I miss him. I miss him so fucking much.
I press my palms into my eyes while my friends aren’t looking, and manage to stop myself from feeling all of this somewhere so public. In less than a minute, the game takes over and distracts me from anything other than the anticipation and hope that brews in my belly every time Lucas throws the ball. He’s gotten better. I understand why his opportunity window is so big. There’s an easiness to the way he moves, and it’s more than instinct. He has plenty of that, though, after throwing the ball down our street to his dad every night—a million which ways and for hours on end. They haven’t thrown since freshman year, but that’s probably because Lucas has outgrown what his dad can give him. Either that, or his dad is too busy at his best friends’ house.
It suddenly becomes impossible to turn off my thoughts. I wonder if Lucas knows. Maybe that’s what changed him. I scan the crowd off to our left, to the sections where parents sit to gloat and brag which number their kid wears on the field. Lucas’s dad is the only one standing the entire time, not giving a rat’s ass about the dozens behind him who can’t see. A week ago, I would have seen a proud father in this scene, but now, I see a man who wants the credit, a man who maybe wants to live through and off of his son’s achievements. His expression after every amazing feat Lucas accomplishes is less one of pride and more one of validation. A check mark that moves him up a scale even though really . . . he hasn’t done jack shit.
His wife sits next to him, her purse tucked close to her hip, her hands folded in her lap, knuckles near white as they squeeze in fear every time someone threatens to knock her son out. Still proud, she is also the exact opposite of the growing ego standing next to her.
I wonder if she knows where her husband goes during the day?
The more I study his parents, the more every inch Lucas fights for on the field is colored with resentment in my eyes. Balls are thrown with extra zip. I think the newspaper called him stronger than your normal high school senior, but maybe what they see is hatred playing out like a game. But his dad and him, they don’t hate each other. They were just playing basketball together, laughing. Until I kicked their ball into the weed oblivion of my yard.
The truth about what I see and what this family really is muddies more every time I think I understand. I quit focusing so much on Lucas and pay attention to the other players, the ones I know even though I never thought I’d want to. Like the twins. Or that Cannon guy, who Abby has been straining her neck all night to stare at. I don’t think she even knows the score of the game.
We’re on our feet for most of the first half, and I can barely feel the bottoms of my feet by the time the buzzer calls halftime and our boys run to the locker rooms with a 14-0 lead. Lucas’s mom joins his father, both standing to arch their backs and shake feeling back into their legs. I look away when Mrs. Fuller turns her attention in my direction. But I miscalculate and my gaze lands on Ava, who has turned around to stare straight up at me, despite every single minion around her facing the other way. Her eyes haze, so I jack up the right side of my mouth and lift my hand in a wave I’m sure makes her blood boil, then I get my friends’ attention.
“Hey, did Abby tell you guys about Ava’s underwear?” I’m not being quiet, but I’m not loud enough that anyone other than my friends hear. The way they all jerk their focus to me and then to Ava, though, makes her squirm.
“Why?” Naomi asks, turning to look at me again. Ava’s glare grows heated, and my smile inches up into my eyes.
“Someone left them on my car. I’m guessing she did.” I shrug and shift my gaze to my friend. Naomi busts out a hard laugh.
“Well, no shit. Girl hates you,” she says, echoing the same thing Lola said when the game started.
“Why?” I shake my head, amused and a bit baffled at the concept. In terms of having your shit together, Ava’s got me beat hands down—she has her hooks in Lucas, as far as I know her family isn’t diced up by a nasty divorce, and, despite how much I like to poke fun of her glossy style, she’s actually kind of pretty. Really pretty. Sexy for sure.
Naomi’s cheek falls to her shoulder and Lola laughs at some inside joke I clearly don’t get. The longer I don’t laugh with them or nod or agree, the more amused they get until finally, Lola explains.
“You had him. Lucas! You guys were . . . ” She twists her fingers together to show how tight Lucas and I once were. I nod like it all makes sense, but the part I hold on to is the moment her fingers pull apart and never come back to meet as they once did. I never really had him like she does. I can’t imagine him looking at me the way he did her on the trampoline.
Hungry.
Despite wanting to break the rule I made for myself after the first half, I don’t give Ava another ounce of my physical attention for the rest of the game. Mentally, though, she swims all over my insides. I replay walking in on them, measuring up her cruel glances over the years, the slight shoves against my shoulder when we pass in the hall, and how those things line up with Lucas and me, and our friendship. No matter how hard I try to see it, high-fives and late-night burger runs don’t match up with the kind of relationship they have now.
I would trade twenty football games for one of these parties. Hell, I’d trade a dozen house parties for whatever the fuck this is that my friends and I are walking into.
I know my attitude is a little tainted from having to process more Ava business. Still, I don’t think getting mud caked on the sides of my white Vans just to get pot smoke blown in my face is anywhere close to my recipe for the perfect night. On my way to the beer truck, I walk by some asshat carrying all the beer, which I won’t drink. Maybe I’m the one with something wrong, though, because everyone else here seems happy—perfectly, miserably happy.
Almost everyone here is well on their way to becoming drunk. I’ve run into one other sober person, and I counted sixteen cars, which means a lot of these people better be camping here tonight. I’m sure they’re not. I’d love to call every one of them out on it, but you don’t win high school popularity points by stopping dumbasses from committing involuntary manslaughter.
“Miss Mabee!” The familiar D’Angelo lilt actually makes me smile.
“My second favorite D’Angelo twin,” I tease back, turning to find my unlikely friend sitting on the tailgate of someone’s truck, covering his heart with both palms, feigning his untimely death by insult.
I nod to the rest of my friends to head to the beer truck without me and pull myself up to sit next to Tory. His hair is wet, combed straight back minus the stray section that squiggles over his left eye. He smells like men’s body wash, and he’s wearing his away jersey, his home one muddied from tonight’s game.
“So tell me, you come to the party looking for me?” He winks over his crooked smile. I bat at him playfully.
“You know it,” I say. His laugh in response is genuine.
“Abby dragged me here,” I clear up, nodding toward my friend who has already found a spot near this mysterious Cannon guy.
“That’s two parties, back-to-back weekends! Dare I say it, you’re well on your way to a streak,” Tory jokes.
I glance to my side with a tight-lipped smile, feeling a little prudish because he’s right, I am a bit of a hermit. For good reason, though.