Play With Me

and Ryan told me to shoot at him.”
    “Because it was
the easiest way for you to succeed.”
    I slapped my
brow and ground my teeth. Ryan really did treat me in a favored way. But why
would he?
    As if to answer
my silent questions, Susan tilted her head, pursed her lips, and sang in an
annoying I-told-you-so tone, “He likes you.”
    “Yeah, maybe,” I
agreed in a low voice.
    “So what will
you do? Come back to play soccer?”
    “No.”
    She made a pouty
face. “Why not?”
    “I told you it’s
complicated.”
    “You’re still in
love with Tony. That’s it, right? M&M will never really break up.”
    At this point I
regretted coming to town with Susan Miller, nag-queen of Grover Beach High. If
she wasn’t so sweet in her own nosy way, I’d have turned and walk out of the
shop already.
    “I think it’s
cool that you forgave him. Cloesetta Summers was just a stupid mistake after
all.”
    “Cloesetta?” I
snorted with laughter at that name.
    “The girls on
the team call her that because she has the irritating ability to drag every boy
into her closet and make out with them. I think the name fits.”
    Me too. However,
I couldn’t believe how much this girl knew about my private life. And with her,
the entire soccer team as it seemed. Maybe it was time to set a few facts
straight. “I don’t think Tony and I will ever be what we were before Cloesetta got hold of him.”
    Her nose
wrinkled as she shifted her mouth funnily to one side. “Shame. You were like
the only absolute term in a changing world as we grew up.”
    It was a
shame. But I didn’t want our chat to go down this road. So I shrugged it off
and dragged her to the cash register, where we waited in line to pay for our
items. However, it didn’t take long until curiosity got the best of me. “How
are Tony and Hunter getting along during training, anyway? Last time I saw
them, one had a bleeding nose.”
    “It’s spooky.
They either shout at each other, or they don’t speak at all. No one who sees
them now would believe they were this close —” she crossed her fingers
for emphasis “—only a few weeks ago.”
    It hurt me in a
strange way to hear that. I knew how much Tony idolized Ryan. Their friendship
went way back. The thought that I had driven a wedge between them upset me no
end. And as this realization sank in, I knew I had forgiven him. He’d been a
complete ass a few weeks ago, but he’d been my best friend for a lifetime.
Maybe it was time to see him. Set things straight between us and repair our
friendship if I could.
    For all the
nagging Susan did this afternoon, I was still glad I’d gone out with her. We
said goodbye at my front door, but instead of getting to my room, I tossed the
bag with the books and pens on the shelf in the hallway and headed out again.
    Wearing my spaghetti
strapped top, a humid evening breeze settled around my naked arms and shoulders
as I walked up the few meters between my house and Tony’s. After not seeing him
for so long, my heart thudded violently as I rang the doorbell.

 
     
     
    CHAPTER
    14
     
     
    EILEEN MITCHELL
ANSWERED the door.
    “Hi, Miss
Mitchell. Is Tony in?”
    Her face, which
had lit up when she saw me, now turned into an apologetic moue. “Sorry, dear.
You missed him about ten minutes.”
    Perfect. Just my
luck. “You wouldn’t know where he went?”
    Eileen shook her
head. “Shall I send him over when he comes back?”
    Should she? I
grimaced. “No. I think I’ll just call him.”
    She smiled and
nodded, then closed the door as I dragged my feet from their front yard. I
pulled out my phone, but somehow I didn’t want to talk to him this way. So I
punched in a message instead. WHERE ARE YOU?
    GROUND ZERO were
the two words he sent back. And I hadn’t even reached my front door yet.
    My spirit
lifted. I wheeled my bike out of the shed and pedaled it to the small lake
where Tony and I had spent some very nice afternoons together. It wasn’t really
a lake, but more a pond in the middle of the woods. We used to call this place
Ground Zero, because some ten years ago, Tony had found a strange box there,
filled with six metal balls. He’d assured me they were made of Trilithium, the
only known power source for starships. We had been waiting for the aliens’
return all week. Little did we know of Boccia, the Italian style of bowling,
back then.
    I spotted Tony
sitting on the aging log that was about as long as a park bench. Leaning my
mountain bike against the