That Boy (14 page)

What?

“No way, Danny! You never called SF (strip football) before the play,” I tell him.

“Yeah I did,” Danny says. Then he turns to Phillip and says, “You heard me, didn't ya, Mac?”

Phillip grins and shakes his head, “Yeah, I think I did.”

Ugh. He is such a liar!

“Well, even if you did, that was a shitty pass, and I shouldn't have even tried to catch it.”

“Yeah,
but you did
,” Danny smirks.

I look around the field again. There are a bunch of players still mulling about, but no one is paying
any
attention to us. The only person even watching is some equipment dude, who has a bag of footballs for Danny to throw.

“You just want to see my bikini top, don't you, Danny?”

“No, not really. I mean I'll see it later anyway,” he says, very convincingly. He raises his eyebrows and shrugs his shoulders. “Just trying to play fair.”

I look to Phillip, but can see he is going to be of no help in the matter.

Whatever.

“Fine,” I say.

I'll show him.

I throw my shoulders back, hold my head up high, pull the elastic from my hair, and shake out my ponytail. I saunter towards Danny with what I hope is a sexy smile. Crossing my arms in front of me, I grab the bottom edge of my T-shirt and
very slowly
pull it up, revealing the skimpy, stringy American Flag bikini top underneath.

Practically like a stripper.

God, if Dad saw me now, you could forget grounding. He'd have me chained to my bed for the rest of high school.

Danny grins at me in amusement. He loves that he won this round.

I pull the shirt over my head and punch it into Danny's stomach. “Here. But if you throw another one like that,” I give him a pointed look. “
I'm coming back for your pants.”

I hear equipment dude mutter something that sounded strangely like,
God Bless America
, and I can tell the mulling about has stopped and people are watching.

But I don't really care about that. I just need to win.

I line up opposite Phillip and
just
a second before Danny is ready to call the snap, I whisper sneakily across to Phillip, while touching my chest, “Hey Phillip, my boobs aren't hanging out of this or anything are they?”

As I anticipated, Phillip looks straight at them. I mean he's a guy, he can't help himself. So he is caught a bit off guard when I tear past him. I run full bore down the field, but feel him gaining on me. I turn, jump up, and catch a
perfectly
thrown pass from Danny.

Shoot.

I really wanted that bossy boy's pants.

Big parties in Westown are usually held in a cornfield somewhere out in the boonies. This party is kind of hard to find, but I can see there are already a ton of cars here. As Lisa parks, my mind is on Jake. Jake and I have been dating, off and on, for over a year. I really like Jake, but
love
him?

That's the big question.

I
tell
him that I love him, but I'm not sure that he's like the REAL love of my life. I just can't really picture myself married to him. I mean, he's
no
prince. But he's a decent high school boyfriend, and we usually have fun.

Well, we have fun when he's not being a jerk.

Which is why our relationship has been as much off, as it's been on.

Jake was quarterback of this year's football team. Granted they sucked, but can you imagine how hard it would be to follow in Danny's shoes? To follow a record setter and state champion winner? Danny was a great high school quarterback, he'll be a great college quarterback, and it wouldn't surprise anyone if he went on to be a great pro quarterback.

Jake probably won't even
go
to college. It's not that Jake's not a smart and athletic guy. It's just like he's missing something, like the drive to succeed. His bangs are always falling onto his face, and you never know for sure what's going on behind those dark, smoldering eyes. He's a sexy combination of athlete and bad boy. He has a hot, casual look about him.

Like he'd skip school and say
who cares, lets go on a picnic.

Not that he's ever done that.

Or
hop on my motorcycle and we'll just ride, with nowhere in mind to go
.

Okay, never done that either.

I think that's the big difference between Jake, Phillip, and Danny. Jake has nowhere in mind to go. Phillip and Danny both seem to know
exactly
where they are going.

When I think about the kind of guy I want to marry, I think I might prefer someone who knows where they are going. I mean a prince pretty much has his whole life planned out already, doesn't he? And this is important because I have no idea where I'm going or what I want to do with my life.

I do know some things. I know I want to go to college, but I'm not sure where. (I'm not that bad though, I do have it narrowed down to two.) I want to have a successful career, but doing what? (Maybe an architect, but how do I know if it's right?) I want to marry a great guy, but don't know who. I want to have kids someday and be a great mom, but not sure I'll know how.

You know life is weird. There are times I feel so grown up and like I know
everything
I need to know, but then I think about the future and realize how little I do.

Sometimes being a teenager sucks.

But back to Jake.

It took me
forever
to figure out what to wear tonight. Normally, I would just be in jeans, a cute fitted T-shirt and tennies.

But not tonight.

Tonight,
I want to make an impression. Tonight, I am
finally
going to do it with Jake.

