Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,16
wonder if she’s got a thing for the unobtainable. Or maybe, I think, Little Miss Computer Science just sees me as some problem nagging at her, sees my heart as some complex equation she’s sure she can solve if she just keeps at it long enough.
But the whole thing’s starting to annoy me; she’s just as bad as that little twelve-year-old I met a couple days ago. Only Kenzie is no twelve-year-old. The girl’s a twenty-one-year-old Northwestern student who comes home to Minnesota every summer to put aside a little extra money for college by staying with her folks and working at the resort. Shouldn’t she be past this crush stuff by now? Shouldn’t she have learned that sometimes, a guy just really isn’t interested?
Problem is, I’ve known Kenzie since she was as young as that twelve-year-old. I hate that it’s getting harder to thwart her advances without showing irritation, and I know my annoyance would only stomp on her heart. I take another slug of my Coke, the bubbles sharp as they travel down my throat.
“There’s nobody in here.” Todd’s voice explodes out of the kitchen, into the dining room. “You said he’d be here.”
“That’s what he told me. He just had to drop a camera off,” Greg says. He flicks on the overhead lights that Kenzie’s dimmed. The room fills with a harsh glow, and Kenzie leans away from me.
They stand in the kitchen doorway, looking mortified.
“You want us to leave?” Greg asks.
“No,” I shout.
Kenzie slumps into her chair, making a face.
“Hey, Kenzie,” Todd says, flashing a goofy grin as he pulls a chair up to our table. He practically sits on top of Kenzie, he’s so close. Quite a different reaction to her than he used to have, when we were kids and Kenzie was a computer geek with thick glasses, the nerdy girl a couple of years ahead of us in school. Now that she looks like a contestant for Miss Minnesota, Todd slobbers all down the front of his T-shirt every time he sees her.
And the T-shirt he’s wearing right now is already pretty nasty. He’s got about six tons of fish guts all over it. Kenzie notices right off, wrinkling her nose.
“Come on, man, join us,” I tell Greg. I reach for the closest chair and pull it toward the table.
Greg plops himself down next to me, his shirt and shorts still smelling like fabric softener. He’s the exact opposite of Todd—a slim runner instead of a beefy weight lifter, a neat-freak instead of a slob, dark-headed instead of blond. And he’s far more in tune with what’s going on with other people than Todd could ever be.
Greg raises his eyebrow. I know he thinks maybe he’s interrupted something here. Or is starting to hope he’s interrupted something. How many girls did he try to introduce me to last year? “If you don’t want to go to Pike’s tonight—” he begins.
“None of us have to go to Pike’s,” Todd says, smiling at Kenzie.
“You two could go,” Kenzie suggests, pointing at Todd and Greg.
“No—I’m going,” I insist, not wanting to be alone with her all night.
“You could come with us,” Todd tells Kenzie.
She stares across the table, right at me. Her eyes dart back and forth across my face as she waits for me to invite her. To tell her to come with us.
Greg elbows my rib. He thinks I should ask her, too.
“Going to be—a—great summer, huh, Kenz?” Todd asks stupidly.
She glances at him, then turns back to me. “Like Independence Day last year,” she says softly. “Remember? You, me, a couple of beers? Sitting on a dock, listening to the Baudette fireworks? Sounded like some distant battlefield. And cheering when a firecracker got high enough over the pines for us to see? Remember?”
Do I. I hadn’t thought a thing about it at the time, the two of us hanging out on the Fourth. Kenzie, though—she took it as me telling her I was ready to date again. But it doesn’t happen twice. Not like it happened with Rosie. And any relationship I might ever have again will feel so empty by comparison—like some dumb old summer fling.
Empty’s the last thing I want.
Greg elbows my rib again—harder this time. Yeah, Kenzie’s beautiful. She’s smart. But she makes me nervous when she turns it on full blast. As soon as she tries to cross that friendship line, I get antsy. Weirded out. Why doesn’t she go after someone else? I wonder. She could have anybody.
“Clint!”