Aftershocks (9 page)

“I’m a-dorable,” I said, grinning up at him.

“Yeah, you are,” he said, and I felt something stir inside me, wondering what he meant by that comment, but before I could read into it further he said it was his turn.

We stopped in front of my rental car. I’d noticed Connor was also driving a rental the day before, having finaly taken his Mustang in to fix the damage. I leaned against the trunk of my loaner white Ford Focus, and he leaned next to me.

“My parents are divorced,” he said, and I nodded.

“That sucks,” I said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” he said, but didn’t expand on his statement.

“What do you mean?” I asked, angling my body toward him.

He shook his head. “Nope, only one revelation per day,” he said, then clapped his hands together. “Now, you said you know about footbal.”

“I know enough,” I said, trying to push out the desire to know more about him versus a sport I had little interest in. Now that he’d opened up to me, I wanted to learn as much as I could about him, but it seemed he’d left that topic far behind.

He raised his eyebrows at me. “Oh yeah? You think you know enough about footbal?”

“Yes,” I said defiantly.

“Okay, so tel me. When you score a touchdown, how many points do you earn?”

Oh, I knew that. I’d at least paid attention to the score when the cheering started.

I smiled confidently. “Seven.”

“Errrrrr,” he said, making a sound like a buzzer on a game show.

“No way,” I protested. “I know that’s right.”

He chuckled and shook his head. “God, you’re uneducated. It is six points, and if you kick the extra point, then you get another point, unless you got for two and make it.”

My brain hurt from what he’d just said. I stared at him with a confused look on my face.

“Did your Dad not teach you this?” he asked.

I roled my eyes at his exuberance. “I have an older brother,” I said. “He got al the sports knowledge. I learned how to bake cookies.”

Connor clutched his hand to his heart. “Aww, you’re kiling me!”

“What? Cookies are good. Besides, I’ve been to enough of Aaron’s basketbal games over the years to know about that sport. Two points. Three points. I get it.” I mock shot a basketbal toward the center of the parking lot. “Nothin’ but net!”

Connor laughed uproariously at me. “Okay, you win. You are a-dorable.”

I flashed him a cheesy grin, and he smirked right back at me, giving me what I’d come to know as his trademark crooked smile that was just downright sexy.

“Fine then,” I said. “You win too. You can teach me about footbal.

“That’s the spirit,” he said. “You’re gonna love it.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, aiming for disinterest when actualy I was thriled to be spending more time with him.

“Ah, then educate you I wil,” he said in a voice that made him sound like he’d swalowed helium.

I gave him a look that said I thought he was crazy. “Okay, Yoda,” I said, as I unlocked my car door.

“Nice. Most girls wouldn’t get that reference.”

“I’m not most girls,” I said, shrugging once.

“No, you’re definitely not,” he said, giving me pause. “Anyway I’m parked down there, so I’l see you back at your house?” He gestured to his blue Kia Rio rental that was parked a few rows over. There were very few cars left in the parking lot, as we had been standing by mine talking while most everyone else had left school.

“Sounds good to me.” I opened my door and threw my bag on the passenger seat.

As I watched Connor unlock his driver-side door, I realized I’d gotten much luckier in the rental car department. Maybe that would teach him to be more careful when he drove in the future.

At home he parked behind me and went around to his trunk to retrieve a footbal. He tossed it to me as he got closer to where I stood by my car, but it caught me off-guard, and I hit it away with my palm like it was an insect.

He laughed at me and went to retrieve it from the street where it had landed. “Catch it. I promise it won’t bite,” he caled over his shoulder, his teasing grin lingering for a minute.

As we walked to my backyard, he tossed the bal in the air and caught it several times. “If this goes wel, you might actualy know what’s going on at the game tonight,” he said, and it took me a minute to remember that our school had a game that night. “Do you want to go together?”

I didn’t respond right away. I’d been watching him as he’d thrown the footbal at our back fence and retrieved it from where it had landed on the grass and his question caught me by surprise.

“I’m not going to the game,” I said, putting my hands out, so he could toss me the bal.

I used to go to the games with me when Wyatt played, but when everything happened, he’d sort of quit mid-season, and I hadn’t been to a game since.

