Complete Nothing (20 page)

I felt like I had a huge breadstick lodged in the back of my throat. Pete Marrott had seemed pissed off, but I knew he was only saying what he thought he should say. “Um, yeah.”

“Did you guys break up recently?” he asked, casting a quick sidelong glance at me.

The breadstick swelled into a whole loaf. “Um, kind of.”

He nodded. “I had a feeling. I thought the guy was going to upchuck on your feet when he saw me.”

I pressed my lips together and looked at the front door, half hoping my dad would come storming out and demand that I come inside. Why were we talking about Peter?

“So, which one of us are you going to root for in the game tomorrow?” Keegan asked, shifting his weight, the white leather of his jacket sleeves squeaking against the black leather of the seats. His smile was so charming, my gut reaction was to say,
You! Of course, you!
But I controlled myself.

“Well, I go to Lake Carmody and I’m on the Boosters, so . . .”

“Maybe this’ll change your mind, then.”

And before I could even process what he’d said, he kissed me. No. He didn’t just kiss me. He slid his hand along my neck, cupped the back of my head, and pulled me to him, like if he’d waited to do it for one more second, he might have died. It wasn’t exactly like the Zac Efron/Taylor Schilling kiss, but it was as close as I’d ever come. Just like that, the lips of a person who was not Peter Marrott were on mine and it was . . .

Mind-blowing. My pulse thrummed quick and shallow in my wrists. My skin flushed outward from my chest to my neck to my arms and legs, to every last inch of my body, as if my heart was radiating heat with each and every beat. The pressure of his lips was so insistent, so searching, that in the back of my mind an unbelievable thought began to spark to life.

This guy really liked me.

And also? I should really start kissing him back.

And so I did. And we stayed out there kissing for twenty minutes, until the front lights flicked on and I had to gigglingly say good-bye. Then I tripped up the walk, fumbled through the door, and closed it with a sigh behind me, realizing one thing as I bit down on my swollen bottom lip.

Minus the whole devastating-encounter-with-Peter part of the night, I hadn’t had that much fun in a really long time.

I waited for Hephaestus as the lift outside his van lowered his chair to the asphalt parking lot, silently watching the football players and their families stream into and around the school, headed for the locker room or the field behind the building. Once the lift had replaced itself inside the van, I slammed the door, and we were off. Hephaestus’s wheels crunched over the first fallen leaves of autumn as I toyed with the arrow pendant around my neck.

The silence between us was deafening.

“So. Are you psyched for your first football game?” Hephaestus asked.

“Very,” I replied, relieved that he was the first to speak. “There’s something so primal about the whole battle-for-territory theme. I quite like it.”

“Oh, so you
are
talking to me,” he chided.

“I thought you weren’t talking to me!”

We looked at each other, and we both laughed. For the moment, the tension between us lifted. But there were still so many unanswered questions, and I was still angry at him for putting up a wall between me and Harmonia. As sound as their logic for the secrecy
might be, I still longed to talk to my sister, with a borderline pathological vengeance.

“True!” The sound of my name shouted in Orion’s voice made my heart leap like a gazelle. I turned around to scan the crowded parking lot. “True! Wait up!”

He broke free of a klatch of people and jogged over to me, wearing his tight white football pants and his jersey, carrying a packed duffel with his shoulder pads slung over it. The smile on his face sent my spirits and hopes soaring. It was familiar, confident, overjoyed. He had remembered me. He had remembered us. I could feel it.

“Orion!” I shouted back, ready to throw myself into his arms.

“Down, girl,” Hephaestus said under his breath.

It was only at his words that I realized Orion was not reaching for me. Instead he was stopping a few feet in front of us, his hands on his hips. I cleared my throat and looked at my feet. That was almost seriously embarrassing. Once again, Hephaestus had saved me.

“I’m glad I caught you!” Orion said, still smiling. “Thanks for the spirit basket. It was out of control.”

Oh. That was what this was about. “Please. It was nothing,” I said modestly.

“Are you kidding me?” He started to walk toward the school, so Hephaestus and I fell in next to him. “Did you really bake that stuff from scratch?”

