Page 54 of It’s All in How You Fall
That said, I did convince him that it would be completely not necessary for him to pick me up every weekday ahead of our two-thirty practice. I can walk, or maybe even jog. Alex definitely thinks I should keep up a regular running schedule ahead of tennis camp, because if I actually make the team, that sort of cardiovascular strength will be a leg up in a match. But then I’d be the girl jogging in the hottest part of the afternoon with a tennis racket. So, yeah, maybe I should stick to mornings with that.
Anyhow, we’ve got it all worked out as Alex pulls up to my house. He sticks to the curb even though there’s space in the driveway next to the Jeep. I don’t ask why, but I’m grateful.
Alex cuts the engine and pops the trunk. Still distracted by the possibility that someone in my family will see that I’m with Alex and I’ll have to explain things, I’m slow on the uptake of insisting that he doesn’t have to get out, but he’s already looping around the car. We meet askew—me up on the curb, heels in the grass, him down at street level, holding out the racket like it’s a knight’s beloved sword.
“See you at two thirty tomorrow,” I say in acceptance of the racket. Knowing Alex, he got Lily Jane’s approval to let me borrow it. I hope. I need to check my allowance against the price of getting my own. “Same court at the school?”
“You know it.”
The melty feeling that possessed me on the driving range returns. Even though we’re three feet apart. That smile spreading across his face in the shadows might as well be his clothing whispering against mine, for how hard my heart’s driving. It thuds against my rib cage, punches my windpipe, so erratic and ready to escape into the night or his arms.
One of the two. Not fight or flight but embrace or escape.
I hug the racket to my chest, hoping that it’ll dull the pounding.
It doesn’t.
I don’t know how to end this. Because I’m on the curb, I’m closer to his height by a few inches, my equilibrium off.
He puts his hands in his pockets, chin tilted up, the cut of his jaw and his mouth catching all the light under the slashing shadow of his ball cap. I can’t see his eyes but I desperately want to.
I also don’t want him to walk away.
“See you tomorrow.” It’s redundant but I just…
A smile flashes across Alex’s face.
“It’s a date.”
He says it oh so casually and steps away, leaving me frozen in a fog despite a night that’s eighty-five degrees in the buggy pitch-black.
It is. It is a date.
And tonight… tonight felt like one too.
The Challenger roars to life, and as he swings out of the cul-de-sac and into the end of his night, I stand there, unmoving, hanging on to the racket for dear life while my heart taps out the truth I can no longer deny.
I have a crush on Alex Zavala.
23
It can’t be.
But… my heart double beats, my cheeks are warm, and that whisper thread of contact from hours ago flips my stomach in a way that’ll be highly problematic if it continues, considering that my gut is truly ninety-nine percent pizza at the moment.
I squeeze my eyes shut and stand there on the curb, racket pressed against my stuttering chest, feeling more than dizzy.
Alexisgreat. Which is why I’ve played matchmaker with Sunny.
My eyes fling open. The night’s still there. Hot and sweet. The stars struggle to stand out in the darkness, the streetlamps blotting them out. I haven’t moved an inch, but my heart’s pounding as if I’d charged down the road, sprinting after him.
For what? Telling him will only make me feel worse. Will kill our tennis dates. Our energy. And I don’t want to ruin it.
Kind actions + handsome boy + lots of time together + eye contact = crush. This has happened before. Plenty of times. It’s only worse now simply because I’ve never had this much time to think about a boy. Or spend time with one who wasn’t genetically related to me.
Of course, Alex probably makesanyone’sheart pull pyrotechnics. He’s just that type of guy. Charming, talented, genuinely nice. Literally no one, least of all me, could withstand a constant barrage of that combination of qualities for days on end without crushing too.
Peregrine even called it.
