Offside (10 page)

“Jesus, Thomas!” Jeremy said with a snarl as he yanked me away. “Calm the fuck down!”

He kept dragging me backwards as I continued to kick out at Frankie.

“You stay the fuck away from her, you hear me?” I screamed at him.

“Shit! Yes! I hear you!” Frankie yelled back as he held his bleeding nose. He looked up at me. “I didn’t know you were after her, Tom—I swear. I didn’t mean anything!”

“Don’t fucking touch her!” I screamed again. “Don’t you ever fucking touch her!”

“Come on, Thomas,” Jeremy said as he tightened his grip on both my arms. “Let’s go hit the field. I’m feeling lucky today.”

I let him pull me out of the lunchroom and to the lockers. I threw on my practice jersey and shorts without thinking. I couldn’t think. I knew some of Frankie’s ways of getting chicks were less than scrupulous, even by my standards. Worse than that, all my mind could do was conjure up visions of Rumple wrapping her legs around Frankie, and it made me want to go right back out there and finish beating his ass.

Out on the rain-drenched, muddy field, Jeremy pelted me with free kicks until all I could do was concentrate on defending. That asshole could put some serious power behind the ball, and I was bound to be bruised before we were done. He delivered another one at close range, and I caught the ball at my chest and curled it inward, securing it before I ran to the top of the box and rolled it back out.

“So,” Jeremy said as he tossed the ball on the ground and started to position himself for another kick, “you want to explain that shit in the lunchroom to me?”

“Don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” I replied. I bounced up and down on the balls of my feet, getting ready. I watched his leg muscles, but he didn’t seem like he was going to kick yet. I stayed in position.

“You were out of control, dude.”

“So?” I snapped. Way too defensive, and I knew it. “I don’t want anybody chasing after the girl I want. Not until I’ve had a piece of her.”

The words didn’t even feel right coming out of my mouth. They flowed easily enough because I’d said these lines before, but they didn’t
feel
right.

Jeremy took a step back and prepared to kick.

“Thomas, when you and I were both checking out Rachel last year, you didn’t do that.” His foot slammed into the ball heading far left and down. I jumped for it and got enough of my fingers on it to knock it to the left of the net but ended up in the fucking puddle in front of the goal.

“Shit!” I was covered in mud.

Jeremy laughed. He walked up to me and held out his hand. I took it, and he pulled me out of the puddle.

“Perfect shot,” he said, “even if it wasn’t a goal!”

“Nice,” I replied. I rubbed my hands on my shorts to try to get some of the mud off.

“Seriously,” Jeremy continued, obviously not letting this drop, “when I said I was looking for more with her, you just shrugged at me and backed off. I think you even told her to fuck off and leave you alone. So what’s the deal with Nicole?”

“There is no deal,” I said. “I just don’t want Frankie fucking up my plan.”

“That’s what it is?” Jeremy raised his eyebrows and looked at me sideways. “A plan?”

We started walking back to the building. I tapped the ball repeatedly, keeping it no more than five feet in front of me.

“Admit it,” Jeremy said.

“Admit what?”

“You like the new girl.”

“She does have a nice ass,” I replied.

“You’ll be bringing her flowers next.”

“Fuck you,” I said as images of mums flooded my head. Jeremy just laughed, so I threw the mud-covered ball at him. “Asshole.”

There was no way, no matter what else happened, that I was going to let any of the fuckers on my team get anywhere near my Rumple. Every single one of them would treat her like shit, and I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I knew I shouldn’t let the comments of others about Rumple bother me, but I couldn’t seem to let it go as I showered off.
It took forever for me to wash all the mud out of my hair, so I was really late for biology.  I was also a little nervous walking in and paused for a bit outside the door before taking a big breath and making my way to my seat.  Nicole didn’t look up at me at all, and when I glanced at her, I could see her jaw tensed and her eyes tight.  Bucher was droning on about what exactly constituted “life,” and Nicole was taking copious notes with her pen.  I tried reaching over and grabbing it, but she jerked away.

“Don’t you touch me!” she snarled under her breath.

I backed off, not knowing what to say.  She didn’t look at me again, and when class was over, she practically bolted out of her seat.

I took off after her.

“Hey, Rumple!”

“Don’t call me that!” she snapped.  She continued to walk as fast as she possibly could toward the gym.  I caught up and matched her strides.

“I’ll see you in the library after class, right?”

“No.”

Damn.

“Why not?” As soon as I asked, I knew I should have kept my mouth shut.

“Because you are the biggest dickhead I have ever had the misfortune to encounter!”

Damn again.

“We need to work on the project,” I reminded her, trying to appeal to her academic nature.

“
I
need to work on the project,” she corrected me.  “
You
can go roll around in the mud with your asshole friends!”

“It is a team project,” I said.

She stopped right outside the math hall and turned her glare at me.

“Look, Malone,” she said with venom, “I know how the whole jock thing works.  You don’t do shit, and you still get an A because you’re the star player.  I get it.  You don’t have to fake anything with me.  I know you aren’t going to do any work on this at all, and there is no point in you showing up just to pretend. I promise I’ll add your name to the top of the paper.”

“Hey!” I reached out and grabbed her arm but released it immediately when she—quite literally—growled at me. “I can do my own work!”

“Oh, whatever!” She took a step back and rolled her eyes. “You show up to class late every day, but Bucher says nothing. You don’t take notes—you don’t even bring a fucking pencil!”

Hearing her use the word
fucking
stuck with me for a few seconds, and I had to mentally replay the rest of what she said.

