Crush Control (2 page)

But the movers hadn't arrived yet and the duffel bag filled with my more acceptable clothing was still jammed somewhere in the trunk of our Toyota, which was parked in our new driveway and overheated after the torturous twenty-nine hour trip. So it really wasn't a matter of choice as much as availability. Nonetheless, at that moment, standing in the park watching this beautiful boy, I could feel a spotlight shining down from the cloudless summer sky, highlighting me in my M&M T-shirt and announcing:
Alert! Alert! Dork approaching!

For a moment, I stood there behind the safety of an oversize shrub and watched him. He was tall and lanky, shooting hoops by himself and animatedly narrating his three-point shot like he was an NBA announcer.

“The audience waits in anticipation for his legendary half-court three-pointer,” he said, stopping to dribble the ball at the half-court mark. “He pauses, taking a moment to hear them cheer his name. Then he takes a step forward and a hush falls on the crowd. He shoots. . . .” He tossed the basketball up toward the goal. His wrist flexed in midair as the ball hit the backboard and swooshed through the net. “He makes it! The crowd goes wild! He just might be the most highly recruited high school senior the NBA has ever seen!” The hot guy turned toward his pretend audience and bowed. “Thank you! Thank you,” he said.

He walked over to the picnic table and took a swig from his Gatorade bottle. Then he used the back of his hand to toss his tousled golden brown hair off his forehead. He looked like he could climb onto a surfboard and ride the waves in a California-cute kind of way. Only he was landlocked, stuck playing basketball in this small, sweltering Georgia town, three hundred miles from the nearest ocean. He was completely gorgeous. Completely out of my league.

As he turned toward the shrub, I ducked. This hot guy might not give me a second glance, but I couldn't take the chance of him seeing me like this and forever thinking of me as the M&M girl. I turned to go—I had to dig my duffel bag out of the car and change before I could cause any real damage to my image—but as I did, there was an abrupt tug on the dog leash I was holding in my right hand.

“Sshh!” I said, squatting down to pet my Boston terrier, Oompa. He looked up at me with an irritated expression, the same one he'd worn since my mom and I deposited him into the backseat of our car two and a half days ago. Oompa turned his head in the direction of the hot guy and his ears stood up like two isosceles triangles.

“I know,” I whispered. “He's beautiful, right?”

Oompa eyed me and scrunched his face up, looking maybe a smidge jealous at seeing my attention directed elsewhere. Then, all at once, he bolted like a streak of lightning, yanking the leash out of my hand as he darted from our dirt path, across the small patch of grass, and onto the steaming cement basketball court—right towards the hot guy.

“Oompa, come back!” I whispered loudly. But I could do nothing but watch, panicking, as my dog began jumping up onto Hot Guy's leg. Hot Guy dropped the bottle of Gatorade in surprise. Neon yellow liquid pooled on the cement around his feet. “What the . . .?” he floundered. He looked down at Oompa and shook his leg gently.

Then, as I stood there, still hidden behind the large shrub, I watched in complete horror as Oompa velcroed his body to Hot Guy's leg—and began to bounce against it. My dog looked back at me with a smirk across his little dog face as if to say,
How dare you stick me in the car for two days, then lavish attention on someone else?

Oh my God, my dog is humping the leg of the hottest guy I've ever seen! What do I do?
I contemplated running away. But Oompa would never be able to find his way back to our new house. I would have to come out of hiding and coax my stupid dog off his leg.
I can't believe I worried about a stupid M&M T-shirt—because a dog humping your leg is absolutely the worst first impression ever! Ever!

Hot Guy shook his leg again and laughed. “Wrong gender, dude,” he said. “Wrong
species
.” He looked around in embarrassment to make sure no one was watching.

When the twenty-seven-pound barnacle didn't dislodge, he reached down and tried to manually break free. But Hot Guy's leg tripped on Oompa's leash that was tangled around his ankle. His Reebok slid in the pool of lemon-lime Gatorade, and all at once Hot Guy and Oompa skidded up into the air. They crashed onto the hard cement with a sickening thud.

“Oh no!” I darted from the safety of the bushes. “Are you okay?” I offered my hand to help him up. “I'm
so
sorry.”

