First and Goal (Moving the Chains #1) (32 page)

I sigh and roll my eyes. I’m playing a game I can’t possibly win, and I know it. “All right, he’s
not
in band. And he is in Honor Society.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Present tense? So you’re definitely still hung up on him?”

I shift my head to either side. I really shouldn’t be admitting this to him when I’m trying so hard to convince myself. “I told you I honestly don’t want to be. Don’t worry about it. It doesn’t matter, anyway. Once I’m done being hormonal, I’ll forget all about it.”

He crosses his arms over his chest, leans back in the booth, and closes his eyes. He seems upset again. Maybe this is as bad an idea as my gut is telling me. Or he’s just trying to narrow down options like I spent all last night doing.

“Wait a minute.” His eyes pop open, and he looks at me with a mischievous grin. “He’s
not
in band doesn’t count. You’ve gotta give me something that he
is
in, assuming he’s in anything else.”

“Okay,” I hedge. “He plays sports.”

“Nope. Try again. Be more specific. An eye for an eye and all that.”

Ugh, this is not going to end well. “He plays more than one sport, what can I tell you? He’s very talented.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “Well played, Papageorgiou. Well played. You are a worthy opponent indeed.”

I give him a mock bow. “Thank you, thank you. I’m not on the debate team for nothing. Okay, your turn. I get another clue.” The sooner I narrow down my options and figure out who this girl is, the better I can help Rob win her over.

He sighs and seems to think about it. “She’s the most beautiful girl in school. Gorgeous, I’m not kidding. Anyone else pales in comparison.”

Now it’s my turn to narrow my eyes at him. “That doesn’t count. Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder. You think she’s beautiful because you’ve been in love with her for so long. Feelings tend to color objective reasoning. Try again. I want something good. Something I can use.”

“God, you’re so picky,” he groans. “Okay, okay…lemme think. She’s really popular.”

That figures. “That doesn’t really narrow down my field, and I call bullshit. You said she’s in band. And she’s in honor society. So by default, she cannot also be really popular.”

“Dammit, woman! I’m trying to be secretive here! Play along!”

I laugh at his attempt at drama. “Give me something good, if you want something good in return.”

“Talk dirty to me, Evie,” he moans, closing his eyes again, and leaning his head back on the booth. His eyelids suddenly pop open, and he turns to me with a horrified look. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to talk to you like that. I’m so sorry,” he rushes out.

I pat his chest. “Don’t worry about it, Superjock. There’s nothing you can do to scare me off.”

I stop and dramatize thinking about it for a minute. “Except eat. You do actually eat like a pig.”

He shrugs, shooting me a grateful look. “Well, I do have a food fetish; what can I say?”

A sudden awareness washes over me. I feel a lightness about me that I don’t often have. Not only does Rob’s sexual innuendo truly not bother me, but he makes me laugh. He makes me feel not just like an equal, but a better person when I’m around him. And to think, I didn’t even want to be friends with him. Even if it is only temporary, this feeling of freedom that he’s inadvertently given me is totally worth it. Sadly, I know that this blissful respite from the past year will end when I help him get Dream Girl.

“All right, I need more time to think about a clue that won’t lead you directly to the answer. You have to work for it, you know. So give me your third clue.” He picks up his drink and slurps the last dregs from his cup, chewing on his straw again.

“Oh, hell no!” I protest loudly, causing some of the other customers to look in our direction.

Oops. I tend to get a little loud sometimes; it’s the Greek in me. For so long, I’ve kept those parts of me hidden, too uncomfortable in my own skin to be myself. Rob allows me to let my guard down, and I’m not even sure when that happened. “How do you get a pass, and I have to fork over a third?”

“Because you were late to the game,” he responds without missing a beat. “Penalty.”

“Do you often relate to the real world in terms of football?” I can stall if he can.

“Yes and quit stalling.” Dammit, he's good.

“Why?”

He shrugs. “I already told you. The only place I’m worth anything is on the field. So I try to carry that over to everything else.”

I can’t believe my ears. When he said that to me before, I thought he was just messing with me. My heart squeezes in my chest for the man sitting next to me. I rest my hand on his arm. “You are worth so much more than just your ridiculous skill as a quarterback, Rob Falls. And a forward. And a shortstop. I know all the girls chase you because of your looks and the rumors. But any girl would be lucky to have you. You hear me?”

He doesn’t meet my eyes, but stares directly at the table, scoffing. “All except the one I want.”

I grab his chin in my hand and turn his head to me. He doesn’t resist and meets my eyes. “You are smart, funny, charming, chivalrous, humble, and have way too many endearing quirks to count. You’re forgiving, and honest, a loyal friend. And yeah, you’re easy on the eyes and a fucking ridiculous athlete. So don’t you, for a second, sell yourself short. You got me?”

He offers me a weak smile. There’s something in his eyes that I can’t quite read. “Yeah, I got you.”

“Okay,” I shift back into my seat, and take a deep breath. “Third clue. He’s in Student Government.”

“How well do I know this guy?”

I sigh and pick up my iced tea. “Pretty damn well.”

He smiles a wide grin at me. “I’m gonna figure it out, you know. Do you want dessert?”

I roll my shoulders, suddenly tense after displaying so much emotion. “Yeah, I could definitely go for a hot fudge sundae.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “I’m not sure I can watch you eat that.”

“Well, you’re gonna because I’m PMSing and need the chocolate infusion.”

“How long, exactly, do you PMS?”

“Long enough.”

