Winging It (3 page)

Chapter Five

Nat

I haven’t kissed a whole lot of guys. A few weird, awkward gropings at parties or whatever, but never anything serious. Never anything that had prepared me for what it had been like to kiss Toby Cooper in my driveway, with the snow falling all around us, not even feeling the cold…

But I needed to change the way I was thinking about that, I decided as we drove to school. It wasn’t that it had been really good to kiss
Toby
. It had just been good to kiss someone who knew what he was doing. He and Dawn had dated forever, and clearly he’d picked up some technique. That made sense.

The other guys I’d kissed? I mean, mostly they’d been drunk, or at least had been drinking, and they were just…they were
boys
. That’s what the difference was. Toby was…well, he was Toby, but if I could get past that, if I kind of squinted out all the Tobyness and tried to see him the way someone else would, then I wasn’t sure what he was. Definitely not a boy. A man? Maybe. A young man, at least.

But so was Scott Dakins. Scott hadn’t dated anyone for as long as Toby had dated Dawn, but he’d spent quite a bit of time living down in Toronto with his dad, and he traveled a lot and went out with different girls and he was…yeah, he was a young man, just like Toby. So whatever had made it special to kiss Toby would work just as well, if not better, with Scott.

We got to school, and I could feel eyes on us as we pulled into the student parking lot. We were being noticed.

“It’s not too late,” Toby said quietly, his gaze fixed on the bumper of the car ahead of us. “It’s not totally weird for me to drive you to school; people know we’re friends. You’re not in too far yet. You can back out, and I’ll even let you keep the trophy.”

I admit it: there was a moment there when I was tempted. Toby pulled into the next open spot and turned the engine off, and I made myself try to figure out just how this was all going to play out. It had seemed like a great idea in theory, but in practice? It would change everything, and that was kind of scary. Stepping out of the car, walking in beside Toby, doing whatever it was we were going to do to make it clear we were together…there was no going back from that.

Then a car pulled in next to us. Midnight-blue Mustang, sleek and shiny, with Scott Dakins behind the wheel. He looked over, recognized Toby’s car, saw me, and nodded a greeting. If I’d been sitting in someone else’s car, I knew his gaze would have flowed right over me; I’d experienced it before, the last time he was in town.

So, just like that, my decision was made. “We’re doing it,” I said firmly.

Toby got out of the car without arguing and walked around the front to wait for me. I wondered if he realized he was standing in the same spot, relative to the car, that we’d been in back at the house. But I needed to stop thinking about that. Scott was here, and he was probably watching us. This was my chance, and I had to make it work.

So I smiled at Toby and went to join him. Holding hands seemed like a bit too much, but I brushed my shoulder into him and sort of nudged him forward with my hip. “We’ve got gym first period, but what do you have after that?” I whispered. Girlfriends knew their boyfriends’ schedules, I was pretty sure.

“Second period is history. Art after lunch.”

“Art? Really?”

He shrugged like he was trying to be casual. “It’s pretty cool. We take pictures and stuff, play with them on computers. It’s not like we’re all sitting around with easels and paintbrushes.”

That was when we heard someone jogging up behind us and both turned to see Scott, big smile on his face, slowing down and stepping right between us. Obviously we were supposed to keep walking, with him in the middle. “Tobe,” he said with a nod, and then he turned to me and his smile was dazzling. “Natalie. I really like your hair today—I had no idea it was so long.”

My boring brown hair was pulled back in its usual ponytail, but maybe it was a bit straighter than usual? Or maybe he was actually
looking
at me for a change.

“Oh,” I said, and I reached back like I was checking to see if it had mysteriously grown longer. “Thanks. I, uh…it’s a new conditioner.” Which wasn’t true, but at least it was something to say.

Scott dropped half a step back and lifted the end of my ponytail up to his nose, and then took a big whiff. “Nice,” he said, and his eyes closed for a moment in appreciation. “Smells fantastic.”

The plan was working! Scott had noticed me, Scott had talked to me, Scott had
smelled my hair
and then said nice things. Toby didn’t look too impressed, but he never would be, not when his cousin was involved.

