Blocked (14 page)

I swallowed again. The sandwich looked delicious, but I knew it would slow me down on the court.

“Are you going to make me eat all by myself?” He patted the chair next to him. “That’s not being a very gracious host.”

I glared at him. Mom had always taught us the importance of caring for guests, even Aunt Maricela. My dad’s sister had a way of getting under my mother’s skin, but still, Mom would prepare Maricela’s favorite dish and boot me out of my bedroom so
Tia
Mari would have a nice place to sleep.

I grabbed the plate and set it down with a clatter on the table.

Alex’s eyes creased with amusement, and I realized I’d acted just like the child he thought I was. To spite him, I took a bite.
Oh
…tart tomato intertwined with creamy mayo and sharp cheddar cheese: a flavor profile that lingered on my tongue and sparked the flow of juices in my withering stomach. I looked down at the sandwich.
I’ve missed you, food
.

“Dad’s poll numbers went down this week.” Alex’s fierce chomp told me what he thought of that.

I winced.
I should pay more attention to the election.
“Do they know why?”

“We have to get the focus back on Yemen. Somebody’s got to be accountable for that cluster.” Alex’s gaze darted around, and he leaned in to whisper, “Do you think they’ve got this place bugged?”

I certainly hoped not. I didn’t want Dane to know about my crying jag the night I’d moved in. I mimicked my brother’s body language by holding still and listening, but all I could hear was faint music floating from Dane’s bedroom.

“I’ve never heard that band before,” Alex said.

“They’re Dane’s favorite,” I said. They weren’t as great as Neil Diamond, of course, but they were growing on me. I’d already studied the lyrics online, and the song “Attraction Infraction” was my favorite:

You turn your body away from me
Your eyes too dark, too blind to see
I want you, more than you can know
It’s wrong, it’s wrong, but oh-oh-oh…

If only Dane felt that way about
me!
My silent humming halted when I noticed Alex staring at me with a quizzical look. I attempted to swallow the bite I’d been chewing. “What?”

“You know his favorite band?”

I shrugged. “He plays them nonstop—how could I not know? The electric guitar’s so obnoxious.” When the tight lines around his eyes didn’t relax, my heartbeat surged. A wad of turkey got stuck in my throat. “Drinks!” I shot out of my chair. “I forgot to get us drinks. Want some Coke?” I headed to the fridge. “They call it pop up here. Isn’t that dumb?”

“Water’s fine,” he said, a hint of suspicion still lacing his voice.

I filled two glasses with ice water. “So, how can Dad’s team get the focus back on Yemen?”

He accepted the glass. “It helps now that the story about you living with the enemy has died down.” His skeptical eyes kept studying me, so I slid back into my chair and took another bite. “But what we really need is to put the heat on Secretary of State Cannell—what a
joke
he is. And the lamestream media definitely won’t apply any pressure, so Dad will have to keep bringing it up on the campaign trail.”

“But won’t that make Dad look vindictive?” I asked.

My brother took the bait, went off on a diatribe about the best defense being offense, and just like that we had moved on from Dane.

The next morning, I waved goodbye to Alex as he climbed into his rental car. I closed the front door of the greenhouse and swiveled around to lean back against it. A long sigh deflated my lungs. I’d managed to diffuse the
caliente
argument between Alex and Dane last night, but keeping them apart since then had called upon all the skills I’d honed from years of living between two hothead brothers. Thank goodness Alex had a morning flight back to Baltimore.

I heard soft voices coming from the sitting area beside the foyer and knew Dane must be watching some sort of news show. Recalling his comment from last night, I smiled. He’d labeled me a
mediator
in my family, which was spot on. How had he read me so well?

Not only had Dane seemed to see right through me, he’d also been protective. I loved when he’d called Alex out for treating me like a child. I’d wanted to do that my whole life. I could still picture his smirk when he joked about forcing me to drink liberal Kool-Aid. When Dane wasn’t busy insulting my father, his face seemed to relax—that sharp crease on his forehead smoothing out, his eyebrows lifting slightly—making him even more handsome.

I had it bad for my roommate, for sure. Hopefully Alex hadn’t figured that out.

I was about to head to my room when an envelope on the small table near the front door caught my eye. “What’s this?” I picked it up, realizing only after I’d spoken that I was snooping in Dane’s outgoing mail.

“What?” he asked, apparently hearing my question from the other room.

Crap.
I walked into the sitting room and read aloud the addressee. “African Children’s Fund?”

He glanced up from his laptop, which looked tiny in his big lap. “Figured I’d do something good with my grandpa’s money.”

I felt my eyebrows arch. His grandfather owned scads of land across the Midwest, making him one of the richest men in the country.

“Why so surprised, Ramirez?” That beautiful smirk lifted half his mouth, mesmerizing me. “Feeling guilty you don’t give to charity too?”

That preposterous question quickly un-mesmerized me. My dad’s company donated a ton to charity—much more than Dane’s mother had donated, according to her public tax records. “Hardly. Just surprised someone like you would give to charity at all.” I waved the envelope at him.

“Nice. Thanks so much for judging me.”

“Only stating the facts,” I countered.
He is so infuriating!
I was determined to set him straight. “Conservatives donate way more to charity than liberals do.”

He snapped his laptop shut. “That’s a fantasy.”

“It’s true!” I gestured to his laptop. “Google it.”