He didn't take my hand but eased himself up off the ground, looking perplexed.

Oompa licked the excess Gatorade off his fur then looked up at me with provoking eyes as if to say,
I'm homesick, I'm carsick, and I'm very angry with you.

“Is that your dog?” Hot Guy asked sounding a little pissed.

“Um . . .” I looked down at Oompa. “Would you believe me if I said
no
?”

Hot Guy smiled a small smile and my stomach relaxed a bit. He shook his head. “Not likely.”

I laughed a little. “I am so sorry. He's all crazy.” I pointed to my temple and twirled my finger in a circle. “We just moved here. Like today. We've been in the car for an eternity and he's just a little disoriented.”
And please don't judge me by my M&M T-shirt and my humping dog.

“Oh yeah?” he asked, brushing his hair away from his eyes again. “Where did you move from?”

But before I could answer, my mouth gaped open. “Um, ah . . .” I pointed awkwardly toward his hip, where the waistband of his nylon shorts had a darkened red spot. “I think you're bleeding.”

He looked down and lifted up his shirt to reveal a scrape. “Oh,” he said. He walked back over to the picnic table and rummaged through a small backpack. He found a pocket-size package of Kleenex and pulled out a tissue. He began to wipe up the blood, clumsily reaching around his waist to clean the cut. But it was at the small of his back and hard for him to reach.

I stood there awkwardly.
Should I leave? Offer to help?
I watched him struggle. “Um, do you need some help?” I finally asked.

He looked at me then looked over his shoulder toward the cut as if assessing the probability of reaching it on his own. “Yeah, okay. Thanks,” he said. “There are tissues in my backpack.” He nodded over to his bag on the picnic table.

As I walked over and reached into his bag, I couldn't help but notice the contents: an iPod, two spiral-bound notebooks, a bottle of Germ-X, a PowerBar, and two bags of M&M's. I looked down at my T-shirt and smiled. Of course he was gorgeous; that was obvious. But how could I not be further enamored of a guy who had the forethought to pack tissues and Germ-X as well as chocolate? Preparation was a priority for me so to see a boy—a hot boy—who obviously valued this as well?
Swoon.

I walked toward him. He raised his shirt higher and bent slightly forward. I used the tissue to dab at his cut, trying hard not to burst into a fit of giggles because
oh my God, I'm like two inches from his butt! And who knew a back could be so sexy?
In all my seventeen years I'd never seen such a beautiful back.

“Thanks,” Hot Guy said as I continued to clean up the blood.

From a few feet away, Oompa let out a low growl. He watched my adoration with a snarl on his face; then he cocked his head, pinned his ears back, and smiled. He pushed off his hind legs and raced toward Hot Guy. He sprang through the air like a grasshopper and fastened himself onto Hot Guy's leg. AGAIN! Then he started to hump the poor guy, even faster this time.

“Oompa!” I scolded. “Get down!” I dropped the tissue and wrapped my hands around Oompa's fat belly and tried to pry him off. “I'm so sorry,” I apologized again. “He's all confused and upset by the move.” I attempted to loosen the viselike grip of his paws and kept talking, nervously. “When he got out of the car and didn't see his usual fire hydrant, he, like,
freaked out
. He ran in circles and refused to pee. I need to find a vet—get him a dose of Prozac or something. He's not like some sex-crazed dog or anything. He's just mad at me.”
I did not just say
sex-crazed
to this hot guy!

So much for first impressions. I had to get out of there.

Hot Guy looked down at Oompa humping his calf. “I'm not sure I believe you,” he said, smiling uncomfortably as he shook his leg again. “Are you sure you don't have a small stash of dog-Prozac on you?” He looked a little desperate.

But Prozac was not what Oompa wanted. I knew that.

“Oompa!” I scolded, wanting to die. Oompa gave me a toothy snarl and kept right on going. And I knew I had no other choice. I knew there was only one way to get the dog to cooperate. And it wouldn't be pretty. It was even more humiliating than the M&M T-shirt—worse than a humping dog or wiping blood inches from a perfectly sculpted butt. But I had no other choice.