When the waitress comes around to check on us, he orders the sundae for me. I turn back to the list. I’m gonna help him get this girl if it’s the last productive thing I do this year. He watches silently as I write:

3. Make her feel special.

4. Let her know she is important to you.

5. Notice the little things.

6. Comfort her if she needs it.

7. Give her time & space.

8. Give her little gifts that mean a lot.

9. Be a friend, first.

10. Kiss her like you mean it.

By the time I put the pen down, his chin rests on my shoulder as he reads. The weight of him spreads through my chest and limbs, my heart heavy under his steady breath that fans over my neck. Though this is my wish list from long ago, I know it will never apply to me.

“I’ve already done most of those things, Evie,” he says quietly. His jaw moves against me as he speaks. “I guess I could work on number seven a little more. But why would I want to do that if I’m trying to get her to know how important she is to me?”

Our server arrives with my sundae and the check. Rob sits back up on his side of the bench and pushes the bowl over to me. I grab a huge bite, shoving it in my mouth. I need the hit of gooey, warm chocolate even more than I did a few minutes ago.

“Well,” I say, swallowing the first bite and squeezing my eyes shut against the immediate stabbing pain. “This is what I would have wanted. I can’t guarantee that’s what she wants.”

“Brain freeze?” Damn, how does he do that?

“Yeah.” I spoon another ridiculous amount into my mouth and arch an eyebrow at him as he digs in with his own spoon.

“What? You ate half my cheeseburger,” he says with his usual mouthful of food. “Now tell me why I’d want to give her space. That seems counter-intuitive to my jock brain.”

“It’s just been my experience that some guys pour it on too hot and heavy. It’s your judgment call on how independent she is though. Some girls are into that sort of thing. I, personally, am not.”

“Uh…” He blows out a breath. “I guess I could ease up a little; she’s definitely an independent kind of girl. What’s number nine all about? Be a friend first?”

“Okay, confession time: I can’t just pretend everything that happened to me last year didn’t happen. I can’t go back and pretend that the guy I was waiting on got to me before Eddie. I’m a different person now than I was then.” I spoon another scoop of mostly fudge into my mouth. “I can’t help but wonder if things would have been different with Eddie if I was comfortable with him, if we’d known each other better before we started dating. We were barely even acquaintances, so…it didn’t work out well. For either of us.”

I scoop another bite. “You have to be friends first if you want to be more, I think. So I hope you’re already friends with her, or this might be a longer twelve-step program than you signed up for. But considering you’ve been waiting three years, I have faith in your level of patience.”

He laughs, shakes his head, and steals another bite of my sundae. “Yeah, I can see that from my own experience. What about number ten? I thought this was a program for getting her. Kissing before she wants to seems presumptuous.”

“Well, that’s a last resort kind of thing if the first nine don’t work, I guess. Do you plan for her to be a flavor or keep her?”

“Keep her,” he answers without pause.

“Okay, then consider these guidelines for both getting her and keeping her.”

“What about the last two?”

I feel like I’m going to throw up, but I just can’t stop with this sundae. I'm going to have to find time to put in some extra miles on the trail to work all of this off. I shrug my shoulders in response to his question. “I never made it that far in my fairy tale. I couldn’t come up with the last two.”

He grabs the pen from me and pulls the notebook over to himself.

11. Respect her.

12. Tell her.

13. Give her my jersey.

I look at what he’s written down. “Ooh, number eleven is a good one. Tell her?”

“Yeah. Kind of like your insurance policy with number ten? If I do all of this, and she still doesn’t know how I feel, then I’m just gonna have to quit being a chickenshit and point blank tell her she’s the woman of my dreams.”

“Excellent point, lover boy.” I scan the list again as he laughs. “Uh, Rob? I thought you were the math guru between us. This is supposed to be a twelve-step program, but you put number thirteen on here.”

He shrugs, swallowing another mouthful of sundae. “Yeah, but that’s my end goal.”

“Wow, you
do
mean to keep her.” I put my spoon down, lean back, and rub my overly full stomach.

“If I can ever get her then yeah, I’m never gonna let her go.”

I sigh as the food coma sets in. “I wish you all the luck in the world, my friend. I hope this helps you. But honestly? If she doesn’t already love you for who you are, then she’s not worth you. I’d hate to see you change for someone who doesn’t appreciate you.”

He sighs too, digs out his wallet, and throws some bills down on the table. I rip out the page from my notebook and slide it over to him, then pull my backpack out from under the table to get out my own wallet and contribute to dinner.

“What are you doing?” Rob asks me with a deadpan stare in my direction. He folds the paper carefully, sticking it inside his wallet.

“Paying for my share of the food, Mr. Gender Equalist. What does it look like?”

He laughs and shoves my money back at me. “No way. No girl of mine is ever paying her share of anything. I don’t care how chauvinistic it is.”

I put the bills on the table, anyway. He picks them up and wads them in my fist.

“I’m not your practice run, Rob. Save your money for wooing Dream Girl.”

“Oooh,” he says, narrowing his eyes at me. “Practice run, I like it. I’m a firm believer that practice makes perfect. Now let’s go.”

He gets up out of the booth, shouldering his backpack and waiting for me.

I roll my eyes, following him out of the diner.

“Consider dinner payment for services rendered. That should make you feel better about it, right?”

I turn to him with a mock serious expression. “It does, actually. I hope my services are to your satisfaction.”

“I have a feeling that I’ll be pleased with the results,” he says as he opens the car door for me.