Four Doors Down (14 page)

I shake my head and continue on to my car. Weird. That whole exchange, from when the team came over to when Ryan pulled me into him, was just weird.

“A
re you hungry?” Charlie whispers in my ear.

I smile at his close proximity and shake my head. Content, that’s the word for the way I feel right now.

I haven’t been able to see Charlie for a week. Not since the evening Jay threw his disappearing act. He’s been so busy with the band and school that we haven’t had the chance to meet up. But now it’s Saturday lunchtime and I’m laying on a blanket in the local park under a massive oak tree with him next to me, and I’m so relaxed and happy to be with him.

He picks up his phone and puts on some music, leaving it by my head, and then he dips his head and starts dropping feather light kisses on my shoulder, leading up to my neck. I squirm under his touch but don’t protest, arching my neck to give him better access. By the time he reaches my mouth, I’m almost ready to forget that we’re in a public place and pull him onto me. He drops one last kiss on my mouth and smiles down at me.

“You’re so pretty, Becca.”

I laugh and shake my head. I know I’m not ugly or anything and I’ve caught the odd guy checking me out, but I’m nothing compared to Charlie. He’s the beautiful one with his long dirty blonde hair that falls into his eyes no matter what he does, his warm brown eyes and gorgeous tanned skin. I still feel like everyone must wonder what he’s doing with me when they see us together. I just hope he doesn’t open his eyes and realize he’s way out of my league.

He starts trailing his index finger slowly up and down my arm, concentrating on my skin like it demands his full attention. When he slowly turns and looks me in the eye, I feel it everywhere, and I’m ready to get up and demand that we find some privacy.

My phone starts to ring next to me, but I completely ignore it. I’m so in this moment with Charlie that I can’t imagine anything in the world that is more important. When it rings for a second and then a third time, I reluctantly roll over and see it’s my mom. I answer it with a sigh.

I listen as she tells me that Jay’s big soccer game is starting soon and his dad isn’t coming into town for it like he promised and his mom left him with her this morning and she doesn’t know if she will make it either. Apparently Jay’s trying to put on a brave face but is pretty upset. My heart sinks for him. I know he drives me crazy, but he’s a little boy whose soccer team has made the final in some junior cup, and he just wanted his screwed up parents there to watch him like all the other kids parents will be. She’s asking me to come, and although when she first asked me I’d told her I didn’t want to, this changes things and I immediately agree. I hang up and stand, straightening out my clothes.

Charlie looks at me in concern, clearly wondering what the conversation was about. “What’s up?” he asks.

“We have to go,” I say bending to pick up my bag.

“Why?”

“My cousin’s parents have bailed on his soccer game and he’s pretty upset.”

“What does that have to do with you?”

“Well, he needs people there to cheer him on. So he can forget about them. Come on, it starts in twenty minutes. It’s at Highgate Fields,” I say, waiting for him to get up.

“You want me to come with you?” he asks in surprise.

I screw my face up, isn’t that what I just said? “Yes. Come on, Charlie, he’s five years old and just wants people to cheer for him. We’ll only be an hour or so. They don’t play for very long.”

“But your parents will be there?”

“Yes. So?”

I watch as his eyes start shifting around and realize that he’s never met my parents before, and judging from his reaction, he doesn’t want to meet them today.

“Actually, Becca, I forgot…” he trails off, not able to come up with a valid excuse.

I cross my arms and look down at him. “What’s the problem?”

“It’s not really my scene, Becca. You know, parents and all that. Why don’t we just stay here? We were having fun, right?”

My jaw falls open.
Seriously?
“We don’t have to sit with my parents, we’re just going to support Jay.”

“Why don’t you give me a call after?” he asks.

“Why bother?” I snap in response. “You know, Charlie, I never ask you to do anything and you can’t even spend an hour at a soccer game cheering on my abandoned little cousin.”

He doesn’t reply and I shake my head and walk away to my car. When I reach it, I slam the door closed so hard I’m lucky my hand wasn’t in the way or I’d be down a finger. Usually, I’d never argue with Charlie. I never want to rock the boat with him. We typically have nothing to argue about, but I don’t think I was being unreasonable. I shake my head in annoyance then remember Jay and step on the gas to get to the game.

“GO, JAY!” I call from the sidelines as Jay comes running past me. He turns and grins at me, waving his hand.

I’m with my parents on the side of the field and after my dad gave me a rundown of the rules, I have a vague understanding of what’s going on. It’s pretty close at the moment with both teams not looking particularly likely to score.

I hear loud cheering and shouting from down the field and turn to see Ryan, Jake and a couple of others shouting and cheering for Jay. Jay’s face lights up when he sees them, but he just about manages to resist the urge to run over and say hi to them.

“What’s Ryan doing here?” I ask my mom in surprise.

She shrugs. “He’s been down a few times to see Jay play.”

“Really?” I ask incredulously. Why didn’t I know this?

“Yes.” She smiles at my surprise. “I mentioned to Kathy about Jay being upset this morning and she must have told him because he doesn’t usually bring so many friends with him.”

