Page 26 of It’s All in How You Fall
Over and over and over again.
He’s right, of course. When he wants me to move, I move. Pretty soon, we’re actually volleying without me stopping and starting and dumping the ball into the net. One drink break later and we move to only serving. Well, Alex is serving. I’m still retrieving.
“Can’t I serve?”
“That’s a whole different lesson.”
“We said a sport a week, right? I mean, you don’t have time to teach me this and something else.”
“No, but we did say if you like something enough, we’d just stick with it. Remember?”
“Right.” Well, yeah. And I do like tennis, it just seems premature to say this is what I like withouta, knowing what else is out there, andb, knowing how my back is going to feel in the morning after the twist-and-hit motion I’ve done repeatedly for the past hour.
Which means we need to talk about the payment I cooked up.
I don’t knock him over the head with a review of my week-old interaction until I’ve nearly hit him five times running with serve returns he deflects at the last minute with the tip of his racket. Might as well smack him with another line drive. “Soooo, what did you think of Sunny?”
In response, he swipes at some phantom perspiration as color pops into his tan cheeks.
When he doesn’t actually say anything, I add, “She remembered you!”
He glances away. “She rememberedTopps. He’s extremely memorable.”
Yeah, LJ’s boyfriend, Topps, who might be the hypothetical Kevin Bacon connector of Northland High (varsity football, award-winning mathletics, and senior status combined with a full beard will do that for a guy). “Only because he smells like a reboot of21 Jump Street.”
Alex smirks. “He does have a cop vibe.” Suddenly he realizes what we’re talking about and his eyebrows crash together. “Wait, what do you know about21 Jump Streetanyway?”
“Don’t deflect. Or pretend Nat hasn’t watched his fair share of eighties TV shows.”
“He has, but you—”
I smack a ball at him and, to my satisfaction, he has to jump out of the way to avoid taking it straight to the shinbone. “I said don’t deflect.”
Alex snags the ball with the toe of his sneaker as it rebounds off the wall of fence surrounding the court and whips it into his waiting hand with the ease of the tennis/basketball/soccer player he is. As he walks off court, angling toward his coconut water, I follow and pointedly stare at him as I gulp down my own refreshment.
After a full minute, Alex sighs and I know I’ve worn him down. It pays to use Nat’s tactics.
“It was fine?” He’s turning redder by the second. “What… do you want me to say?”
Actually… I. Uh. Don’t. Know.
In terms of our deal: That it was successful. That he still thinks she’s cute. That he thought about his interaction with Sunny all week, like I did. But what comes out of my mouth is a garbled mess of sudden empathetic embarrassment (I think). “Well… um. Did you… were you happy about it?”
Alex’s face shades with a question that he drowns in coconut water.
“What?” I tap him on the hand and squint at his profile as my sunglasses slide down my nose. I should’ve gone his route and worn a ball cap. Or, more accurately, stolen one from Nat.
Lashes lowered, Alex again rubs at some phantom sweat, hauling the collar of his tank up to dab at his chin. It obscures his mouth and muffles what he says next. “So, um, did you talk about the, uh,itafterward? At dinner?”
I can’t help it—my face splits into a grin I can’t hide. He wants to know. He really wants to know. But the first thing to hit my mind involving him and our conversation is the girls asking ifIhad a thing for him. My smile falters—I cover by attempting to look sly; my voice tilts up an octave. “Maybe.”
It works, because suddenly Alex looks like he’s about to toss that coconut water and whatever he had for lunch. “Caro—”
“Not really.” My eyes skip past him and across the street, toward Eomma. “I mean, they asked why I was hanging out with you.”
He arches a brow. “Did you sayball sports?”
“Gah. No.”
