it for a moment, and it made sense. Elsa had been hell-bent on proving Doug's innocence since the beginning. But I doubted she was ever trying to use me.

“Okay,” I said. “I don't think he's really right for you anyway.”

“You don't even know him,” she said.

She would keep on thinking this, I figured. That she knew him better than anyone else. That she knew what he was
really
like. The same way Rom had convinced himself it couldn't have been Jared who took him out. The same way I had never wanted to believe it could possibly have been Riley.

“No, I guess not.”

She took a deep breath, then grabbed my hand and held it. It was getting dark enough that the city was beginning to blink with streetlights. We watched rows of them flash on in the distance. We stayed there a long time, not saying anything. Just watching the city switch from day to night.

“Hey,” she finally said. “Don't you owe me an ice cream?”

“Why?”

“From that night? The deal we had?”

“No way,” I said. “We were tied, if I remember correctly. Or maybe I was in the lead.” She squeezed my hand. “Rematch?”

“Deal.”

Jeff Ross is the author of four previous YA novels, all with Orca Book Publishers. He teaches scriptwriting and English at Algonquin College in Ottawa, where he lives with his wife and two kids. His previous books have been listed on the CCBC's Best Books for Teens and YALSA's Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Readers. His soccer skills have been in question since he was six, but sometimes determination is more important than skill. Right?

Acknowledgments

Thanks go out to Amy Collins for her incredible editing of this book. And to Elsa and Kira for loaning their names (but not their personalities—don't worry, girls).