The Jock and the Fat Chick (16 page)

Game on, lady.

A few more questions, a quick lecture from Mrs. A, and soon the pizzas are cooked. We pull them from the oven, and Claire divvies the slices. Twenty hungry hands grab pieces, including Mrs. A’s, as everyone returns to their seats to eat.

The dish towel I’m holding happens to slip from my hand.

“Oh no,” I say loud enough for Claire to hear. “I dropped my towel. Whatever shall I do?”

Her eyes grow big, and I take my sweet time crouching down to pick it up, but I don’t grab it; instead, I hover near her calf. I know it’s driving her nuts because she breaks out laughing.

She crouches too and knowing we only have a few seconds out of eyeshot in the mirror, I raise my hands to frame her face. She lays her hands on mine, and we stare at each other.

I whisper, “I’ve missed you.”

She nods. “I’ve missed you, too . . . do-over?”

Sparks, chills, goose bumps, and all that good stuff shoot through my body in a sweet, sweet rush. I answer with a kiss.

The bell rings, and I shoulder my backpack, hurrying to gym class and feeling ten feet tall. I weave around kids, bags, and books. Lockers slam, running shoes squeak, multitudes of conversations meld into a steady rumble highlighted by peals of too-loud laughter. The postlunch air stinks of burgers, sandwiches, and French fries mixed with perfume, deodorant, and cigarette smoke. Inside the boys’ locker room, more shouting as guys volley jabs and insults. I must be buzzing off the walls, because when I toss my bag onto the wooden bench before an open locker, Viktor shoots me
a funny look. I peel off my T-shirt and get a tiny whiff of Claire’s shampoo. I can’t stop grinning.

“Yo, Kev, you high or something?”

All conversations stop as Leo and Dino stare at me. Even the geeks poke their heads out from the next row of lockers for a peek.

People just can’t get enough of gossip, can they?

In my boxer-briefs I grab a plastic chair and drag it across the concrete floor to the center of the room. I stand on it and raise my hands just like Coach. “Hey! Listen up. I’ve got something to say.”

When the guys gather around, Leo shouts, “What, you need new tighty-whities?”

Everyone laughs.

“Leo, you wish you could fill these tighty-whities.” I snap the elastic band on my underwear, and a chorus of “oohs” fill the room. I get serious. “Look. There are rumors going around about me, that I like fat chicks, that I’m a chubby chaser, that I’m into BBW.”

Guys stop laughing as adrenaline floods my system, making my heart race. It’s now or never. I take a breath and go for it. I start by giving them Coach’s dreaded finger. “I want to get something straight,” I say, making it clear that I’ll kick the crap out of anyone who opens his mouth before I finish. “I love big, beautiful, curvy, voluptuous, sexy, Rubenesque women who know what they want. And I don’t give a
shit what any of you think.”

It gets so quiet we hear a kid, late for class, running down the hallway.

Dino gives me an “amen,” surprising me.

“And I am in love with Claire Riel. And if
you
don’t like it, you can suck my big one.” I grab my crotch just to make sure they know what I’m talking about. “And that’s all I’ve got to say.”

The guys start clapping and cheering, and I get a couple of thumps on lockers from the back row, an “all right, man,” and even a wolf whistle. Leo tries to snap my ass with his towel, but I dodge him.

“Look at you,” Viktor says as I head back to the bench and continue changing. “Telling it like it is. Holy shit, who is this chick?”

“Her name’s Claire, not ‘chick.’”

I guess I strike just the right chord of “don’t ever say that word again,” because Viktor holds up his hands, like he’s surrendering.

And that was it. No one razzes me during class. It’s just business as usual.

When gym’s over, I text Claire to meet me at my locker. The second I see her it’s thumpity-smash time. How did I get so lucky? I take her hand and kiss the back of it, and together we take our first walk down the hallway as an official couple. Some kids stare, some don’t. Fingers fly across
phones, but I don’t care. I’m with an amazing person. They should be so lucky.

Farther down, I spot Claire’s cousin, Rat’s-Nest Girl, leaning against the lockers. She and her spacey-punk friends stare at us, taking in the front-page news. It’s hard to read the reaction on her face.

In a hushed voice I ask Claire, “What’s your cousin’s name?”

She tells me.

As we walk by I say, “Hey, Erin, ’sup?”

She nods. “Hey, Kev, Claire.”

Viktor comes around the corner and sees us. I can tell he’s doing his best to play it cool. He saunters over, shoving his hands into his pockets, but leaves his thumbs exposed so they point to his package.

“Hey, Viktor,” I say, and he low-fives me. “This is Claire.” I turn to Claire. “Claire, Viktor.”

“Hi,” she says.

“Hey,” he says back.

Fourth period bell rings.

I turn to her, and we give each other one hell of a kiss good-bye.

“See you after school?” she asks.

“Yeah.” I smile and watch her walk away.

I catch Viktor watching too, so I punch him in the arm.

“Ow, man!” he says, rubbing the spot where I hit him.
“What gives?”

“Dude. Stop touching her with your eyes.”

Fully aware he’s busted, he asks, “She got any friends?”

I stand, gob open, and snort, “Yeah, like I’d unleash
you
on them.”

We start wrestling, hip-checking each other against the lockers and struggling to see who can pull a jersey first.

THE JOCK AND THE FAT CHICK
. Text copyright © 2015 by Nicole Winters. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © September 2015 ISBN 9780062418418

ISBN 978-0-06-241841-8

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FIRST EDITION

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