Kate Christie (9 page)

When I hobbled out of the locker room, I found, to my astonishment, Jess Maxwell curled up on a couch in the lounge reading a textbook.

She glanced up. “Hey, Cam.”

“Hey.” I was too tired to feel more than a flicker of happiness at seeing her. “What are you doing here?”

“I was at the game. Coach gave us practice off today.” She closed her book, slid it into her athletic bag and stood up. “Are you okay?”

I ran a hand through my still-damp hair. “It’s just a bruise.

But thanks.”

“Do you need a ride?”

I hesitated. I could always pick up my car tomorrow. “You going to the student center?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, then. Thanks, Jess.”

“De nada.”

In the elevator she took my bag from me. I started to protest but thought better of it. My jock pride was misplaced now that I was temporarily disabled. We walked out to the car in silence.

By the time I’d maneuvered into the car, my foot was throbbing again.

“Good thing you saw this game,” I said. “The game where I manage to hurt myself breaking someone else’s leg.”

“I thought you played really well.” She put the key in the ignition but didn’t start the car. “You had the winning assist.

Beautiful Game 65

Everyone in the stands was saying how you guys could go all the way this year with you in back and Jamie Betz up front. When you and that woman collided at the end, mostly people were just scared you weren’t going to get up.”

We were still sitting in the parking lot, U2 rolling from the car stereo. Jess seemed so earnest. She was probably just being nice.“We didn’t collide. I took her out. You got to see someone carried off on a stretcher because of me, after all. Jamie’s right, I am a dirty player. Not…” I stopped. I’d been about to say,
Not
All-American material
.

Jess frowned, her brow furrowing. “I don’t believe you,” she said. “You wouldn’t do that.”

I shook my head again. “You don’t know.” The phrase reminded me of the words she had tossed out a few weeks before when I’d told her how talented she was. Did she remember, too?

She started the car. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her hesitate before shifting into reverse and backing out of the parking space. The sun was setting behind the hill, streaking the sky pink. Sometimes I thought it was odd that we lived our lives just out of sight of the Pacific. Sometimes I imagined I could hear it late at night, breakers storming the beach. But you couldn’t see the ocean from campus.

“What are you doing this Sunday?” Jess asked suddenly.

“I don’t know. Nothing. I think I have a paper due sometime next week. Maybe I’ll get started.”

She turned in to the student center parking lot. “You’re actually considering getting a paper done early?”

I had to smile. “Why, what are you doing Sunday?”

She shrugged and stopped the car near the door to the student center, letting the engine idle. “I was thinking of going down to Balboa Park for a bike ride.” She paused. “You interested in coming along? Assuming your foot is okay by then.”

Jess Maxwell, inviting me on an outing to the park? “A bike ride would probably be good for me.”

“Okay, then. We could meet at my place, say, eleven? If that’s not too early.”

“Eleven is perfect.” And all at once I felt better, now that I had 66 Kate Christie

something to look forward to. Maybe I’d even manage to forget about breaking that girl’s ankle. “Are you coming inside?”

She shook her head. “That’s Laura’s Trooper, right?” she said, nodding at the Isuzu parked a few feet away. This late, the student center lot was almost empty. Most people had finished dinner long before now. Including, apparently, Jess.

“Yeah, but didn’t you say you were on your way here?”

“I just said that so you’d let me drive you.”

Was she flirting with me? She couldn’t be. And if she was, I didn’t think I could handle it just then.

I grabbed my crutch and bag from the backseat. “Good luck Saturday. Kick some butt.”

“Same to you. Just don’t kick any more legs, okay?”

“I don’t think I’ll be kicking much of anything until Monday, at least.” I slid out of the car, pulling myself up with the crutch.

“Thanks for the ride.”

“No worries. See you Sunday.” She pulled the door closed after me and drove off.

I hobbled toward the student center where the soccer team always ate together after home games. Inside, Holly and Laura saw me coming and jumped up to get the door. Holly took my bag and they escorted me to the tables the team had pushed together.

“Look who’s here, everyone,” Laura said, her voice rising easily over the others. “Our very own gimp.”