“Why not?” Connor asked. He threw the bal to me softly. I caught it and didn’t drop it, proud that I’d accomplished that much.

“I just don’t feel like it,” I said, not wanting to explain my reasons.

“That’s lame. You should go. We can go together. Lex wil be cheering, so I’l need someone to hang out with.”

“Uh, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, wondering how Alexis would react to me going to the game with her boyfriend. I was pretty sure she didn’t know how much he’d spent with me that week.

“Why not?”

“Wel, for starters, your girlfriend would hate it.”

“Eh, she’l get over it,” he said, dismissing my concern with a wave of his hand, and I knew in that moment that he didn’t have a clue how much Alexis despised me or he would have known how us simply hanging out would make her feel.

“Trust me. She won’t. She definitely wasn’t excited when she saw us together at lunch on Monday. Does she know how much time we’ve spent hanging out this week – that we’re friends?”

“Wel, first of al,” Connor said, a definite edge to his voice, “she doesn’t own me, and second of al, she doesn’t get to decide who I can be friends with. No, I haven’t told her that we’ve been hanging out, because I know it would start a fight, so I’ve been avoiding the subject, but I wil tel her. I’m not going to hide from her. Besides, what do you care? You said you guys aren’t friends.”

I caught the bal as I heard his words and threw it back as hard as I could, pretty certain I looked like an idiot as I did so, but I wanted to make a point.

“We may not be friends, but I’m also not in the habit of pissing her off.”

I’d done that a few times the year before and the results had been less than positive. Alexis was vengeful and territorial. She’d strike back against me if she felt I’d wronged her, and I had no desire to be on the receiving end of her wrath. I’d done that too many times.

“Didn’t seem that way on Monday,” Connor said, throwing the bal back at me. “Try to throw it in a spiral this time, no more of this underhand stuff.”

Ignoring him, as he tried to coach me like he coached Jordan, I threw the bal back to him underhand. “Alexis and I have some history, that’s al. It was wrong of me to bring it up. It’s in the past, and it needs to stay there. Either way, I don’t think I’m going to the game,” I said, crossing my arms in front of me after I released the bal.

“Okay, suit yourself, but you might change your mind after you see what I have in store for you,” he said, as he caught my easy lob.

“We’l see.” I said it to appease him, but I didn’t think he could change my mind.

That afternoon Connor taught me al he knew about footbal – which was everything. He spent ten minutes explaining the rules and techniques before he let me hold the bal again. Then, once I had it in my hands, he instructed me to grip it like he’d shown me. Of course I did it wrong, so he put his hands on top of mine and moved them to the correct position. I liked that part of the lesson. He then told me to pretend like I was going to throw the bal, but not to actualy throw it.

He cringed as I leaned back, brought my arm behind my head and flung it forward.

“What? Was that wrong?”

“On so many levels,” he said, laughing.

“I know. I throw like a girl.”

He thought for a minute but didn’t play into my self-deprecation. “Okay, we’re going to go about this differently. Stand over there.” He motioned to the fence behind me. I did what he said and stood within a foot of the fence.

He shook his head. “Give yourself a little more room – about five feet.” I walked a few paces forward before he held his hand up for me to stop. “Okay, now throw the bal to me.”

He was standing about fifteen feet from me. Was he serious? He wanted me to actualy throw the bal and make it go that far? No way.

He saw that I wasn’t moving. “Come on, just have fun with it. Toss it to me. Here, I’l move up for you.” He cut the distance between us in half.

I threw the bal to him, albeit sloppily, but surprisingly it reached him. “Yea!” I cheered, jumping up and clapping my hands together.

“Good job,” he said. “Now, al you have to do is catch it when I throw it back.” He raised his eyebrows at me a few times, teasing me.

I stopped jumping and cheering. I didn’t like the sound of that. He tossed it to me lightly, and I cradled it in my arms.

“Nice job,” he said, looking like a proud coach as he grinned at me from across the yard.