By the time we made it to the school, we were in the middle of a good-size crowd. Toby was a Raider, Scott was gorgeous and charming and a novelty, and me? I was nobody, really, but I was with them, so I could tell people were paying more attention to me than usual. And I’d be lying if I said that didn’t feel pretty good. Not the throw-your-arms-in-the-air-and-smash-into-your-teammates-with-joy kind of good I’d felt after scoring an important goal, but…good for the new Nat, at least.

So I was coasting along pretty happily until I looked into the caf and saw Dawn, sitting with the gang of friends she’d made since she and Toby broke up. They were mostly busy with their own conversations, but Dawn was staring right at Toby and me. She looked confused at first and then frowned suspiciously.

Damn. I hadn’t really thought about Dawn, and I didn’t want to have a big conversation with her there, in front of everybody. “I’ve got to go to my locker,” I said quickly, more to Scott than anyone else. Then I remembered who I was
supposed
to be focusing on and half turned. “I’ll see you in gym,” I told Toby. “We’re doing volleyball today, right?”

He just nodded. I was pretty sure he’d noticed Dawn, too, and I really had no idea what that meant. I’d never heard either of them bad-mouth the other, and they’d both said the breakup was mutual, but it still must be weird for them to see each other. And probably even weirder for Dawn to see Toby and me together.

Not that we were being super obvious. Like, we weren’t holding hands or anything, and I eased through the crowd and headed down the hall without even thinking about giving him a kiss good-bye. So Dawn didn’t know anything. Nobody but Scott had seen any real evidence, so far.

I flashed back to Toby’s offer to call the whole thing off. I could get the trophy back, Dawn wouldn’t be upset, and this whole plan could just go away. The problem was, the plan was working. Scott had noticed my hair. He’d
smelled
my hair, and in a good way. I wasn’t going to keep going on the way I had been, with a hockey-shaped hole in my life and nothing to fill it. Scott was the future, the path to the new me. I had to stick with the plan.

By the time I’d gotten changed and made it to the gym, Toby was already there, standing with a couple other Raiders. Chris Winslow’s face always showed every emotion he’d ever even thought about maybe feeling, and right then it was a mix of surprise and suspicion, almost the same as Dawn’s had been in the cafeteria.

I was telling myself not to be self-centered and trying to think of all the
other
things they could be talking about that would put that expression on Winslow’s face, but then they noticed me come in and suddenly got quiet.

Just in case I needed it, here was another flaw in my not-so-brilliant plan—I hadn’t worked out a story with Toby. Not the details, at least. Like, were we pretending we’d just hooked up yesterday, or were we saying we’d been keeping it secret for a while? How had it happened, and what was supposed to happen next?

The day before I’d more or less ignored Toby in gym class; we’d been in the library working on a stupid project about sports around the world, and I’d just hung out with my group and we’d done our thing. The day before that had been outdoor activity day, and we’d all been out snowshoeing; I don’t think I’d said anything to him then, either. So if this relationship was supposed to have been going on all through that, then I should keep ignoring him. Which, judging by how nervous I was suddenly feeling about the idea of performing in front of an audience, would be a great way to continue.

But if that got back to Scott, would he be suspicious?

Toby solved my problem, at least temporarily, by giving me a little nod of acknowledgment and staying with his group. Okay, good, we were playing it cool. I turned around and found Tara and Lisette, friends from the arena, watching me more closely than usual.

“What?” I growled at them, but they knew me too well to be intimidated.

Tara grinned and said, “Anything you want to tell us?”

I stepped close enough so I wasn’t broadcasting to the whole class. “Why? What have you heard?”

Tara waggled her eyebrows. “You and Toby Cooper? Making out after the Raiders practice yesterday? It’s all over school—is that for real?”

That question hit a little close to home. “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Uh, because you’ve never really mentioned him? I mean, you used to be friends, obviously, but—” She broke off and stared over my shoulder, and I turned to see what she was looking at.

