so that he didn’t follow suit.
“Something like that,” Shen finally managed to get out.
Stevie, now in matching shorts and jersey and wearing black and white cleats, walked over to them. “What do you guys think? Do I look stupid?”
“Not at all,” Oriana replied. “You just look weak . . . and very thin. Like you’ve been trapped on a boat at sea.”
Shen pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes. “What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing. Why?”
He dropped his hands into his lap. “Why would you say that to her?”
“Because I’m being honest.” Oriana looked at Stevie. “Do you not want me to be honest? I can be one of those girls who lies to you. I’m not good at it, but I can do it.”
“No,” Stevie said lightly. “I prefer honesty. I mean, I’d feel bad if I’d been working on my body for years . . . but I haven’t. So, yeah, honesty’s fine.”
“Excellent. Now, I was also screening this one”—she motioned to Shen with a wave of her hand—“to be your boyfriend but I don’t think that’s going to work out.”
“No,” Stevie replied, gaze gliding over to his. “He’s working out just fine.”
Shen wanted to know why he wouldn’t work out as a boyfriend, but he became immediately distracted by the fact that Stevie seemed to think he was already her boyfriend.
Seriously . . . what is happening?
“I’m not your boyfriend!”
Stevie’s smile was small but very powerful. “Do you want to be?”
Shen’s entire body became tight and he was having very dangerous thoughts at the moment. Extremely dangerous.
He decided to focus on something else . . . anything else
Shen turned to Oriana. “Why couldn’t I be a boyfriend?”
“Not a boyfriend,” Oriana clarified. “Stevie’s boyfriend specifically. You could absolutely be”—she looked around the stadium, finally pointing at a long-legged cheetah, sitting on the barrier and reading a magazine—“her boyfriend.”
“Why her?”
“Look at her. She’s attractive. She’s a cheetah, so I’m sure she’s astounding in bed. Plus, she’s reading Vogue magazine.”
“So?”
“She’s probably more your speed. Intellectually.”
Kyle threw his head back, his laughter ringing out over the stadium.
Shen guessed, “You think I’m too stupid.”
Stevie’s eyes grew wide. “What? Why would you think that, Oriana?”
“Because I’ve never read Russian literature,” Shen told her.
“What does that have to do with anything? My sisters have never read any literature ever, and if you think you’re smarter than either of them,” she said directly to Oriana, “you’re only going to get your feelings hurt. Unless we’re talking about Max. Then you’ll just get hurt physically.”
Oriana rolled her eyes. “I’m just trying to find you someone a little more up to your . . .” she glanced at Shen and back at Stevie before whispering, “level.”
“I can hear you,” Shen reminded her. “I’m sitting right next to you.”
“As a fellow former child prodigy, all I have to say to you, Oriana Jean-Louis Parker,” Stevie said as she reached across the barrier and grabbed Shen’s hand, “is it’s wrong to look down on and mock normal people. There’s nothing wrong with average. With the every day. With the common.”
Kyle, at that point, was down on the floor, on his back, laughing hysterically. Shen couldn’t even be mad. He didn’t blame him at all. But if either female noticed him, they didn’t show it.
“It’s average, everyday people,” Stevie proudly continued, “with no special skills or the ability to change the world that make this country great.”
Then with a good yank, she pulled Shen out of the seat and over the barrier so that she could drag him across the field to the team bench.
“I’m so sorry about that,” she said when they were near the other players. “I hate when people are snobby like that.”
Shen nodded. “Snobby people are the worst, right?”
“Oh, my God, Shen . . . I know!”
* * *
“Does Aunt Irene ever text you? She says the wild dogs are giving Mom a hard time about the house. Like I can do anything about it.” Oriana waited for an answer from her brother, but when she didn’t get one, she looked down at him and ordered, “Dude, get off the ground.”
Wiping tears from his eyes, her brother climbed into the seat next to her and let out a breath. “That was great.”
“What was?” she asked, texting back her mother’s best friend.
“The way you tortured Shen, No wonder you are getting kicked out of your little dance troupe—”
“I wasn’t kicked out. It’s just a break.”
“You’re making giant pandas feel bad about themselves.”
“That’s not what I was—”
“I