“Fine!” I growled back at the dog. I squatted down closer to him—and hopefully out of Hot Guy's earshot. I adopted my best throaty Cher voice and whisper-sang, “
Do you be-lieve in life after love?
”

Oompa stopped humping but remained attached to Hot Guy's leg. He cocked his head as if to say,
Louder, please.

I should have never even ventured into this park,
I thought miserably.
I should have let the dog roam the streets by himself.
I raised my voice an octave. “
I can feel something inside me say I really don't think you're strong enough, now.
”

And just like that, Oompa hopped down from Hot Guy's leg, walked over to the grass, and plopped down.

Hot Guy's forehead crinkled in confusion. He looked down at his leg then back and forth from me to Oompa in the grass, his head bobbing like he was watching a tennis match. “What just happened?”

Now I'm not, by nature, a liar. And
technically
, the words that came out next weren't entirely untrue. It was more like I concocted an imaginary bridge to steer the conversation. Because I knew that Hot Guy was either going to remember me as the dorky girl in an M&M T-shirt with a Cher-obsessed humping dog, or I could make a more worthy impression. I decided for the latter. So, rather than admit the truth—that Oompa was simply homesick for our Vegas apartment where our eccentric neighbor played a constant sound track of Cher—I chose a slightly more exciting version of reality.

“Oh,” I said, shooing my hand toward Oompa. “Back in Vegas, whenever Cher came to do a show, her dressing room was always next to mine.” I rolled my eyes as if to say,
The dog just loved to listen to her sing.
I casually shrugged and waited for his follow-up question. It came quickly.

“Did you
perform
in Vegas?” Hot Guy asked, intrigued. “Like, in a show?” His eyebrows raised high in anticipation.

“Yeah,” I said. “My mom and I had a hypnosis show—
The Hip Hypnotist
.” And this part wasn't a lie. Maybe I'd never met Cher, but I had helped my mom entertain Vegas tourists with hypnosis for the last six years.

“Wow,” Hot Guy said, sounding impressed. He smiled a relaxed, natural smile now that my dog was no longer accosting him. “That's cool.”

“Thanks,” I said, thinking that maybe this move could be my chance to finally stand out from the shadow of my beautiful mother—to finally have my own story to tell, not just be her sidekick.

Plus, now that we were back in Georgia, I could be around Max again. “I used to live here,” I said to the hot guy. “Like a million years ago. I'm still really good friends with Max Montgomery?” Mom insisted that everyone knew everyone in this town, but that was hard for me to remember or even imagine after living in a place where people were as transient as the wind.

But Hot Guy nodded with recognition. “I know Max,” he said. “He's cool. A black belt in karate and a kick-ass drummer.”

I smiled and nodded too. “Max and I have kept in touch since I moved eight years ago. It'll be nice to hear the drums banging in person instead of over the phone. I haven't even called him yet because”—I gestured to my two-straight-days-in-the-car outfit—“we
just
got here.”

Hot Guy nodded. His golden hair fell over his eyes. He casually swept it to the side in one quick motion. “So, are you a senior, then? Will you be at Worthington High on Monday?”

I nodded. “Yup. Mom's grand plans to reinvent her life couldn't wait one more year to let me graduate with my friends.” I tried to sound irritated, like I just left the best life. I couldn't admit the reality—that I kind of embraced the opportunity to reinvent myself. Of course, my reinvention plan never included a first impression like this.

Oompa waddled over and rubbed his head against my leg in an attempt to apologize. I bent down and picked him up. “It's okay,” I said, kissing his head. “It's a big change.”

Hot Guy walked closer to me and stroked Oompa's head. Then he looked up at my eyes. “Whoa,” he said, and I knew what would come next. “Your eyes—they're wicked.”

Hmmm.
Wicked
was new. Usually it was
weird
or
strange
or
funky
or, if it was an adult and they were trying to be polite, they'd say,
Oh, how unique,
but I hadn't heard
wicked.
The color of my eyes is just plain hazel, but my pupils aren't round like those of a normal person, they have a strange keyhole shape. I was born with them that way, and my mother always tries to say it's special and distinctive, but if you look it up on the Internet it says it's an
abnormality
, and, let's face it, who wants to be unique if it's abnormal? It's so unfair.