Play With Me

sip on for the next two hours won’t ruin me.”
    I pulled my hair
back and fastened it with a band I had in my pocket as we ambled along Saratoga
Avenue to Charlie’s café and diner.
    A bunch of kids
sat around three tables in the shade of the wooden roof sloping over half of the
outdoor area. I recognized a few of them from Tony’s team. Sasha Torres,
Stephan Jones, Alex Winter. Nick Andrews’ arm was laid in a cast. The training
camp obviously didn’t pass without leaving battle scars.
    I was surprised with
the many female faces there, though. “What’s this?” I whispered to Tony when we
still were out of earshot. “Are you into co-ed training now?”
    “Cool, isn’t it?
We played a few games together in Santa Monica, and Hunter thought it would be
fun to assemble a mixed team here, too.”
    Some of the
girls looked familiar, and I even had Spanish with Susan Miller. But a handful of
them I swore I had never seen before. Like the one who stood as we approached
and kissed Tony on the cheek with her awfully bright red painted lips.
    “You’re late,
Anthony. I almost thought you wouldn’t come.”
    Anthony? The
only person I ever heard calling him that was his grandma.
    “Hi, Cloey,” he
replied in a strange, deep voice I’d never heard before. His hands rested on
her hips. He dipped his head and let her kiss his other cheek.
    She winked at
him then gave me the strangest once over I ever got. The spite in her eyes made
me feel as if I fell short in the looks and fashion department in her books.
    My glance skated
to Tony’s face. What the hell was that? And seriously, he didn’t have to drool over
her shamelessly long legs when she sat down again and swung one over the other.
Her white mini dress must have shrunk in the wash, because something red
flashed underneath.
    Tony shouted our
order to Charlie behind the bar. A Coke and Red Bull. The Red Bull certainly
wasn’t for me. But when did he start drinking that nasty stuff?
Red-lips-and-white-dress had a bottle of that in front of her, too. I started
feeling really awkward all of a sudden.
    “Mixed soccer teams,
huh?” I grumbled at Tony while we sat down—he opposite Cloey, and I between him
and Nick with the cast.
    “The tryouts are
tomorrow, Matthews. I can put you on the list, if you’re interested,” Ryan
Hunter called out to me, a mocking glint in his deep brown eyes.
    The fact he even
knew my name caught me off guard.
    “Liz and
soccer?” Tony laughed next to me. It hurt in a weird way. “You might as well
try to get an elephant dance the tango. Right, Liz?”
    I directed an
irritated scowl at my supposed best friend. He didn’t even notice when the
entire bunch joined in the laugh.
    “The elephant is
a close hit home,” Barbie said to the redhead next to her then flashed me a cruel
smile.
    Sorry, what? I was a perfect size XS. My five feet four might seem a little short
to her Amazonian six foot something, but I was in no way fat. I picked up my dropped
stomach from the ground, deciding to punish Tony later for pretending not to
have heard that. In all the time we had been friends, not once did he let
anyone insult me without breaking their jaw. Okay, messing with Cloey’s face
would be a little drastic, but he could at least have said something to defend
me.
    Since he seemed
to have forgotten how, I returned the saccharin sweet smile to the Barbie Clone.
“I tried puking my meals in ninth grade, but then this seems to be more your
thing than mine.”
    The laughter
died, and Tony choked on his swig of Red Bull while the rest of the group
pretended to be conversing in lowered voices. The only sound, a chuckle, came
from the place where Ryan Hunter sat.
    Cloey frowned at
me as if I’d spoken a foreign language. “Did you just insult me?”
    The funny thing
was she really meant it. I cut a glance skyward and sipped on my Coke.
    Thankfully, Tony
got a text message from his mother a little later. Mrs. Mitchell was hoping to
see him again before she and her husband had to leave town for two days. Tony
looked at my glass of soda and asked me if I wanted to stay with the others.
    I downed the
drink in three seconds, already standing. “Nope, I’m ready.”
    He shook his
head, but smiled, and let me walk in front of him.
    “See you
tomorrow, Anthony,” Barbie cooed.
    I ignored the
rising heat of jealousy and resisted the urge to glare at her over my shoulder.
Instead, I counted the tiles on the floor to the exit. One, two,