Defending Taylor (Hundred Oaks #7) (16 page)

“Um, is this typical at your house?” Alyson shouts over the music, watching my brother dance with our housekeeper.

“The Oliver Dance Party happens every night,” Ezra says.

Once my brother has stopped doing the tango with Marina, I turn the music down and introduce everyone. Oliver checks out Chloe and vice versa.

We turn the music back up, and I dance with Ezra, which makes Oliver cover his eyes and whine. You’d never know my brother is about to turn twenty, given how childish he’s acting. The good news is that he and my new soccer friends seem to hit it off, and they distract him from our dancing. Ezra draws me up against his chest and grips my waist, moving his hips in time with mine. I get lost in his green eyes. We dance for so long, I lose track of how many songs have played.

“Do you have work in the morning?” I whisper in his ear.

“Day off. You?”

“Soccer game at noon.”

“Nice, you can sleep in a little.”

Mom and Dad are in Washington and won’t be back until tomorrow afternoon, so I take a deep breath and do something I’ve never done before. Something my parents would never allow.

“Want to stay over?”

He raises his eyebrows and glances at my brother, who’s now passed out on the floor. He smacks his lips, then snores. Classy.

“Yeah,” Ezra says with a thick voice. “But we probably shouldn’t fool around, since Oll is here.”

As if Oliver would notice. He belts out another snore. Chloe and Alyson are curled up asleep together on a love seat. I wake them up to show them to one of our guest rooms.

Then I take advantage of Oliver’s drunken obliviousness and lead Ezra to my room, praying Marina doesn’t notice. He follows me into my bathroom, where I find a new toothbrush under the sink. He accepts it with a smile, and then we brush our teeth together. Ezra goes to steal a pair of basketball shorts and a T-shirt from Oliver’s room while I change into the pink strawberry pajamas he bought me for my sixteenth birthday.

When he walks back into the room and sees what I’m wearing, his eyes take me in, and he swallows hard. “You’re beautiful, Taylor.”

“You are too.”

His hands skim over my back to settle on my waist. “I like your strawberries,” he says with a wicked grin.

“Behave.”

As I’m crawling under the covers with him, cuddling and kissing, loving the feel of his body against mine, it occurs to me that I never could’ve planned such a wonderful evening if I’d tried to orchestrate it.

About an hour before the soccer game is to start, I’m at the field warming up. I want to get in a run and stretch my legs really well so I’m limber for the game.

Chloe appears ten minutes late, wearing dark sunglasses. “Never. Again.”

I laugh.

“Your brother’s crazy.”

“He definitely knows how to party.”

We look over into the stands, where Oliver and Ezra are sitting together. Oliver waves at us, happy as can be. He has a Tylenol/Gatorade/McDonald’s breakfast sandwich hangover cure that works for him every single time. He looks like he’s never had a drink in his entire life. Ezra, like Chloe, is also wearing sunglasses and looks grumpy as hell.

“Um, are you interested in Oliver?” I ask her. “I don’t really care, just wondering, since you and I are friends—”

“No. I think he’s great, but I’m still not interested in anything serious with anyone.”

I touch her elbow. “Do you want to warm up with me?”

She groans. “I don’t want to do anything right now, but sure.” We begin kicking the ball around in a half-assed manner. Then I manage to squeeze in my run before joining the rest of the team to stretch.

Nicole gets up in front of everyone and gives her typical pregame speech. “Let’s play hard, everybody.”

I can’t help myself—maybe there’s leftover tequila in my bloodstream—but I have to speak up. “Let’s have fun today too, y’all!”

A bunch of heads turn my way.

“Nobody asked you,” Nicole says.

“Oh, so you don’t want to have fun? I don’t believe that, especially considering how much you hog the ball.”

Coach Walker just stands there. He’s probably wishing Dr. Salter were here to help him.

“Don’t you think it would be more fun if we pass the ball to each other?” I ask. “Give everyone a chance to play?”

“I agree,” Alyson says.

“Me too,” Sydney adds.

“Because otherwise, what’s the point?” I say. “I’m not having fun, Nicole. I’m tempted to walk away.”

“Me too,” Chloe says.

“Then why don’t you?” Nicole snaps.

“Because then you’d have no subs,” I tell her. “C’mon, y’all. Let’s pass the ball. Communicate. Have fun.”

“Yeah!” Chloe says, and Sydney joins in.

A smile appears on Brittany’s face. “I’m in.”

Slowly, all the other girls begin to clap and smile, and I haven’t felt this good about soccer since I left St. Andrew’s.

Nicole puts her hand out, and we pile ours on top. “One, two, three, team!”

During the game, we pass the ball and overall have a good time. I don’t even mind playing defense instead of forward, because Sydney rocks it.

At halftime, we’re down 1–0 against Tullahoma, but we’ve been playing great. Well, everyone except for Chloe, who gets sick behind the bleachers. She should’ve tried Oliver’s hangover cure.

