Boomerang (23 page)

“He’ll be here soon, Tyler,” I say. “He’s on his way back from the airport.”

I’m moving the team into drills when Parker makes his way over and sits against one of the goal posts. I give it a few minutes before I go to him, which works out great, because Rhett’s just bounding up, geared up like he’s playing in the World Cup.

“Who’s the new kid?” he asks, tipping his head toward Parker.

“Long story,” I say, fully expecting that he’ll want to hear all about it on the ride home.

I sit down next to Parker, who does his eye-contact-avoidance thing again.

He’s a sturdy little guy, with wide shoulders, freckles across his nose and his cheeks, and a tough set to his jaw. He doesn’t look like the kind of kid who’s afraid of much.

“You worried she’s not coming back?” I ask.

He scowls at me. “What?”

“Your mom? You keep looking at the parking lot.”

“No,
” he says too forcefully. “I just don’t want to be here.”

“Yeah, but you are. For another hour.”

“Who cares?” he says.

“About soccer? Me. About you? Your mom.”

“So? I don’t even know you. I don’t even
like
soccer anymore.”

I nod, absorbing his guarded body language, his defensive tone, and try to imagine what he’s really feeling. Like his father doesn’t care about him. Like his mother might do the same someday, drive off and never come back. Like there’s no point to laughing and kicking a ball around because life is hard and unfair
.

I don’t know this kid. Not yet. But I actually
do
care.

I jump to my feet. “We’re going to do this, Parker.”

“Do what?” he asks without looking at me.

It’s a good question. I don’t really know. So I just say, “You’ll see.”

At seven, the boys are picked up by their parents. I introduce Rhett to Raylene, the only parent he hasn’t met. Then he and I stow away the gear in the lockers, rehashing the practice. As I predicted, the questions about Parker come up on the ride home. I tell Rhett about the date with Raylene and how I offered to help her.

“That’s real sweet of you, Ethan,” Rhett says.

“I’m going to ignore the fact that you just called me sweet.”

“But it is. You don’t even know that chick. I mean she’s hot and all, but you don’t owe her anything.”

“I know I don’t. I just see something I can do. I watched Parker during practice. The kid’s dying to play. I just have to find a way to get the rest of the boys to accept him. I think he’s worried about being the new kid. The other thing is getting him out of his own head. Getting him to focus on something besides the fact his dad left and his life’s probably in chaos. I’m going to schedule a team-building practice soon. We’ll switch it up, do something different. It’ll be good. Not just for Parker. The whole team could use . . .”

I stop myself because Rhett’s giving me a strange look.

“What?”

“You have, like, a super-coach gear. Like a John Wooden mode. All philosophical and shit?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, but the comment spreads through my limbs and into my lungs. I feel like I just drew a deep breath. Maybe I was channeling Coach Williams for a bit there, which is cool. A pretty good guy to channel.

Rhett takes a hand off the steering wheel and makes circles in the air. “Wax on, wax off, Ethan Miyagi.”

“Whatever,” I say, but I can’t keep the smile from my face. A guy who quotes from
The Karate Kid
has to have some redeeming qualities.

Rhett looks at me. “Man who catches fly with chopstick can accomplish anything!”

“I bet that’s actually true.”

Up ahead on Sepulveda the light turns yellow. Rhett guns it, and the Cooper surges forward. As we fly through the intersection just under the red, his hand opens and he yells, “Clear eyes, full hearts!”

Aw, what the hell.

“Can’t lose!” I shout, and give the man five.

At home, I find Jason and Isis curled up on the red or brown or orange couch they bought over the weekend. Neither of them has said anything about the bet they laid on me and Mia hooking up. Isis quietly accepted the win, slowly bringing in new pieces of furniture into the apartment. They’ve stopped heckling me about Mia completely.

I’m not sure how I feel about that.

“Sup, kids?” I say, kicking the door shut behind me.

Cabin in the Woods
is playing on the TV, and a half-eaten pepperoni and mushroom pizza sits on the coffee table in front of them.

“Mandatory study break,” Jason says. He’s been hitting the books hard this week, and his eyes are almost closing.

“Joss Whedon marathon.” Isis taps her rainbow-socked foot on the chair beside the couch. The girl is obsessed with socks, the weirder the better. “Join us.”

“Yeah, join us,” Jason says. I think he might actually be talking in his sleep.

Zoning out to a movie actually sounds great. But then I remember that Mia’s a Joss Whedon fan too, and I don’t want to be reminded of her right now.

“You’ll have to manage without me.” I grab a slice of pizza, eating it as I toss my messenger bag and soccer duffel in my room and head for the shower.

Which reminds me of Mia.

I check my phone when I get out, finding a message from Chris asking me what’s going on, why did Mom sound worried about me when he talked to her?

I text him back, telling him he’s doing college all wrong if he has time to text me and talk to Mom. Then I pull up Mia’s contact information and engage in a very competitive bout of mental tug-of-war, in which I kick my own ass and win the prize of doing what I shouldn’t do.

Ethan:
All good there, Curls?

I type the message and then stare at it, my finger hovering over the
send
button. I want to know if she’s in her room. Or hanging out with her friends, Skyler and Beth. I want to know anything. I just fucking want her.

But I can’t break now, especially after I reaffirmed my commitment to our
co-workers only
rule at her place the other night.

I delete the message, then stare at my phone some more, not sure what to do with myself.

I need something else to think about besides Mia. A distraction.