He popped to his feet, forcing me to look up to him. “No
way
that’s true. My mother and I care about people. Conservatives care about things.”

My jaw hung open for what felt like ten minutes before I finally closed my mouth, realizing I must have looked ridiculous. Hot blood pulsed through my veins and my chest tightened. “I…
you
…I…”

“You can’t find the words to argue because you know it’s true. You know your party doesn’t care about the poor.” He took a step closer to me. “Hell, your own Mexican father wants to throw undocumented workers into prison. How’s that for hypocrisy?”

“He, he doesn’t want to reward people who break the law!” I managed, my mind whirling.
Confrontation freaks me out.

“Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart.” He winked at me, then patted his taut abs. “Time for my second breakfast.” He disappeared from the room, and I stared at the muscular V-shape of his back until he turned the corner.

I closed my eyes and tried to settle my surging heart. My face felt hot, and my hands trembled.
We
care
about people!
I wanted to shout.
Making citizens dependent on the government hurts them more than helps them. And my dad just wants to secure our borders, that’s all.

I clutched my forehead, feeling the stirrings of a headache. Why couldn’t I have said those things to Dane in person? Why did I become a tongue-tied idiot in his presence? And the most important question of all: how could I be so attracted to such a
jerk?

Cou, cou, cou, cou-gars!

The inane cheer pulsed through my head as I joined the huddle by our bench. I’d been reeling ever since the squad of Highbanks cheerleaders had run onto the court midway through our warm-up.
Cheerleaders!
At a
volleyball
match? If I hadn’t known before that I’d arrived at big-time college sports, I now knew for certain.

Coach’s voice drew my attention away from the pixie, miniskirted girl perched atop the male cheerleader’s hands, holding steady above his head. There’s no way a guy would ever be able to support
my
weight like that. “Ladies,” Coach said.

The announcer boomed over the intercom, “Who wants a Cougar Pride T-shirt?” The cheerleaders bounded up to the university mascot, Banky—a guy in a light-brown cougar costume—and the fuzzy feline pumped a large water-gun-thingy before aiming it up into the stands. I realized it was a T-shirt launcher when teenage girls in the sizable crowd lunged for the grey blobs sailing toward them. A sizable crowd! At a
volleyball
match? Their roar of appreciation competed with the peppy tune played by the school band in the stands behind me.

“Eyes on me, Lucia,” Coach barked.

I bobbed my head in a frantic nod, and my jittery energy must have been evident to Maddie because she placed a reassuring hand on my shoulder. She’d given me a pep talk in the locker room before the match. I still couldn’t believe she’d said I was a much better player than she’d been as a freshman. No way that was true.

Coach frowned at me. “I know this environment is distracting, but I need your complete focus.”

The band’s drums made me jump, but I nodded again. Coach had picked me to start tonight—the only freshman in the starting six—and I didn’t want to blow it.

“Okay, back row: remember to shift left when number seventeen serves, and to watch for the ‘out’ call when number twenty-two serves. Nina…” Coach turned to our setter. “When do we run the one?”

“Whenever number sixteen is their middle blocker.”

Her look of complete boredom as she answered his question amazed me. How was she so chill in this charged environment?

“Good.” Coach nodded. “And use your legs to get your sets out to Lucia’s left hand. She looks like she’s about to crap her Spandex, so she’ll need all the help she can get tonight.”

My mouth dropped open as everyone stared at me. Was my nervousness that obvious? But then Maddie laughed and said, “That’s okay, I made her wear three pairs of Spandex tonight just in case.” Soon most of my teammates giggled, and even Coach smiled. When I let out a laugh, I felt some of my tension release. Holter had just made a joke? Who would’ve predicted
that?

“Madison,” Coach said, his face all serious again, “I need you to carry the load tonight. Lots of twos and back row hits.”

“You got it.”

My implacable teammate’s confidence impressed the hell out of me. I wondered if I would ever feel so secure in my ability. Maybe her confidence stemmed from her lean body? Coach probably never made her get a body scan like I’d had to do yesterday.
So humiliating.
Now I had to remember to schedule another appointment with the dietitian to find out the dreaded results.

The announcer’s voice filled the gym. “Please join us in standing for the national anthem.” I followed the unfurling of the huddle and stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the rest of my teammates on the baseline. I could see the blue-and-white uniforms of our opponent through the net. Like my father had taught me, I placed my hand over my heart just as the recorded music boomed over the sound system.

Dane would’ve probably made fun of my patriotic gesture, but he wasn’t in the stands. He’d left after morning practice for his mother’s campaign stop in Milwaukee. Even though I hadn’t said much to him since he’d spewed that ridiculous comment about conservatives a week ago, the house had felt lonely today. No Dane or Brad or China. I hadn’t known what to do with myself without two practices filling my day, especially with classes not starting until next week.

I snuck a glance into the stands, and I couldn’t stop the press of sadness weighing down my heart. This would be my first game without at least one family member attending. My mom had always been there, and my dad had made it to as many matches as he could, even after becoming the governor of Texas. But Dad was in California campaigning, and Mom still hadn’t emerged from our Houston home. She claimed she wanted to be there for Mateo, but I bet she was still trying to lose weight. I knew what that was like—to want to hide from the public because of feeling fat. But I had no choice about standing in the spotlight tonight.