SWAY (Part 1) (2 page)

“
How are you?” I asked, looking him over again as he answered. He stopped talking mid-sentence and smiled at me. “Hey man!” He slapped the car door and spoke to the driver, but his eyes remained focused on me. “This girl—I had the biggest crush on her in sixth grade and here she is, man.” I smiled at the way he was looking at me, as if he still had that crush on me.

“Well, get her number and let’s go. I’m gonna be late pic
king up Melissa and I’m not in the mood for her mouth today,” the driver said back.

David called me before they made it to the end of the
street.

Justin thought I was nuts when I introduced them. Of course, Lindsay thought the opposite. She was instantly enamored with David and proclaimed my brilliance to anyone who’d listen.

David was really sweet natured and sometimes I felt that I didn’t deserve him. I enjoyed being his friend and staring at him, but not much else. I think when I entered into our relationship I was more excited about having a boyfriend who looked like a rock star than actually having
him
. I told him that I was waiting until marriage to have sex, which took the pressure off me, and at the time, felt better than telling him the truth. I knew David and I wouldn’t be getting serious, so I told him that I didn’t mind if he spent time with girls who didn’t share the same philosophy about sex and marriage as me. My only request was that I didn’t want to know who he was seeing on the side. I didn’t want to put a face to his flings.

***

The next day in third period, I caught a glimpse of the faded numbers on the palm of my hand. I couldn’t get them to disappear completely, although I’d tried scrubbing them with everything I could find—minus battery acid.

I guess that was the point of using permanent marker. Ryan knew the seven numbers would linger at least a few days, holding there, trying to coerce a blameless girl into pursuing him, but all I could think of were reasons to ignore him.

First, I imagined that Ryan passed out his phone number to anyone with boobs and a pulse. I thought the manner in which he did it lacked creativity. He was someone who seemingly always got what he wanted, which is never good. Ryan also didn’t have to follow the rules like the rest of us. And that stupid smile of his, the smile of a deviant, which he undoubtedly savored. Flashing it on occasions when he was misbehaving. Like yesterday, when he followed me into the girls’ locker room.

Even if Ryan had been a little less blatant, he was still extraord
inarily arrogant and according to Justin had a mob of girls constantly after him. It didn’t matter how hot he was, there was no way I was going to give him what he wanted. I was not chasing Ryan Mullins. Period.

3

Justin and I both had a game in the afternoon, but I rode to school with him anyway. The boys were playing at home, which made me grateful for the first time that my field was off campus, because it meant I wouldn’t have to see Ryan.

I’d planned to catch a ride to my game with Coach Pratt, who chauffeured the girls
that weren’t old enough to drive, but when I asked, she said there was no room for me. She was aggravated that I hadn’t driven myself, but the punishment she handed down didn’t fit my crime.

Coach hollered for Kristy Prince and gave me a look that said
I bet you
drive yourself from now on.
She was right. I would rather have had needles crammed into my eyeballs than be forced to ride the stinking two miles down the road to our field with Kristy
.
I’d learned a few things about her over the past few weeks, like the assumptions I’d made about her were dead on.

Kristy was a senior and a complete bitch to everyone one hundred percent of the time, including her bo
yfriend, who she talked to like he owed her for allowing him that privilege. She also had her hands in every important social event at school. Homecoming—she won queen, of course. Cominghome—her boyfriend won king, which earned her another crown. She’s also President of the Senior Class, heads the prom committee, and the yearbook staff.

I wracked my brain trying to understand how someone so mean and hated had managed to get herself voted into those pos
itions. My theories finally came to rest on her money. She had plenty of it—more than anyone else at school—a fact that she shamelessly flaunted.

Kristy was beautiful on the outside. Definitely flawless, although I didn’t think I’d ever seen her smile.
But her insides made her the absolute ugliest person I’d ever met. If she didn’t regularly spew hatred, I would have felt sorry for her.

I could tell by the expression on Kristy’s porcelain face that she was pissed about having to do something she wouldn’t ben
efit from, and for someone she didn’t like.

“Don’t you have a car?” she asked ferociously.

“Yeah, but I rode with someone today.”

“Why can’t
someone
drive you
to the field?”

“He has to be here for baseball. They have a game today, too.”

“How inconvenient for me
,
” she seethed.

“Look, forget it. I can find a ride on my own,” I said, ready to walk away.

“
No!
I’ll never hear the end of it if I show up without you, and I’m not looking to run laps before a game. Especially because of you
,
” she glared. “I’ll drive you.”

“Thanks,” I mumbled, only because I have good manners. I wanted to tell her to go fall on something sharp.