During the second half, Sydney is on fire. With an assist from a momentarily revitalized Chloe, she rockets a shot into the upper left of Tullahoma’s goal.

“Goal!” I scream, running up the field. The other girls hustle toward Sydney, surrounding her with hugs. She blushes and grins, laughing. I jump up and down. Chloe smiles but places a hand over her stomach.

“You need grease ASAP,” I tell her.

“That’s the first thing I’m going to do right after the game. Obtain grease.”

The ref blows her whistle. Tullahoma kicks off, and Nicole runs up to meet the ball. She passes it off to Chloe. She dribbles a few feet before it’s stolen from her. A Tullahoma player boots it down the field my way. I stop it with my chest, and it falls to the ground in front of me with a bounce. I dribble a few feet, faking out a forward, then pass it up the left side of the field to Sydney. She’s like lightning as she attacks the ball and heads for the goal. She sidesteps a defender, rears back, and boots the ball. The Tullahoma goalie lunges for it but misses.

“Ahh!” I yell, running for Sydney. By the time I reach her, she’s beet red but jumping up and down. We encircle her again, patting her back. I bet the scouts will be keeping an eye on her from now on.

“Wooooo!” Coach Walker hollers from the sidelines. Even he’s clapping.

The rest of the game goes great. We pass the ball and call each other’s names. Alyson stops a ton of shots on goal. I’m grinning my butt off, even when Tullahoma scores a second time. But hey, a tie is great!

When it’s all over, I throw an arm around Chloe. “You know what this tie means, right? You have to get trashed before every game from here on out. For good luck.”

Chloe gives me an evil look to end all evil looks.

After the game, Oliver wants to go out, just the two of us, so I give Ezra a kiss good-bye, and he makes plans for tonight to go to that dance club Oll is desperate to try. For now, I’m excited to spend time with my brother alone. I haven’t seen him since he went back to school at the end of summer, and talking on the phone is just not the same.

My brother’s car is not much better than my Buick, but he loves it. Dad bought him a 1999 Mustang convertible. Oliver puts the top down before we peel out of the school parking lot. As always, he drives waaay too fast, and we argue over the radio station. I turn it to rock, and he keeps flipping back to rap.

“Would you stop it?” I snap, pushing his fingers away from the radio.

He smacks my hand.

I let my hair out of its braid to feel it blowing in the wind.

A cop car is up the street, so Oliver slams on the brakes, slowing way the hell down.

“How was Jenna when you saw her last week?” Oliver shouts over the music.

“Pretty good. She was her usual crass self.”

“Hey, that’s my twin you’re talking about.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t devour you in the womb.”

“Hey!” Oliver puffs out his chest. “We didn’t share an amniotic sac, so there’s no way she could’ve devoured me.”

“Well, this conversation just got weird.”

Oliver snorts.

“Jenna had a guy over—he’d spent the night—and Dad was pissed.” I lower my voice and do an imitation. “
I don’t pay for this condo so you can entertain boys here. Grrr.
”

My brother laughs hysterically. “Dad really said that?”

“Yep.”

Oliver parks outside Pizza Hut. Other than clubbing, his other favorite thing is eating poorly. With an arm around my shoulders, he leads me inside. The pizza is great, of course, but his real reason for coming here is the mini arcade, which has ancient games, like the original Donkey Kong. He orders us a large cheese pizza, then ushers me into the arcade to play while we wait. Two little boys are playing air hockey, but otherwise, we have the place to ourselves. Oliver commandeers Contra, and I decide on Super Mario.

We talk as our fingers work the buttons. “How’s your Yale application coming? Need me to read your draft?”

“It’s going fine.”

“You don’t sound all that excited.”

I make Mario jump over a hole in the ground. “It’s just the admissions director got me thinking about what I want to do with my life, and I don’t really know.”

Oliver’s fingers frantically tap away on the controls. “That’s pretty typical, Tee.”

“I don’t even know if I want to go to Yale. All I know is I’ve been working my ass off for years.”

“And it’s going to pay off.”

During this entire conversation, Oliver doesn’t look up from Contra. I love him, but he’s just like Dad. Ambitious. Focused. Eyes always on the prize.

But should you play a game if you don’t know what the prize is? Life is not like
The Price Is Right
, where they show you three doors and tell you to pick one. The prize might be a new car, but sometimes it’s a month’s supply of paper towels. What if I pick the wrong door by going to Yale, majoring in business, getting a job at the family firm, and end up living a miserable life because I did what was
expected
of me?

I’m proud of my family, and I want to help continue the business Grandpa started, but shouldn’t I listen to my heart too? I was born with an insane amount of privilege, and I know I’m lucky, but with that privilege comes responsibility to do important things in my life.

I jab a button, and Mario bumps a brick box with his head. It bursts, and a coin pops out.

“I’m worried about you,” Oliver says. “You’re questioning Yale? That’s where you’ve always wanted to go. And then you had all those pills… Is something else driving this? Are you depressed?”

I accidentally run into a Koopa who shrinks me back to Little Mario. “No, I’m not depressed.”

