Gimme Everything You Got - Iva-Marie Palmer Page 0,84

knew I shouldn’t have come to this party.”

“That’s Ken?” I’d been expecting someone taller, with an Olympian build.

“Who’s Ken?” Tina asked us both.

“My nemesis,” Joe said. His eyes were like knives. “Don’t let him catch wind that you play soccer. He’s exactly the kind of asshole who’d give you hell for it.” He turned to Jeannette. “You wanna get some fresh air for a minute?”

Jeanette beamed like she was getting a trophy in one of the three sports she played, and his smile ticked up at the side. No wonder he consistently found new girls to hang around. Or no wonder new girls found him. I had to admit, his lips were pretty sexy, or maybe it was the readiness of his smile that did it. No doubt he was going to engage in some habitual making out with Jeannette. I had to remind myself that I’d been the one who hadn’t wanted to kiss him. Still didn’t.

Tina spun toward me once Joe and Jeanette were out of earshot. “So, you jealous of three-sport Jeanette?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. He’s all wrong for me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“We should probably see what everyone is doing,” I said, not wanting to get into this. Tina’s question and the basement’s heat pressed in on me.

“Well, I see exactly what you’re doing,” Tina said as we dodged a burly Howard player with a beer in each hand. “You can’t avoid this whole Joe topic forever. The guy clearly likes you.”

“Yes, that’s exactly why he’s probably feeling up Jeannette right now,” I said. “Just forget it.”

Tina and I took the stairs up to the Mortensons’ living room. The walls were overwhelmed with photos of the family, with shots of Jimmy and his sister lining the stairs that led to the top floor. People were smoking and talking in the kitchen, and I wrinkled my nose when I saw Dan O’Keefe with Keith Barnes and Paul Mahoney. And ugh, George. He had his hand on Candace’s waist. A few girls I took to be the other football girlfriends were gathered with them all around a pretzel bowl, laughing. Candace had changed her hair. She now had bangs and had attempted to style them so they drew back from her face, but a few small hanks had fallen from the sideswept portion.

“Candace looks like she’s having fun,” Tina said.

“Yeah, maybe after a while you become immune to the garbage breath,” I said.

“Let’s go say hi.” Tina took my arm and steered me through the party toward the counter.

Candace’s face was flushed from whatever she was drinking, and it seemed to take her a second after seeing us to register who we were.

“Hey, Candace,” Tina said.

“Hey! What are you guys doing here?” she said. “I thought you had practice!”

“At nine p.m.?” I said. “Marie brought us. She used to date Jimmy.”

“I’m glad you’re here,” Candace said. “I never get to see you anymore.”

Whose fault is that? I thought.

“You changed your hair,” Tina said. “It’s cute.”

“Yeah, I got it like Cheryl Ladd’s in Charlie’s Angels.” She pushed the wayward hairs back. “She’s George’s favorite.”

“You’re my favorite.” He turned toward us. “Hey, Susan, Tina!”

“How’s it going, George?” Tina said. I crinkled my nose. We didn’t have to be nice to George. His breath was better, I noticed, but he was the same.

“We lost, but, you know, it happens. Hey, how’d your game end up going?”

Tina gave him a greatly abridged version—no mention of the party or the hangovers. As they talked, George’s hand trailed down to Candace’s hip, and she tucked her head near his shoulder. She whispered something to him, then detached and stepped closer to me.

“Can you believe we’re finally at the Powell Park–Howard party?” she whispered excitedly. Last year, Tina and I had slept over at Candace’s after the football game, contemplating crashing the party even though no one had told us about it.

“Yeah, it’s cool,” I said. I drank down the last of my beer and took a bottle of Miller High Life from a six-pack on the counter. I’d said I wouldn’t drink much, but I needed something in my hands. Candace followed me over to the fridge, where I pulled down a Wisconsin Dells magnet with a bottle opener attached. I pried the cap from my beer and took a sip. As I swallowed it, I realized I was tipsy. I decided I’d just carry the beer until I could go home. “So, how do you console George after the team loses? Just a