They all started laughing and saying stuff. I tried not to blush.

“Everyone’s afraid of you now, Cam,” Jamie Betz said.

The other players went quiet, watching the two of us. It was no secret that she and I weren’t exactly friends.

I looked into her light blue eyes, trying to figure out what hidden meaning lay beneath her words. But I couldn’t detect even the slightest hostility there.

“Including my own body,” I said wryly.

“I see that.” She smiled, friendly in her sympathy.

Holly led me to an empty seat. “What do you want to eat?”

she asked. “I’ll grab it for you.”

I shrugged, feeling tired again as I sat down. “I don’t care.

Beautiful Game 67

Your choice. As long as it’s got the four food groups,” I added as she walked away. Holly sometimes picked food by color coordination rather than nutritional value. She just grinned over her shoulder at me.

Later that night, Holly walked me up to my room and stayed for a little while. We shared a bottle of Gatorade, one of the weekly dozen I bought and stored in my mini fridge, and lay on my bed talking.

“You know, this is the first time we’ve hung out like this in a while,” Holly said, leaning against the Indian print wall, pillow at her back.

“That’s ’cause you’re always with your girlfriend.”

I was tossing a tennis ball against the ceiling and catching it as an experiment to see how long it would take Holly to A) get annoyed or B) grab it for herself. She was a younger sister, like me, and not very good at sharing.

“You’re just jealous,” she said. “Remember, you’re the one who said you wanted to be celibate. Although you couldn’t tell tonight—accepting a ride from Jess Maxwell when you wouldn’t take one from me and Laura.”

“It’s not like that and you know it.”

“Do I? Seriously, she waited for you all that time, Cam.”

“We’re just friends.” I hadn’t given Holly any details of my dinner with Jess, mainly because I wasn’t sure how to talk about it. Or even how to think about it. “I told you before I don’t have the hots for her. It’s different with her. I don’t know how to explain it.”

For once Holly didn’t make a crack. “Okay. So you guys are friends.”

“Exactly. We’re friends.” I tossed the ball again. “Anyway, how’re things with you and Becca?”

Holly squinted up at the ceiling light. “You know.”

I looked over at her. “Actually, I don’t. What’s up?”

She shrugged and grabbed the tennis ball from my hands, tossing it toward the ceiling. Not even five minutes. Typical.

6 Kate Christie

“I don’t know, Cam. It’s like, one minute everything’s cool, and the next, I don’t even know her. She gets jealous for no reason. I don’t get it.”

Holly and I spoke the same lingo during soccer season. Each fall, the only words we used with any frequency were “cool” and

“like” and “awesome.” Sometimes all in the same sentence. But once soccer was over and we fell into the student habit again, our vocabularies improved. Immensely.

“She still gets jealous of you and me?” I asked.

“Totally.” Holly shook her head. “Why does everyone you date and everyone I date always think you and I are sleeping together?”

“I have a theory on that one. Neither of us has ever dated a soccer player, right?”

“Thank God. Although people were wondering about you and Mel for a while.”

“Mel and I are just buds. Besides, she’s not my type and I’m definitely not hers. Anyway, she calls me kid.”

“Everyone calls you kid,” Holly pointed out. “You look about twelve.”

“Do you want to hear my theory or not?”

“Go ahead.” She tossed the ball.

“Anyway, so you and I are basically married to the team, right? I mean, in season it’s all we think about, and off season, let’s face it, soccer is pretty much all we talk about. So whoever we date resents the part that the team plays in our lives. Only sport is an inanimate, um, not object. .”

“Entity?” she suggested, examining the stitching on the tennis ball.

“Exactly. Since soccer itself is an inanimate entity, our respective others view our soccer friends as the threat. It’s easier to believe they’ve been dissed for some
one
else than some
thing
else.”“You know,” Holly said, screwing up her face in supposed concentration, “I think that sports pysch class you took last year might have made you a little crazy there, champ.”

I laughed. “Wouldn’t be the first time that happened.”

Leaning back on the bed, I folded my arms behind my head.