“This is all just so weird.”

“Oll, I already talk to a counselor four days a week. Can’t we just eat and hang out?”

We go back to tapping on our games until the pizza and a pitcher of Coke come. We take a break to eat, and I’m hopeful the pizza will keep him from talking, but he chatters on with his mouth full.

“I still can’t believe Ezra took a leave of absence from Cornell,” Oliver says, ripping off a bite of crust. “I’m worried he’s going to drop out.”

“I hope he goes back too.”

“So wait. You want Ezra to go back to school, but you’re weirded out about applying to Yale? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Ezra knows what he wants to do—”

“Yeah, he wants to work in construction. He doesn’t have to go to Cornell for that.”

“He wants more…”

Oliver scrunches his forehead. “What else does he want?”

“It’s not my place to say.”

He takes another bite and chews. “Would y’all stay together if he went back to Cornell?”

I don’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

“But you broke up with Ben because you didn’t want to do long distance. And I know you loved him.”

I rush to cover up my lie about Ben. “Ezra’s different.”

I hate that about lies, how you constantly have to stay on your toes. Telling the truth is so much better. It allows you freedom.

Oliver sets down his second slice. “Ezra’s my best friend. I know he’s serious about you, and I don’t want you hurting him, okay?”

“I won’t. I care about him so much.”

Great. Not only do people think I take drugs, they doubt my character. The lie I told to cover my breakup with Ben doesn’t really reflect how I feel. If I loved a person, I would make it work, no matter the distance. If Ben hadn’t betrayed me and one of us had moved away, I would’ve worked hard to keep our relationship intact.

Now my brother thinks I’ll dump his friend. Probably thinks I’m still taking pills. Soon, his opinion of me will be in the toilet. I need to get us back to normal.

“How about some two-player Mario?” I challenge him.

He wads up his napkin. “Oh, it’s on like Donkey Kong.”

• • •

Ezra and I have settled into a routine. We meet up every morning before he goes to work and I go to school, and whenever we can, we meet up after soccer practice in the evenings. He started wanting to play again himself, so he joined an intramural rec league in town. His team is made up of mostly Spanish-speaking guys who barely speak any English but rock at soccer. Ezra’s been holding his own in goal. I love going to cheer him on, especially when they play shirts versus skins and Ezra is on skins.

Even with soccer, and even though he has me, I can tell he’s restless. He may love working on the construction crew, but I know it’s not enough for him. He’s too smart, too ambitious. He has dreams he’s too scared to reach out and take.

Before school one day, I meet up with him for our usual coffee. But I got there a few minutes earlier than usual and caught him doodling and writing in a sketchpad with a pencil. He hates writing and reading, so it shocks me to find him like this.

I pass him the
One coffee on me!
coupon to “pay” for my cup. He slips the coupon into his front jeans pocket, raising his eyebrows at me. At some point, I’ll steal that coupon out of his pocket so he’ll buy me another coffee tomorrow. He loves it when I put my hands all over him looking for it.
Find the coupon
has become a game for us.

“What were you working on?”

He shuts the sketchbook. “It’s nothing.”

I snatch his white paper bag. “If you don’t tell me, I’m gonna eat all your doughnuts.”

He grabs at the bag, trying to steal it back from me, but I hold it behind our booth.

“You’re evil, Tease. Hey, I’m gonna start calling you that. Evil Tease.”

“Stop trying to distract me. What were you writing?”

“I wasn’t writing anything.”

“You sending a love note to another girl?”

He lifts an eyebrow mischievously. “I think after last Friday night, we’ve established I don’t want anybody else.”

My face blazes at the memory. Even though we said we weren’t going to fool around because my brother was in the house, we ended up kissing for what felt like hours, and his shorts and my pajamas ended up on the rug. Suddenly, I need to fan myself.

“Stop trying to distract me,” I say again, more sternly this time.

He pushes the sketchpad over to me. I open it. He’s been drawing a house.

“Is this a Colonial?”

“Yes.”

“It’s beautiful.”

He smiles. “They’re my favorite design.”

“Did you draw this?”

He shrugs a little, then nods.

“It’s great! Do you have others in here?”

“Yeah.” His voice is strained and thick. “When I was little, I loved drawing floor plans. I loved using a ruler and deciding where to put doors and windows. I liked designing impossible houses with six stories, ten bedrooms, a game room, and an indoor swimming pool.”

“Can it also have a big doghouse?”

He smiles. “As long as I get my doughnuts back.”

I pass him the bag. “Thanks for showing me your drawing. Have you checked out schools with good architecture programs? The University of Tennessee at Knoxville has one.”

He gives me a long, annoyed look, and for a moment, I feel guilty for being a nagging girlfriend, but it seems to me that a serious relationship comes with an obligation to be truthful, and sometimes that means nagging.

“Let’s talk about something else, okay?” he asks.

“I won’t bring it up again. Just promise me you’ll consider it.”

He nods curtly, and stares at his Colonial drawing, then picks up his pencil to work on it a little more.