Why am I finally going to do it with Jake?

Well, I'm still not 100% sure on that. I mean Jake
definitely
wants to, and I
have
made him wait for over a year. Well, sort of, I mean every time I start to think I am ready, we usually get in a fight about it and break up, but this time we have gone a whole month without a break up, and he is really wanting to. It's pretty much all he talks about. And I don't know why I have waited so long anyway. Lisa has been doing it for a long time now, and Katie's doing it with Billy Prescott, and they've only been dating for like two months, but she is very certain he's the love of her life. I turned eighteen a few weeks ago, so I mean I'm officially an adult and all. I just don't really feel like one yet. And then there's the whole
am I really that in love with him, and is he really the one
thing. So even though I'm not sure about every detail, I do feel like it's time. I mean part of me just wants to get it over with!

Months ago, I told Katie and Lisa that Jake wanted to
take our relationship to the next level
, so they drug me to Victoria's Secret. With their urging, I bought a fuchsia and black stretch lace bra and matching low-rise, thong panties. Lisa says
wearing the high ones and showing them is soooo tacky.

I've had the bra and panties for months now. They've just been sitting there in my drawer, waiting patiently. They've been there so long that every time I open the drawer, even
they
ask me when I'm finally going to do it. So after much deliberation, I have decided tonight is the night.

After many clothing changes and panicked calls to Lisa, she took pity on me and came over early. She did my makeup and I tried on more clothes, finally settling on a pair of low fitting, dark denim jeans, some obnoxiously high heeled black sandals that she scrounged around and found in Mom's closet and a shrunken raspberry cashmere sweater. I love the sweater. It feels so soft on my skin that I keep wanting to hug myself, but I suppose me feeling myself up would look a little weird, so I just keep petting the sleeve a little.

Lisa and I re-gloss our lips, make sure nothing unfortunate is hanging out of each other's noses, get out of the car, and head toward the party.

As usual, the Warner twins are in charge of the
door
.

The Warner twins, Gary and Larry, are seniors too. They come from a big farm family and, believe it or not, have siblings named, Cary, Barry, Harry, Mary, and Jerry.

Kinda
SCARY
…get it?

Scary rhymes too.

Oh, never mind.

They are both huge farm boys, about 300 pounds a piece, and the
pipeline
for our football team's offense. Basically they are so big that they'll either knock you down, or run you over like a pair of freight trains. To look at them you'd think big, tough, dumb as doorknobs, yet they are both at the top of our class academically, crazy practical jokers, and really just great big teddy bears. I love those guys.

Lisa and I say hi to the boys, hand them our money, and I ask, “Is Jake here yet? I didn't see his truck.”

Gary looks confused. “You're
supposed
to meet Jake here?”

The boys exchange pointed looks.

Larry looks me up and down and changes the subject, “Hey, you look hot tonight.” Then he gives his brother another weird glance.

“Thanks. What's going on? Come on boys, spill the beans.”

“Um, JJ. Gosh, I don't want to tell you this, but Jake is here, and um, well maybe I should start by telling you that I never liked Jake much,” Gary stammers.

I give him a frustrated look. “Keep going.”

He grimaces. “Alright, well, Jake is here, but he's with another girl.”

“Yeah, some slut from Park,” Larry pipes in.

Larry adds, with his hands cupped in front of his chest, “And she has got the
biggest
cans I have
ever seen
. And you can see the top part of those thong underwear thingys right here,” he says, turning and pointing down to his own side, “above her jeans, you know, like…”

“Lar-ry,” Gary interrupts, with a
don't say stuff like that
scorn to his brother.

Okay, my practical jokers. I'm not that gullible.

“Really?” I say, testing them. “So what does she look like?”

Gary and Larry look at me blankly, “We just told you, JJ,” Larry says.

“I mean her face, boys.”

They look at each other like they don't have a clue what her face looks like. I know it's a joke for sure.

“Look, I know you two, very funny, ha ha. Come on Lisa, let's go get a beer.”

We head to the keg and find Phillip there. He hands Lisa a beer.

What a sweetie.

Phillip looks so cute tonight, in a deep purple polo shirt with a pair of those plaid patchwork shorts. Yes, I picked out his outfit. I must say, the dark purple color looks sooooo good on him. Phillip is really quite cute. And I know he wanted to look especially nice for this girl he has been talking to and, well, is hoping to hook up with tonight.

It makes me kinda wish I was wanting to hookup with an adorable boy like Phillip, rather than Jake.

But I'm not backing down, tonight is the night.

For better or worse because I seriously can not go to college a virgin.

I grab a red plastic cup, tilt it under the tap, and let him fill it with beer.

He whispers in my ear, “We need to talk.”