“I drive the silver Aston Martin,” Kristy informed me as we walked out of the gym.
Seriously?
Like there were so many Aston Martin’s in the parking lot that she had to specify hers was the silver one. I knew what she drove. Everyone did.

Kristy’s car was parked in the student lot across the street from the school. Unfortunately, that was
also where the baseball field was. Several of the boys were standing on the field around the dugout, which she would have been parked in if she’d been even an inch closer.

The boys were in uniform, full game day dress. White pants with navy pinstripes, navy shirts with white lettering over their chests, their shirts tucked neatly into their pants. They wore red caps with the bills misshapen to their liking, pulled down to shade their eyes from the sun. It was an extraordinary sight.

I was searching for Justin when Ryan came into focus. My heart beat harder as I watched him lean his body against the fence and twist his fingers around the aluminum lattice as Kristy and I approached. 

Ryan looked even better in his uniform than I could have imagined. He was built perfectly for it, but I expected there wasn’t much that boy wasn’t built perfectly for. I gazed at him, fascinated by how amazing he looked, until I saw that devious smile appear on his lips, cruelly en
ding my bliss. Realizing I had been smiling, I quickly replaced the smile with a scowl. That made Ryan smile bigger, differently. He seemed amused that I had been admiring him. I directed my eyes to the pavement and let my hair fall forward to shield my face from his sight.

Kristy’s car alarm chirped, the doors unlocked and I thought I was home free. All I had to do was get in the car to be away from him.

“Hey Kristy,” Ryan called. “Who’s your friend?” My head snapped up.
What was he doing
? He knew who I was.

“She’s not my friend,” Kristy hissed, her face distorted. “And I’m not playing matchmaker for you
, Mullins, so you can forget it,” she barked.

I kept my eyes on Ryan, awaiting his reaction. He just laughed. “She looks like a waste of time to me,” Kristy added fri
gidly. My mouth fell open as the air filled with
ooh’s
breathed out by some of the boys, because of her insult. I couldn’t make any words come out to defend myself.

Suddenly, Justin was standing in front of Kristy. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but judging the look on her face, his words
were sharp. After a few seconds, Justin came around to my side of the car and Kristy got in without another word.

“You can drive my truck if you want, but I don’t think you’ll ha
ve any more problems out of her.”

“I’m fine.” I smiled to make my claim seem more convin
cing.

“Good. I know you could take her
, though,” Justin grinned. I wanted to laugh. He knew me better than that. I wasn’t going to fight Kristy Prince—unless she forced me to. Especially when part of the reason involved Ryan Mullins.

During the ride to the field, I was dying to know what Ju
stin had said to Kristy because she seemed uncomfortable, almost as if she was afraid of something. I’d never seen anyone shut her down like that. He must have had some pretty good dirt on her. Whatever it was, her silence was satisfying, and knowing that her blood had to be boiling underneath her perfect skin made me truly happy.

After the game, I grabbed Amber and asked if we could talk. Technically, I hadn’t done anything wrong, but I didn’t want her to be mad at me over a boy. I was trying to explain that I hadn’t met Ryan before that day in the gym when she i
nterrupted me.

“Ryan and I are done. He’s free to date
whoever he wants. Not that being involved with me kept him from it in the first place,” she told me. “We were never going to make it. Trying to be in a relationship with him was hard. Sometimes it does bother me when I see him with other girls because I cared about him, but…” She paused and looked me in the eyes. “It gets pretty crowded in his world. It was exhausting worrying about what Ryan was doing when he wasn’t with me. There’s a long line of girls waiting for a chance to be with him, even if they only get to be with him once.” The way she looked at me made me understand what that meant.
Ew.
“Most of them don’t care if he’s seeing someone or not. They’ll try anyway. I’ve found there seems to be no limit to what they’ll do or say to get noticed, so you should really watch out for those girls.”

It took me a second to grasp what Amber was saying. “Oh, I’m not seeing him. I’m not interested in him at all, actually. I just wanted to make sure you and I were okay.” I didn’t want to say anything bad about Ryan in front of Amber, like, I think he’s an arrogant asshole and would rather eat dirt than date him, so I kept it to a minimum.

“Me and you are fine,” she said, but looked at me as if she didn’t believe it was possible that I wasn’t interested in Ryan.

Amber offered to save me from Kristy and gave me a ride back to school. The boys’ game was over, but the team was still packing up, so I hid behind Justin’s truck
in stalker fashion. I didn’t go ask for his keys because of what had happened earlier with Kristy. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself.