I don’t have anything to say to that, so I just glance in their direction again and see Jake and Mason laughing at some joke while Ryan stays focused on the game.

“You know, Becca, he really is a nice boy.”

“Yeah, that is nice,” I reply. And it really is. I don’t know why no one’s ever told me before, but then I guess why would they? It’s not like I’ve ever shown any interest in Jay or Ryan before.

“I know you guys have had your problems, Becca,” she continues. I shoot her a look and she holds up her hand in a gesture of surrender. “Look, I don’t know what it was that stopped you guys from being so close, but all I’ll say is that people change and you could do a lot worse for a friend than Ryan.”

I’m about to shoot back a sarcastic comment about how one good deed doesn’t erase other things, but I stop myself. This is a nice thing to do. I can give him that.

I turn my attention back to the game when I suddenly hear my dad shout and see that Jay has the ball and is dribbling it down the field toward the goal. He passes it to a teammate who then passes it back to him, and Jay takes aim and shoots…and scores!

I actually jump up and down with excitement, cheering along with everybody else. Jay is ecstatic and his teammates all run over to him jumping onto him, celebrating. I can’t help but smile. This may be a local team in an under six category, but the team and the crowd watching, me included, are acting like Jay’s just scored the winning goal in the World Cup final.

The teams go back to the center and only have time to kick the ball once more before the referee blows the whistle for time. Jay’s team all cheer in delight at winning the game. Jay comes running over to me and launches himself at me, wrapping his arms around my neck and hugging me tightly.

“We won, Becca!” he shouts loudly, grinning from ear to ear, and I’m so surprised and touched that it’s me that he’s come over to first that I just hug him back tightly before swinging him round in the air. He laughs happily and when I put him down, he high fives both my parents before running over to Ryan and launching himself at him too. A wide smile crosses my face at seeing him so happy, and I know I did the right thing ditching Charlie to be here.

I look over at my mom and she wraps her arm around me, kissing me lightly on the side of my head. I know she feels responsible for him, and for the first time, I don’t feel annoyed with him or dismissive of him and his situation. He deserves the same childhood that I had, loving and happy, and if his screwed up parents won’t give that to him, then we’ll have to. I decide then and there to make more of an effort with Jay.

I glance back over to Jay and laugh when I see Jake and Mason each have hold of an arm and a leg and are swinging him around while the rest of his team watches, waiting for their turn. Ryan looks over at me and I smile and wave at him. He smiles back and I move to make my way over to him. I take a step forward and smack straight into a leather jacket clad Charlie.

He looks down at me, a small smile playing on his lips. “I saw his goal,” he tells me. “The little dude did good.”

I just gape at him in surprise. He came?

Charlie smirks at me and gently lifts up my chin to close my mouth before I catch flies. He drops his face to mine and kisses me quickly on the lips. His mouth moves sideways to my ear. “I’m sorry I was an ass,” he whispers, and I pull my face back to look up at him.

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a big bar of chocolate. “I even brought him chocolate to celebrate,” he shrugs, “or commiserate.”

A grin slowly stretches across my face and I reach out and hug him to me. “Thank you,” I say into his chest.

He untangles himself from me and looks behind me to where my parents are standing, trying to act like they’re not watching us.

He smiles over at them, steps forward and reaches out his hand to shake their hands. “Hi there, I’m Charlie,” he introduces himself, shaking my dad’s hand and then moving over to my mom. I’m grinning from ear to ear.

He came. He didn’t want to, but it was important to me so he came anyway and is now making small talk with my parents because he knows it will make me happy. I turn round to call Jay, who comes dashing over still smiling and happily accepts the chocolate from Charlie. I glance down the field and Ryan, Jake, and their friends are heading to the parking lot, not bothering to come over. I briefly think this is pretty rude, especially of Jake, but then remember that they’ve come to support Jay, which was really nice of them, and honestly, I’d rather talk to Charlie.

I’m happy. Jay’s won his game and it feels like Charlie and I have taken a step forward in our relationship. Today has been a good day after all.

I
look down at the phone in my hand and try hard not to burst into tears. Charlie just hung up on me. The rational part of me knows I wasn’t being out of line by asking him where he’s been and who he’s been with. I’ve barely seen him in the last two weeks since Jay’s soccer game and he’s been really hard to get a hold of. I felt like we’d made an extra commitment to each other that day with him meeting my parents and all, but since then I’ve just had the occasional text and it’s not unreasonable of me to ask him what’s going on. However, the other part of me, the part that adores him and cannot stop thinking about him, wishes I’d kept my big mouth shut and not messed things up, because now he’s angry at me and I don’t know where I stand.

God, I want to scream the whole school down I’m so frustrated. I always thought those girls were crazy. The ones who just agreed with everything their boyfriends said, no matter what the situation. I laughed at Erica when she’d let herself be ignored and then just go running back like nothing had ever happened. But now I’m in a relationship and I’m all in love and infatuated and the truth is, if you like someone, you like someone. There’s nothing you can do about it.