“She did,” Hephaestus said. “And she didn’t let anyone else in the house sample any of it. I have the slap marks to prove it,” he added, holding up one hand. There
was
a tiny black-and-blue mark on his middle knuckle, but I couldn’t imagine that I had actually been responsible for it.

“Well, thank you. Really,” Orion said. “Because of you, I’m one hundred percent ready for this game.”

We had reached the front door and he paused, looking me in the eye. Suddenly I couldn’t breathe. I was surprised my body didn’t totally give out from the anticipation. Then Orion opened one arm, clinging to his bag with the other, and reached for me, pulling me into a hug. I wrapped my arms around him and hugged him back, my face pressing into his shoulder. Our bodies fit together so perfectly, it was as if we’d been made for each other. When he pulled away, tears of regret sprang to my eyes. I could have stayed in the crook of his arm forever.

For a blissful moment, Orion hesitated. He searched my face. His fingers trailed down my arm and squeezed my hand. I thought I might actually faint.

Kiss me,
I thought.
Kiss me. Kiss me. Kiss me.
They were the only two words left in the world. There was no other thought in my head.

“See you after?” he said.

I pressed my lips together to stop their insane tingling. “Sure,” I breathed.

He smiled, turned, and disappeared inside the school. A cool breeze lifted the hair off the back of my neck, and I reached for Hephaestus’s shoulder to keep myself from buckling to the ground.

“That was intense,” Hephaestus said.

“So I didn’t just imagine it?”

“Nope. If I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d put my money on him asking you out by day’s end,” Hephaestus told me. “He’s obviously attracted to you.”

“I knew it!” I cried happily, watching the door as if Orion would return any moment and claim me as his own. “I knew we were meant to be!”

“What about Zeus?” Hephaestus asked, lowering his voice as a crowd of guys in the St. Joe’s green and yellow walked by.

“What about him?”

“Aren’t you worried he’ll be displeased by this development?” Hephaestus asked. “He sent you here, at least partially, to split up you and Orion.”

I laughed sarcastically. “And then he sent Orion to my side. He can’t blame me if the boy falls in love with me again. It’s not my fault I’m so irresistible.”

Hephaestus smirked. “Just tread lightly, True,” he said, starting around the side of the school with the rest of the burgeoning crowd. “I speak from experience. When it comes to Zeus, you never know what’s going to happen next.”

“You guys are ready for this,” Coach said, stepping away from the whiteboard in the locker room after his last-minute strategy session. It was covered in
X
s and
O
s, arrows and numbers. “Now let’s get out there and beat these bastards!”

The team cheered, rising from the benches, smacking helmets together, slapping backs, bumping chests. This was usually my favorite part of the pregame. The adrenaline, the team spirit, the confidence. But today I felt sick. Sick and angry and, annoyingly, tired. I’d been up half the night replaying that crap with Claudia and Keegan Traylor over and over in my head. Seeing his shit-eating grin. Wishing I’d coldcocked him in the face. Wondering what they were doing while I writhed in my bed, frustrated and helpless.

Just to make everything worse, there were scouts coming today. No sleep and scouts in the stands. Plus, I’d never finished those applications. Not that it mattered. I was sure I was going to be totally unfocused out there, eat dirt a couple dozen times, and neither one of the schools would want me anyway.

How the hell had Claudia met Keegan Fucking Traylor? That
was the question. And why? And didn’t she know how screwed up that was, going out with the QB of St. Joe’s? Didn’t she care about me even a tiny bit? Or how it would look to everyone?

How about when you dumped me in front of half the school?
I heard her say in my mind.
How much were
you
caring about
me
then?

And of course, she’d be right. But still. Keegan Fucking Traylor? And at Dave & Buster’s, where half our school hung out every weekend? That was just wrong. And he was the one who was going to pay for it.

Coach Morschauser and the assistants led the charge out the locker room door for the field, but I grabbed Moskowitz and Gavin and held them back.

“WTF, dude?” Josh said, shrugging me off.

“Carson! Frangipane! Get over here!” I half shouted to the other key members of the defense.