I put my hands on the bumper of Justin’s truck and leaned slightly past the tailgate, scanning the dugout, trying to get an idea of how much longer Justin would be when I caught myself thin
king that I might get lucky and catch another glimpse of Ryan in his uniform.
Looking wouldn’t hurt,
I told myself, but I didn’t see him.

I did have a skewed view from my position
, though, and was considering moving when I heard Ryan’s voice behind me, nearly startling me out of my skin. “You lookin’ for me?” he asked. I could tell by his tone that he was sure I was.

“Ugh!” I groaned, spinning quickly around. Ryan had the most beautiful smile on his face, which seemed to resonate in his eyes,
momentarily stunning me. He was so gorgeous. It was ridiculous. He was even yummier in his uniform now that it was a little dirty, so it was hard for me not to get completely mesmerized by how he looked, but somehow I managed to keep my wits.

“You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that,” I said shar
ply.

“You shouldn’t be spying on people like that.
Nancy Drew
.” Ryan whispered her name as if it was an insult too horrible to say any louder. My mouth dropped open, but I caught it before I could look too offended.

“I wasn’t spying on anyone. I’m waiting for Justin,” I snapped. Ryan chuckled. “You sure you weren’t looking for me?” he asked through a righteous grin. I whipped up an exasperated expression for him, peering acutely i
nto his eyes. “Absolutely,” I said, and then half-heartedly snarled up my lip and rolled my eyes away, which didn’t deter him at all.

“I saw you watching me earlier.” Ryan’s mouth inched back i
nto a crooked grin. He was so egotistical, but so beautiful. It was totally unfair.

“I wasn’t looking at you,” I smirked, but was embarrassed that he’d caught me. I felt my cheeks getting hot because of my lie. “I wouldn’t be caught dead doing anything that involved you,” I threa
tened.

Ryan frowned. “That’s fascinating,” he mused, staring at me, but it didn’t seem to be in reaction to my comment. My insult had backfired, I guess, or he’d taken it the wrong way, but I ima
gined Ryan could spin any situation to his benefit.

Ryan stepped closer to me, staring deeply, but somehow softly into my eyes, causing me to become perfectly motionless as he cupped his hand on my face and slowly brushed his thumb over my cheek, cal
ling attention to the color.

I didn’t think it would have been visible. I’d been out in the sun, playing ball. I assumed the blush would have blended in, going unnoticed, and now the red deepened as my embarras
sment increased, my cheek tingling from Ryan’s touch. He smiled again, but this time, it was the smile I despised. I turned my back to Ryan and huffed toward the field, cursing him under my breath. I heard him chuckle behind me. It made me angry that he’d affected me that way. I didn’t want Ryan thinking I was swooning over him like other girls at school. As if I was dying for him to notice me, or was impassioned by the morsels of attention he granted me.

In need of a distraction, I was thankful
Justin was on his way out of the dugout. I tried to get him to tell me what he’d said to Kristy, but he wouldn’t do it. Not even my whiney pout worked, which was how I usually got my way. I finally gave up and reluctantly let it drop.

As we walked to his truck, I noticed Ryan was still stan
ding where I’d left him. Only now, he was surrounded by girls. I shook my head in disgust, thinking of what Amber had told me about how some girls just want to be with Ryan once. My stomach turned as I imagined him taking them up on some sordid offer.

I was glad Justin hadn’t seen me talking to Ryan. I wasn’t in the mood for a lecture, which is what I would have gotten since he’d laid out a warning for me to keep my distance. I didn’t need any further convin
cing. I would be staying far away from Ryan Mullins. I hardly saw him after school and none at all during school, so avoiding him would be simple.

Or
so I thought.

During the following week, I saw Ryan between every class change. He would smile or wink at me when he got my a
ttention, which wasn’t tough. He was hard to miss. He was tall and somehow got away with wearing his ball cap inside the building, and there were always a lot of girls around him, circling like sharks that smelled fresh blood.

Seeing that made me nauseous, so I refused to respond to Ryan at all.
No matter what he did. Even when he touched me as he walked by, grazing me as if on accident. I didn’t let him see it faze me, but it always gave me chills.

He’d also gotten into my locker—probably sweet-talked some poor woman in the office into giving him the combination. He taped a sheet of notebook paper on the inside of the door with the same seven numbers he had previously written on my hand. I impulsively yanked it down and wadded it up. There was a Post-it note stuck behind it, which read,
I thought you might do that
. I jerked it down too, only to find the numbers on the metal door—in permanent marker. I slammed the door shut and found something to cover it with by my next class.