Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,31

the chair and saunter across the patio, slowly. Knock the basketball out of his hand, let it bounce into the weeds. I raise both hands, place them on his sides. Stare him straight in the eye as the warmth of his skin bleeds through his T-shirt.

“I dance,” I say, like a challenge.

Clint backs up, his face twisting into the kind of heartbreak I felt when he’d tossed me the basketball.

“I don’t,” he says.

I’m unable to hide my smile of victory. Squirm on, jerk. “Then I guess we’re at an impasse,” I say.

“Yeah,” he agrees softly. “I guess so.” As he slumps back into his own chair, he looks like I’ve just launched the ball straight into his stomach. He stares off toward the musky swamp somewhere in the distance while Brandon’s bass thumps out into the night. The orange basketball has rolled into the grass; it glows like a roadside construction cone, warning of impending dangers ahead.

Clint

offensive move

Why, of all the basketball players on earth, did I have to get this one? Why couldn’t she have been a guy? Or at the very least, a ball player who’d let herself completely go, and who didn’t step out of cabin number four wearing short shorts that show off her long legs? And why did I have to get a ball player who makes it clear, by the angry tightness in her face, that she holds grudges?

“Biking,” I suggest, trying to act cool and detached as we stand on her front porch. “Earl rents out mountain bikes up at the lodge. That path behind your cabin goes straight to this waterfall—”

“A waterfall?” she repeats, her face softening for a moment. “I’ve been hearing rushing water ever since we got here.”

But just when I think she’s about to agree, she shakes her head, crosses her arms. I can’t help but notice that when she hugs her ribs, her cleavage bulges out of her tank top.

“We could ride straight up there—” I start.

“And then fly back down the hill, out of control, and wreck against a tree,” she grumbles.

“Kayaking,” I say.

She frowns at me, juts her jaw out. “Kayaking’s just asking for it.”

Okay, so I deserve the attitude she’s giving me today. So I was an ass last night. So I took what could have been a nice celebration and turned it into one of the most awkward nights of all time. All because she’d asked about hockey. Because I’d wanted to hurt her as much as she’d hurt me. So I’d taunted her with basketball. I’m no dope—I knew she’d never play Horse with me. I did it to be mean. So I get whatever she wants to dole out today. As much as I hate it, it’s fair.

“I … I looked up hip surgery,” I try to tell her. “I know high-impact stuff’s out of the question, but kayaking—”

“Some wooden banana that hugs my jury-rigged hip and keeps overturning doesn’t exactly score up there next to penicillin on the list of Great Ideas of All Time. It scores closer on the list to—Beta VCR players and eight-track tapes. The Ford Pinto. Sneakers made out of nails. Rat poison that tastes like grape jelly—”

“Okay,” I snap, just as the screen door behind us flops open.

When her dad steps onto the porch, I take a step away from Chelsea, drop my hands, relax my face. Stupid of me to start feeling angry with her, anyway. And if her dad thinks we’re not getting along, he could fire me.

That’d look real good with Earl.

Forget Earl, the voice in the back of my head starts barking. It’s not about Earl, and you know it. You want to spend time with her.

I shake my head. I do not, I want to convince myself. I don’t care what she does. But I find myself hoping like hell, as I glance at Chelsea, that she won’t tell her dad she’s had enough of my boot camp.

“You two have a nice celebration last night?” he asks. It’s kind of rough, how he talks to her. I don’t know if he means it to come across that way.

“Fine,” she growls, staring off in the opposite direction. Refusing to look at his face.

Her dad sighs loudly. He rushes down the front steps, heads down the dirt path toward the lodge.

“What’s that all about?” I say before I can stop myself.

“You know what we used to celebrate?” Chelsea tightens her lips and raises her eyebrows.

I get it. Another jab at me. Another way