“You obviously don’t care about anything other than soccer and getting laid. Well, I’m not interested, Malone! I don’t know what you think you’re trying to prove or to whom, but stay the hell away from me!”

I swallowed hard, but any words that would make any difference just weren’t converging in my head. I couldn’t even think of a fucking Shakespeare quote. I went with desperate instead.

“You still need a ride home,” I said quietly.  Hopefully.

“I have a ride home,” she barked.  “With my
friend
, Heather.”

With that, she marched into the calc room and slammed the door in my face.

I stood there just staring at the closed door for a long time. The scene replayed in my head over and over and over again. I tried to come up with something to say to her when she came back out, but I had nothing. I had no idea what to say. Every time I heard her words in my head, it felt like I was being punched in the gut.

No, it was worse. I’d been punched in the gut. I’d take that over this.

“Malone!” I turned my head to see Clint walking down the hall toward me. “Coach is looking for you!”

I took a few steps backwards before following Clint to the locker room, tossing on my muddy shirt and heading out to the field. Coach yelled at me for punching Frankie, and I told him if Frankie learned to keep his mouth shut I wouldn’t have to bust his face. He wanted details, so I told him to fucking forget it. He told me to play nice on the field. I told him to kiss my ass.

Practice was…tense.

Afterwards, I went to the library without even taking a shower first…just in case.

She wasn’t there.

I reached up and rubbed my aching temples as the scene continued on a perpetual loop. I still had no idea what I could have done to make it any better.

Hamlet had his issues, but Shakespeare even has him ask, “Where be your gibes now?” Somehow, I didn’t think I could come up with a joke to make this better.

Now how was I going to get her to talk to me again?

CHAPTER 6

ASSIST

My phone rang as soon as I sat down in the car. I pulled it out of my soccer bag and answered.

“What?”

“I got that info for ya.”

Fucking fabulous. Too little, too late.

“The cell number is a Minnesota area code. Does that make sense?”

“Yeah, it does.” What the hell? I dug a pen out of the glove box and found a receipt to write on in the center console.

“Okay, no Twitter or Facebook, but I got two IM accounts—one for Gtalk and another for AIM. It doesn’t look like the AIM account has been used for a long while. She logs into Gtalk most days, though.”

“Good to know.”

“I emailed you something that might be helpful as well.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. Let me know if you have any trouble running it.”

“Okay.”

He rattled off the phone number and IM account information as I jotted it down.

“Got it.”

“Good luck!”

Yeah, I was going to need it.

I went home and ate. Dad was in the living room, and I was avoiding him like the plague, which would go on for at least the next week. He didn’t even acknowledge me, and I wondered if he was drinking yet. He obviously hadn’t gone to work since he was just hanging out in the same bathrobe he had on when I left for school. I snuck off to my room, did a little homework, and then sat in front of my laptop. I opened my email and found the one I was looking for. Inside was a link to an executable object, which I placed on my desktop and double-clicked. When it popped up, it asked for an IM account number.

I entered Nicole’s and clicked OK.

A few minutes later, my own Gtalk account beeped at me, and informed me that
BlueSkye17
was asking to befriend me.

I smiled and accepted.

Then I sat there, staring at the screen with a small, blank box in the center of it, having absolutely no idea what to do.

Eventually, I closed it and shut down the computer. My head was still aching, so I popped a couple of Tylenol PMs down my throat and gulped a Dixie cup full of water from the bathroom tap. I lay down and watched the day go by…repeatedly. I managed to fall asleep just before midnight, but it wasn’t very restful.

Nicole completely ignored me the rest of the week even when I spoke directly to her. She didn’t come to the game on Friday, either. It was probably best because I played like shit, letting two goals get past me. Thankfully, both my dad and the scouts were absent since it was an away game. On the bus ride back, Crystal Lloyd sat down next to me and practically crawled onto my lap so she could stick her tongue down my throat. It was a nice distraction, but by the time we got back to town, I just wanted out of there despite her promises of additional entertainment.

The week hadn’t been the greatest under any circumstances, and it wasn’t exactly the very best time of year for us, regardless. My chest was starting to tighten up, and even though I hadn’t really forgotten, I had put the exact date out of my head. That didn’t seem to keep it from creeping up on me, though. Once I got home, I told dad about the game, skipped some of my bigger blunders, got chewed out anyway, and then headed for the shower.

Afterwards, I locked the door to my room and turned on my laptop. I sat in the desk chair in my boxers as I had for the past four nights and stared at IM, a little empty box with
BlueSkye17
written up in the corner.

There was a green dot next to her name, indicating that she was online.

I reached out and pressed the “H” key, followed by the “I”.

I deleted them both.

Then I typed them again.

Then I deleted them again.

I let out a long sigh, shut down my laptop, and got into bed. I lay there and stared at the ceiling, but nothing happened.

Damn it, Malone!

I got out of bed, booted the pissy laptop back up again, typed “Hi,” and hit enter before I could stop myself. I closed my eyes and sat back in the chair, waiting for the little chime that would tell me someone had replied to my message.

I waited.

And waited.

I opened my eyes again.

And realized she wasn’t online anymore.

Fuck my life.

After tossing back a couple of Tylenol PMs—which had become a regular routine at night—I threw myself back on the bed and covered my eyes with my hands. I needed to get to sleep, and before the date changed. Tomorrow would be bad enough, but if the clock hit midnight before I fell asleep, I wouldn’t get any rest at all.