Playing Hurt - By Holly Schindler Page 0,63

soon enough. Because once we finish up lunch, my thoughts are only of the gorgeous, edible man who pushes me through a door marked Staff Only, then presses my back against the wall, sinking a kiss deep against my mouth.

Ha, ha, double ha, I imagine spitting at Kenzie. Clint starts to pull away from me, then comes back for yet another kiss.

“See you tonight?” he asks, while the clank and bustle of the lodge—no, of the entire external world—comes to me muffled, distant.

I’m having to get really creative with my excuses for seeing Clint at night, but I don’t care. I could write a book on lying at this point. I nod, still spinning from his kiss.

“Coming with me when I take a group out orchid hunting this afternoon, too, aren’t you?” he murmurs into my neck.

Yes, yes, yes—anywhere. I’ll go anywhere with you.

We ease ourselves out of the narrow hallway that leads to the break room, drop each other’s hands, and walk oh-so-innocently into the lobby.

“Chelsea,” Earl shouts, waving me over to the pay phone. “Just in time. You have a phone call.”

“That’s weird,” I say with a light shrug.

Clint nods once toward the bulletin board on the opposite end of the lobby, an I’ll wait here motion. Stands below the picture of me and my walleye—still the #1 biggest catch of the summer.

“Chelsea?” the familiar voice barks as soon as I pick up the receiver.

“Gabe,” I say, before I can stop myself.

Clint turns on his heel, staring at me with eyes like open wounds.

I chastise myself. Why’d you have to blurt his name? You can be so dumb …

“Listen, I’m still at work,” Gabe says, “and I don’t have much time, but something’s been on my mind and I just—I’m sorry. This probably sounds really possessive and paranoid, but is everything okay?”

My head turns into a giant scoreboard, like the one in the Fair Grove High gym. And over my name, the score is a great big glowing zero. Chelsea Keyes is losing, losing.

And don’t I deserve to?

“I—what—you—what?” I babble. I don’t know if I should scream or beg or start crying. How does Gabe know this—Wait. What, exactly, does he know? Has Brandon called him? What is going on?

“I guess—I mean, I’m just used to us talking on the phone for hours. And even when we weren’t talking, it sounds hokey, but you used to drop all those notes in my locker. Love notes. You used to say it all the time, the way you felt about me. We said it all the time. Love, we said. We used that word so much, it shouldn’t have meant anything at all—it should have been watered down and worn out, the way we used it. But I haven’t heard it once since you left. I didn’t even get a ‘love you’ on my birthday.”

Oh, my God, Gabe, no!

“Chelse? You still there?”

“Yeah,” I mumble, staring at Clint while my heart clatters around inside me like a dropped plastic plate flopping and twirling on a kitchen floor. “I’m here.”

“I know you said that you get bad cell reception and all, but it just seems like—like you just don’t want to talk to me. I can’t help it—I just wonder if something’s up. I think about you all the time.”

A giant tear escapes and rolls down my cheek, even though I’m trying to tug it back. “I do, too,” I whimper, my voice all shuddery.

I can’t stand to look at Clint. I wipe my cheek and turn my back to him, lower my face down toward the gleaming front of the pay phone, my heart drumming away like an entire marching band. How can this be happening?

“Are you okay?” Gabe asks, while Clint’s eyes bore hot holes into the back of my shoulders. “I didn’t mean to make you cry. I’m a jerk, Chelse. Okay?”

“I just miss you is all,” I murmur, using the tears to my advantage and hating myself for it at the same time. Because I’m also hoping to God that Clint can’t hear me. “I do love you,” I whisper. “It’s been so hard to be away from you.”

“Love you, too, Chelse. It’s so good to hear your voice.”

“Yours, too.”

“Look, just forget I brought it up,” Gabe says. “You enjoy the rest of your vacation—I’ll see you when you get back, okay?”

“Okay,” I mumble, digging a fingernail nervously into the phone cord. “Love you,” I whisper again.

Gabe sighs loudly into the phone. “I love you so much, Chelse.”

I