We kept going until he felt I had enough confidence to learn something else. Then he showed me how to hike the bal, throw a spiral pass and catch the bal the right way by putting my thumbs and pointer fingers together to make a triangle. For the first twenty or so tries, I either puled my hands apart and let the bal smack my palms which hurt – the footbal was hard – or let it fly by me completely. One time, it even smacked me in the head, which was about as fun as it sounds. Connor laughed so hard he almost fel on the ground. I gave him a dirty look but couldn’t help laughing myself when I imagined what it had looked like from his perspective.

After two hours I had finaly gotten the basic concepts down. I could now throw a semi-spiral about twenty feet. I stil threw like girl, but it worked, so I wasn’t going to change it. I could also catch the bal fifty percent of the time and could hike it pretty good. The best part was when he showed me how to spike the bal after running it into the end zone. I was good at that.

When it was time for him to leave, I tossed the bal back in his direction, but he tossed it back to me quickly – so quickly that I almost missed it.

“Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got another one at home.”

“Okay, what should I do with it?”

“Practice, of course.”

“Yes, because I have so many friends who play footbal,” I said sarcasticaly.

“You have me,” he said with a smile. “I’l toss the bal around with you anytime.”

I liked that idea – a lot. “I might just hold you to that.”

“You’d better,” he said, flashing me that wide smile of his that I had grown to love – even more than his sexy smirk.

He was flirting again. Okay, I’l admit – I liked it. I’m human.

“Okay, I’m off. I’ve got to get Jordan. Are you sure you won’t come to the game with me? You’re a pro now. It’l be a great way to test what you’ve learned.”

I thought about it for a minute, knowing we were about to embark on a slippery slope. He was flirty, I was flirty. If the flirting continued or escalated, someone would get hurt, and I figured it would probably be me. But I didn’t want to dwel on that. I just pushed the thought to the back of my mind where it could stay.

“Okay, you talked me into it,” I said, giving in against my better judgment.

“Great! I’m glad. Now I won’t have to walk around alone.”

“Oh, I get it. You just want me there, so you don’t look like a loser,” I teased even though I was secretly flattered by his invite.

“You got me. No, seriously, it’l be more fun with you there.”

Okay, that was sweet.

“I’m good with that,” I said, smiling at him.

“I’l come over in an hour, and we’l ride together.” He gave me a slight wave as he walked back to his car. I watched him walk away, hoping the hour would pass quickly.

Chapter
8

My Mom poked her head in my room as I was changing for the game. “Hi sweetie. How was your day?”

“It was good. How was yours?” I responded, as I looked back at my closet wiling something to jump out at me. I wasn’t quite sure why I was obsessing over my outfit. It wasn’t like I was going on a date.

“It was tiring,” she said, sitting down on my bed. “I’m thinking of ordering Chinese food and watching a movie tonight. Your dad’s working late. Are you interested in hanging out with me?”

I suddenly felt bad. I didn’t want her to be alone, but I wanted to go to the game with Connor. I gave her a guilty look. “Actualy, I’m going to go to the footbal game at school tonight. I’m realy sorry.”

“Oh, don’t be sorry,” she said. “That sounds like fun. Are you going with Luke?”

“No, I’m going with my friend Connor,” I said, as I reached to the top shelf of my closet trying to find the J Brand jeans I’d bought over the summer when my mom and I had gone shopping in Boston.

“I haven’t met him, have I?” she asked, her eyes appraising me.

“No, you haven’t. He’s new in town.”

“Is his last name Richmond?”

I nodded. “Yeah, how did you know?”

“I was working last weekend when his brother came in,” she said, shaking her head. My mom was an ER nurse at the hospital. “Such nice boys. I spent some time talking with Connor while Dr. Thomas checked out his brother.”

“Where were his parents?” I asked, wondering if my mom knew more about Connor than I did. She might know why Connor was racing to the hospital on a Sunday morning instead of his parents since he had yet to tel me.

“Their father was out of town,” she said. “I guess he works a lot. He was on his way to LA for business when Jordan got hurt, so Connor dealt with it. I got the impression that Connor helps out a lot at home.”

I was riveted. I’d learned more about Connor’s family in that minute than in the entire week we’d known each other.

“What about their mother?” I asked, prying for more details.

She shrugged. “I didn’t see a mother listed on their insurance. It was just the father and the two boys.”