Then it hits me. Maybe I’ve been looking at these Boomerang dates wrong. If I met another girl, someone cool, maybe that would push her out of my thoughts. I know the odds of that working are slim to none, but I’ve got nothing else.

Who knows? Maybe my next date will be the answer I’ve been looking for.

Chapter 29

Mia

Q: Is honesty always your policy?

I
’m going to blame it on a brain fog, because under normal circumstances, I absolutely would
not
tear away from the soccer field, drive back across town, and find my way into the Boomerang offices.

Under
normal
circumstances, I’d have zipped home, changed into my comfiest sweats, and flopped onto the sofa while Beth served me a heaping plate of her Poor Girls’ Paella, the exact ingredients of which are kept strictly secret—even from me.

But clearly I’ve snapped some major twig because here I am, slinking along the dimly lit center corridor, on a weird kind of needy girl autopilot that just doesn’t feel like me. Or like anyone who’s not a cartoon character.

Still, I have to know. Who did Ethan choose for his next Boomerang date? Raylene? Why is he being so tightlipped about it all? Why do I care? And how can I get off this ridiculous treadmill of clichés?

I can’t. Not until I know.

A patch of light oozes from beneath the conference room door, turning the bamboo floor a milky white. Heart thudding, I tiptoe past. Someone’s here, working late. Probably doing something more productive and reasonable with their evening. Whoever it is, I hope to hell I don’t run into them. I already feel like an idiot.

Of course, that’s not enough to keep me from slipping into Ethan’s seat, imagining that somehow I can still feel the warmth of his body cradling mine. The oven clock ticks noisily, something I hadn’t noticed before, and this little alcove seems especially shadowy and drafty at dusk.

I shiver as I glance around, listening for breathing or footsteps or the Ghost of Common Sense to come drag me out by the hair. And then I pull out Ethan’s tablet and power it up. His wallpaper is an image of a soccer dude in a white uniform with beads of silver sweat haloing his head, caught mid-kick. Or mid-block. Or mid-something-intense.

I love the image. It’s so Ethan. Beyond the obvious soccer element, it seems like him because it demonstrates someone’s passion, his hunger to succeed.

Scrolling through apps, I tap on the Boomerang icon, which loads the site. Ethan’s account is ready, the password already auto-filled. Which makes me wonder what I would have done otherwise. Gone home without prying maybe? I touch the screen, try to imagine what words make up that row of asterisks, wishing I knew him well enough to even attempt a guess.

I maneuver right to the “Game On” page and see that no, he hasn’t chosen Raylene for dates two or three. This is worse. Date two—Carmen—is petite, deeply tanned, with full glossy lips and the brown limpid eyes of a baby deer. She’s a nursing student, into crafting her own wooden jigsaw puzzles, and her profile is so funny and self-deprecating, I practically want to date her myself.

Date three: total disaster. She’s beautiful, Asian, and a top-seeded tennis player. Every photo of her is fierce, shots of her on the court or hoisting a trophy, except for one where she’s in a micro-dress and thigh-high snakeskin boots. She’s arm in arm with another girl. They’re making duck faces at the camera, and it’s clear they’re trying not to laugh.

She’s still in school—pursuing a PhD in anthropology with an emphasis on migratory cultures. Someday, I’m sure, boys around the world will have screenshots of this girl on
their
computers.

It’s a little tough not to admire Ethan’s taste—especially the fact that he’s picked girls with smarts as well as looks. And yet the thought of sitting across from him at a restaurant and watching either of these girls flirt and giggle and feed him hot soup is enough to make me want to scream myself raw.

Or, okay, it’s enough to make me contemplate something a little evil. Not Cruella-de Vil-wearing-puppies-for-kicks-evil, but . . . Not. Entirely. Kosher.

The darkness seems to thicken around me, and I brighten the screen. Sitting, letting the plan solidify, I scroll through his matches, read over profiles. A part of me shrinks with every model-gorgeous, bright girl whose subtitle is a quote from
Anchorman
. They say LA is filled with beautiful women, but I never knew how many gorgeous,
accomplished
women there were. Holy hell.

If nothing’s meant to come of my one night with Ethan and that one amazing kiss, fine. But the least I can do—for myself—is stack the cards in favor of him continuing to find Ms. Wrong. Spare myself the torment of seeing his love connection unfold right in front of my face.

So that’s my answer, the sum total of what drove me here like a lunatic. I have to accept that he wants but doesn’t
want
me. I don’t have to accept that he’s meant for someone else.

Judging by his sudden and inexplicable attachment to Raylene, I might want to bypass all the obviously crazy ones. What else will scare him un-stiff? Rodeo clown? Panhandling “freegan” who lives in her truck? I second-guess each one—rodeo clown equals adventurous; freegan equals resourceful and not bound by the trappings of materialism.

I rub my temple while I scroll through image after image, profile after profile. Somewhere in here must be a girl who is one thousand percent wrong for Ethan. An absolute catastrophe. Oil to his water.

Finally, I stop at a profile of a toned blonde in a perfectly tailored gray suit. She’s beautiful, but her features seem overly refined, like the maker’s tools kept chiseling just a beat too long. Her chin and nose are pointed, and her eyes are wide-set and the gray blue of glaciers. Something in them, an expression of haughtiness or distance, makes me feel like she could turn you inside out with a glance. From her stiff posture to her cool, burrowing gaze, she seems like someone who’s never had an orgasm in her life. And doesn’t want one.