“Hey,” Toby said quietly. He seemed…I don’t know, taller than usual? That probably made about as much sense as Scott thinking my hair had grown overnight. But somehow there was just more
Toby
standing in front of me than I was used to. I realized how wide his shoulders had gotten, and how much muscle he’d put on. Those days of the two of us being pretty well matched in our little wrestle fights? Those days were long gone. Toby
was
a man now. A man who really knew how to kiss. But that wasn’t what I should be thinking about.

“Hi,” I said back, trying to sound cool but friendly. Tara and Lisette didn’t say a word, but I knew they were listening to everything.

Toby clearly knew that, too. “You were going to check if you could come to the game tonight,” he said.

Oh, good, an imaginary conversation. I wondered what the hell else I’d “said.” “Uh, I know we talked about that, but remember
I’ve
got a game tonight?” Because Tara and Lisette sure as hell remembered, since they were playing, too. Toby shot me a look, clearly reminding me that this was
my
fake relationship he was trying to enhance and he didn’t need my attitude. I turned to the girls. “We play at nine, right?” They nodded, and I told Toby, “So, yeah, I could come for the first period, maybe. Would that be okay?”

The Raiders sell out almost all of their home games, and tickets aren’t cheap. Plus, if Toby was being as good of a fake boyfriend as he’d been so far, he was offering me a seat in the girlfriends section of the stands, which would pretty much cement our fake relationship and, hopefully, drive Scott crazy with competitive jealousy. And somehow I was making it sound like
I
was doing
Toby
a favor by agreeing to go? “I want to be there!” I said quickly. “I just…”

“Have your own game,” Toby finished after I trailed off. “No problem. I forgot about that. Maybe I can come catch the last period of yours.”

Yeah, he could go from his bright, modern coliseum with thousands of screaming fans to my dingy rink where most of the audience members would be doing their homework, waiting for their moms to get off the ice.

That’s right, I play on a team with lots of moms. Tara, Lisette, and I were the only underage players, and we were only there because there weren’t enough girls our age to form a team of our own.

Hockey is
huge
in Corrigan Falls. Boys’ hockey. For girls, it’s a different story.

None of which really helped me with the Toby situation right then. “It’d probably be boring,” I told him. “You don’t have to come.”

He frowned. “I don’t remember you playing boring hockey.” He looked like maybe he had a bit more to say but shook his head instead, glancing at Tara and Lisette, then back at me. “We can talk about it later. Lunch, right?”

Well, that was one more thing we hadn’t really discussed, but it definitely made sense. That was what couples did, right? They ate together? And Toby and I clearly needed to do a bit of coordinating. “Lunch,” I agreed. “See you then.”

He headed back to his teammates, and the class got started. I love volleyball—not as much as hockey, but it’s probably my second favorite sport. When I got a perfect set and leaped up and spiked the ball right down the throat of the guy on the other side of the net, it felt good. And I didn’t really mind hearing one of the Raiders call out, “Damn, Coopsy! Your girl can hit!” I mean, I wasn’t
his
girl—even if we’d really been dating, I wouldn’t have belonged to him or anything. But yeah, I
could
hit, and it was nice that someone noticed it.

Then, sitting on the bench as we rotated through, I remembered that we’d already played volleyball three times this semester and I’d hit just as hard on those days, too. I guess I’d been invisible back then. I was the moon and Toby was the sun, and I could only shine with his reflected light? Something stupid like that.

So I was a weird mix of happy and frustrated when I left the change room after class. I went to the caf to buy a snack and was waiting in line when I sensed someone standing a bit too close behind me. I turned, and was treated to a full-on Scott Dakins smile, all for me. It was his flirty one, with his eyes warm and his forehead a bit farther forward than his chin, as if he was making me work to see the way his lips curved. Damn, it was a good smile.

“I can smell your conditioner even more now,” he said, his voice low and sweet.

“Yeah, my hair’s wet. From the shower. After gym.” I was a smooth talker, that was for sure.

“You don’t dry it?” He actually seemed a bit curious now, instead of being Mr. In-Control Seducer Man.

“Takes too long.” I picked up a bagel and fed it into the rolling toaster machine.

“I see other girls with dry hair…”

“They don’t wash it. If your hair is really
styled
, it takes, like, forever to redo it. So they pin it up in the shower and it doesn’t get wet.”