Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,54
it like it was just some obvious word anybody would use to describe me, you know? Like—blond or tall. And I keep thinking about how I refuse so much of the stuff you suggest.”
“That really doesn’t matter,” I tell her. “You’re working—you know what you can handle—”
“I’m not sure I do,” she cuts me off. “I’m starting to wonder if it really is my safety that’s keeping me sidelined, that’s making me say no. Or maybe I’m just—really—afraid.”
I stare at her a minute—long enough to know this isn’t a tactic. She’s serious. There’s no way I’m going to be able to back out after that little mini-speech. Great, I think as I turn toward the counter.
“Size twelve,” I tell the man at the shoe-rental counter. He’s wearing one of those fancy league shirts, this one with “Burt” embroidered over the breast pocket. He nods a hello, and I offer a hello that sounds more like a grunt.
Chelsea leans against the counter, staring at the rack of shoes. “Got any baby booties back there?” she asks. “Might need them for the little man here.”
“Little man,” I repeat. She’s doing it again. This is a tactic—no doubt about it.
“It’s okay, sweets,” she teases, petting my arm. “Don’t worry. Your mom’ll still love you, even after you get your butt whipped by a girl.”
“Where’d you find her?” Burt asks, wagging a thumb at Chelsea in disbelief.
“Yet again, this is definitely not where I imagined this night going,” I say.
“Get used to it,” she announces, sticking her chin out defiantly. Cute, cute, cute. Damn her.
“You going to just take that?” Burt asks.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll bite, Keyes.” I point at the shoes Burt’s put on the counter, asking, “You did give her a pair that’s completely covered in athlete’s foot, right?”
“Doesn’t really sound like this is gearing up to be a friendly game,” Burt says.
“Don’t worry about it. He’s just trying to intimidate me,” she explains to Burt. “But little does he know, I’m unshakable.”
Burt chuckles. “You guys’ve got lane three.”
She races to the ball rack. I take my time walking there, deciding to show her that I’m so good, I have no worries. I can take my time—I could, in fact, beat her at bowling while cleaning a fish with one hand and taking a hundred pictures on Kenzie’s digital camera with the other.
“Here,” I say, in a sarcastic tone. “Here’s a pretty little pink ball. A good one for you. A two-pounder.”
“Sorry, did you see that enormous fish I reeled in all by myself? The one that’s going to win my family a free week next summer? Need I remind you?” She bats her eyelashes, waiting for my response. Just as I open my mouth to answer, she interrupts by screaming, “Clint! That swirly little blue ball has your name on it. Look! Sparkles!”
“I’m so going to kick your butt,” I warn her. Just to intimidate her, I grab a green sixteen-pounder—the heaviest ball on the rack—and head for our lane.
“The taller you talk yourself up, the more it’s going to hurt when you fall.”
“In for a little wager, Keyes?” I say. I flinch when I realize I used to do the same thing on the ice—use last names.
“What’d you have in mind, Morgan?” she says, playing along.
I pull myself together, tell myself to forget hockey. There’s just right now, nothing else. “The loser has to kiss a fish.”
“Kiss a fish,” she repeats. “What kind of bet is that? Loser buys drive-in tickets, maybe. But kiss a fish? Besides, it’s unfair for me to take a bet. You being such an underdog to my insane bowling abilities.”
“We flip for the first frame,” I tell her, pulling a quarter from my shorts.
“Heads,” she shouts, and grimaces when my tails shines under the fluorescent light.
I dip my fingers into the holes on the ball, line my body up with the lane. But it feels like falling off the wagon, being in here. Playing. Competing. Suck it up, Morgan, I tell myself. I pull my arm back, knock down a respectable spare, and swagger back toward our bench. “Take that,” I say proudly.
“Not bad,” she admits, sinking her fingers into her ball. She lines her body up with the arrows on the lane, swings the ball up close to her chest, starts to raise a foot, then stops.
I know what she’s doing. She’s thinking of all sorts of horrible scenarios: tripping on a loose shoelace, getting the ball stuck on the knuckle of her middle