They stopped and loped toward me while the rest of the team trotted out after the coaches. The four biggest guys in school formed a semicircle around me. I waited until the door squealed and slammed. Then I looked them each in the eye.

“What’s up, QB-one?” Frangipane asked in his raspy voice.

I loved when they called me that. That was when I knew they had my back.

“I need you guys to rip Keegan Traylor’s head off,” I said, through my teeth.

They laughed. “Of course we will,” Moskowitz said good-naturedly.

I slapped Gavin’s chest plate with the back of my hand as he started to turn away, stopping him.

“No, guys. I’m serious.”

The vibe in the room shifted to all business. “What’s up, Pete?” Gavin asked, chucking his chin.

“That asswipe took Claudia out last night,” I told them, barely able to bite out the words. Their eyes widened as they exchanged shocked, appalled, furious glances. “I need you to cause him pain.”

As soon as the St. Joe’s Saints ran out onto the field, I started to scan their ranks for Keegan. Unfortunately, the players looked alike in their green and yellow uniforms with their helmets on, and there were no names on their jerseys. Plus, they were lining up on the far side of the field in front of the away bleachers, which were packed with fans in green and yellow. The sun glinted off the gold helmets, as if each player had a tiny gleaming star attached to his head.

“Oh, they’re one of those teams,” Lauren said wisely.

“What teams?” Mia Ross asked, plucking a kernel of popcorn from her bag on my other side. Her long blond hair was up in a bun, and she wore a blue LCHS sweatshirt over skinny jeans. Her best friend, Rhonda, and two other sophomores giggled next to her, checking out some boys across the way.

“The ones who are like, ‘It’s not about the player, it’s about the team,’ ” Lauren replied, putting on a snooty voice. “Don’t they get that we want to know whose cute butt we’re looking at?”

“Lauren!” I scolded, looking behind me at the group of players’ moms on the riser above. They wore their usual jeans, T-shirts, and blazers, with blue and white ribbons pinned to their lapels—
the definition of athlete-mom chic. The most ardent mom, Mrs. Moskowitz, had blue-and-white streaks painted on one cheek, and her son’s number—56—on the other. Which was odd, because she wasn’t like one of those tomboyish moms. Her nails were done, her hair perfectly shellacked into its ponytail, and she was dripping in gold jewelry. But still, the face painting. Sometimes people defied pigeonholing.

“Please. You ladies know what I’m talking about,” Lauren said, turning around to face them. “Am I right?”

They narrowed their eyes in unison, a movement that would have inspired awe over at the Studio.

“Or maybe not,” Lauren said, facing forward again.

“Can you tell which one he is?” Mia asked, leaning into me as she munched.

One of the guys at the center of the line started to bounce up and down, shaking his arms out and stretching his neck from side to side. I recognized the perfect posture and the kinetic energy right away, and felt a surprising flutter inside my chest.

“There he is. Number thirteen,” I said, pointing.

At that moment, he turned and looked at our bleachers. I could have sworn he was looking right at me. My skin flushed red.

“Oh my God, you’re smiling like an idiot,” Lauren said, sounding appalled.

“No, I’m not!” I replied.

But even though I tried as hard as I could, I had no control over my muscle function. I was, in fact, a smiling idiot.

“Do you
like
him?” Lauren demanded.

“And now, your Lake Carmody Rams!” the PA announcer shouted, his deafening voice blasting through the speakers.

Our team ran out onto the field, flanked by Casey and the
cheerleaders and their huge flags and pom-poms, and I jumped to my feet with the rest of the crowd, saved from answering. Saved from telling her that Keegan and I had texted that morning and decided to meet up by the gym after the game, which I kind of still couldn’t believe I’d agreed to, since it used to be my ritual with Peter. But, I’d reasoned, if there was any locale tailor-made for Peter to spot us together, it was next to the gym after the game. And his friends would see us too, which would make the jealousy that much more potent. So I’d agreed. Me and Keegan. Together. For everyone to see.

We jumped up and down and shouted as the cheer squad launched into the fight chant. I raised my fist and screamed along with Mia and her friends, but I could feel Lauren eyeballing me the entire time. Silent. Just watching.

Which, of course, made me blush even harder.