Beautiful Game 6

An image of Jess waiting for me in the lounge at the gym came to mind, unbidden. I quickly banished it.

“I thought you and Becca were doing better.”

“So did I. Until I got home from dinner with the team last night to find a message on my voice mail saying she looked for me at the student center and where was I and she noticed you weren’t there either.”

“She did not!”

I didn’t get Becca. She was this rich girl from San Francisco who had three or four different stepfamilies and a plethora of half-siblings. Her father was a famous surgeon who kept marrying younger and younger nurses every few years. Becca couldn’t stand him. To my face, she was always really nice, even fun to hang out with. But there was always this tension just beneath the surface, like she wasn’t pleased she had to share Holly with me.

I just ignored it and went merrily along my way, which probably only made her more suspicious.

“I almost forwarded you the message,” Holly said.

“That would have gone over well.”

“That’s why I didn’t. Shit, Cam.” She sighed and slid down on the bed next to me. “I don’t know about this relationship stuff.

It’s hard enough finding time for soccer and classes.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

Holly had likely already skipped more classes than she’d attended this semester, which, for her, was par for the course.

“I’m serious, man.” She looked at me sideways, tennis ball resting on her stomach. “I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I honestly don’t need this. She gets annoyed when I won’t come over the night before a game. What’s up with that?”

“Wow,” I said, not wanting to sway her one way or the other.

Trying to be the objective friend.

“Maybe you’re right,” she said. “Maybe celibacy is the way to go.”

“Come on, Hol. If neither one of us is dating anyone, then everyone will be convinced we’re together. As it is, they probably already think I’m pining away, waiting for you to come back to me. Slut.”

That got a smile. “Everyone thinks you’re the slut, Cam, not 70 Kate Christie

me. Haven’t you heard? You and Jess Maxwell are the hot new subject of gossip in the SDU sports world.”

“Nuh-uh!”

“Gotcha.”

As usual, our peaceful sojourn on my futon ended in a pillow fight. Eventually Holly headed back to her dorm, promising to call me when she got there. She always forgot, though. I didn’t bother to wait. I limped down the hall to the bathroom and got ready for bed. When I returned to my room, the message light on my phone was blinking. Holly must have remembered for once. I dialed voice mail.

But it wasn’t Holly. It was an off-campus call. I leaned back on my bed as Jess’s voice sounded in my ear. She’d never called me before.

“Hi, Cam. Just called to see how you were feeling. Guess you’re screening. Or maybe you’re not there,” she added quickly.

“Um, if you get this, you can call me back. I was just watching the sports news and thought of you. I’ll, um, talk to you soon.”

And she left her number.

I replayed the message, picturing her curled up in sweats on her couch, then hit save. I changed into the boxers and Tshirt I usually wore to bed and turned off the overhead light, leaving the bedside lamp on. The digital numbers on my clock read 11:23. I should really get to sleep. I reached for the bedside table, picked up the phone, dialed the number Jess had left.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” Her voice was soft and sleepy.

“Jess? It’s Cam.”

I could hear the smile in her voice. “You got my message.”

“I was just down the hall for a minute. I thought you were Holly, actually. She was supposed to call me when she got home.

She always forgets.” I slid lower in the sheets, wincing as the comforter pressed down on my sore foot. “What’s up?”

“Not much. How’s your foot?”

“Still sore. I don’t think I’ll be playing this weekend.”

The thought depressed and relieved me at the same time. It wasn’t a big game. We always beat Dominguez Hills soundly.

Might actually be kind of nice to sit on the sidelines for a change, cheering my team on.

Beautiful Game 71

Just then the call waiting beeped. One beep meant on-campus.

“Sorry, Jess. My call waiting’s going. Can you hold on for a sec?”“Sure.”

I clicked over. “Hello?”

“Who’re you talking to?” Holly said.

“Um. .” I didn’t want to tell her. “Jess Maxwell.” I was also a lousy liar.

“Couldn’t wait to get rid of me, could you?”

“No, she called me,” I said. “She just wanted to see if my foot was okay. You know.”

“I do. Well, just thought you might want to know I made it home safely.”