Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,68

thought you guys did. You always tease me about never really having done anything . . .”

“I play my cards close,” Tina said. “And you never seemed that interested in Todd, so I never told you.”

Todd and two other boys came through the door. Tina beamed and took three long steps to close the distance between her and Todd. I recognized him from a picture she’d shown me, but now his hair was longer, and reached his collar. I knew Tina’s mom would hate that hair. “Hey,” Tina said softly, followed by something that sounded like “honey bunny.” I was used to tough Tina, and hearing her cutesy talk made me uncomfortable, like when my mom put her lace underwear in my drawer by accident.

She pulled Todd toward me. “This is Susan.” Todd gave me a wide smile. It looked like he’d been given extra teeth because he took such excellent care of the ones he had. He was cuter in person and a bit taller than Tina. He gave me a huge hug. “It’s cool to finally meet you,” he said.

“You too,” I said, and meant it. At least one of my friends had good taste in boyfriends.

“This is Jeff and Wayne,” he said, pointing at his friends, who had set down six-packs of beer. They gave those sort of mock salutes guys sometimes do, and it took no time for Arlene, Lisa, and Joanie to swarm them. I saw Wayne checking out Marie, who had greeted the boys, then had resumed trying to teach Dana to smoke. Dawn was in another corner, and I overheard her telling Wendy and Sarah the truth about her absence last year, and them being indignant on her behalf. The party was seeming like a better idea every minute.

It wasn’t long before Tina and Todd opened the door to our adjoining room. She gave me a little wave. I wondered if tonight they’d seal the deal, and whether Tina would tell me if they did.

“See, I told you this would be fun,” Marie said to me, coming up at my side.

“I never worried about fun,” I said. “I just don’t want to let Bobby down.”

“We won’t,” Marie said. “I wouldn’t have been able to sleep anyway, so at least I’ll be relaxed tomorrow.”

“Why’d you join, anyway?” I asked. “I know you and Lynn are close, and she quit, so . . .”

“Lynn thought Bobby was hot, so we went to tryouts. When she walked off, I stayed more because I was pissed she assumed I’d follow her,” Marie said. “And then I figured out I was good at it.”

“You are,” I said. I thought of Candace quitting. “How are things with you and Lynn?”

“She’s got Len now, and I’ve got this. We’ll be fine.” She gave me a tight-lipped smile as Wayne and Jeff came over to us with two cans of Natural Light. Wayne held one out for Marie, who took it with a smirking “thanks.”

I accepted the beer from Jeff, who regarded that as an invitation to sit down. I hoped he wouldn’t be another tool like Michael Webster.

“So you guys are playing in the morning?” he said.

“Yep,” I said.

“Don’t feel like you have to stay here talking to me if you need to get some rest,” Jeff said.

I exhaled. He didn’t seem like a Michael type. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’m partly here to keep an eye on things,” I said. “A hungover team would be bad on the field.”

“How is the rest of your season going?”

“Um, we don’t have much of one. This is our first and only game,” I said.

Jeff held up his can to clink it with mine. It was a cheesy gesture, but I smiled and clinked anyway. “Cheers to you, then,” he said. “In a way, haven’t you already won?”

“What do you mean?”

“There aren’t many girls’ soccer teams, right? So just playing is a big deal?”

I paused. So there were guys like Michael and my dad, who laughed off our team, and guys like Joe and Bobby, who not only respected our team but believed we could win; maybe guys like Jeff were somewhere in the middle, people who thought we should be satisfied just to play.

And while I knew I’d really like to win—in the half-formed way someone who didn’t know what winning felt like wanted to win—he had a point. We didn’t have to be perfect out there.

“Yeah, kind of,” I said, taking a sip of the cool beer. Jeff had one of