Biggest Flirts (Superlatives #1)(10)
Author: Jennifer Echols

Yet if he was that innocent, what business did he have coming to a party and deliberately sitting next to the girl over the cooler? I pointed out, “We spent a lot of time together last night. You had plenty of chances to tell me that you’re on the drum line, or that we would be seeing each other again soon, as in this morning.”

He nodded. “You’ve got me. I didn’t intend to hide it from you. Once we started talking, I was having fun with you, and I didn’t want anything to ruin it.”

That I understood. I’d felt the same way the countless times I’d thought, This boy is not a real pirate.

“And I hoped we were heading for something really good. If we’d started dating, which honestly was what I assumed was going to happen after last night, the fact that we’d have to spend so much time standing right next to each other would have been good news.”

“It’s still good news,” I assured him. “I just don’t want a boyfriend.”

“I get it,” Will said.

Ms. Nakamoto issued instructions through her microphone then, commanding all the drums to move our equipment so DeMarcus could place clarinet players in a curlicue where we’d been sitting. As we lugged our stuff five yards downfield and plopped on the forty-five, I pondered whether Will really did “get it,” as he’d said. My reasons for not wanting a boyfriend ran deep. Not even my closest friends completely got what I only half understood about myself.

“Jesus. It’s. Hot!” Will took off his cap, poured bottled water over his head, slicked his fingers through his hair, and put his cap back on.

“You’ll get used to it,” I assured him, munching a Pop-Tart.

“By the time I get used to it, I’ll be gone.”

This was true for a lot of the old people who thought they wanted to retire here. They came into the antiques shop to buy knickknacks for the cute cottage where they planned to live out their days. They told me it was a lot hotter in Florida than they’d imagined, and they asked if we were in the midst of an unusually hot spell. I told them no. When they reappeared a few weeks later to sell their knickknacks back to me, they admitted they were packing up and heading back to Cleveland. They weren’t as sick of five feet of snow each winter as they’d initially thought.

But a high school senior couldn’t do what he chose, obviously, so Will’s words sounded bitter. I wondered again whether he was taking my no-boyfriend rule the wrong way: that is, personally.

I teased him, which was my solution to every problem. “If you want to stay cool, getting rid of the Paul Bunyan beard might help.”

He rasped one hand across his stubbly cheek. “I can’t find my razor.”

“Your refrigerator and now your razor?” I poked out my bottom lip in sympathy. “We have razors in Florida, you know. And stores to buy them in. We’re not that weird.”

“I didn’t want to be late this morning.” He glanced sideways at me. “To beat you in the challenge.”

“Ohhhhh!” I sang. “That hurt.” It didn’t really, but he’d seemed so straight-laced in the bright light of morning that the jab did surprise me. “By the way, how did you memorize the drum cadence so quickly?” I’d arrived too late to hear him, but he must have played the challenge perfectly to pull ahead of me.

“As soon as I knew I was moving here, I wrote ahead and asked Ms. Nakamoto to send me the music,” he explained. “I’d already planned to challenge you on the first day. I mean”—he corrected himself when I raised an eyebrow—“I’d planned to challenge the drum captain. I didn’t know it was you. Until last night.”

Then he leaned over until his breath tickled my ear. By now just about all the boys in the band had pulled off their shirts, and some girls had too if they’d remembered to wear a bikini top or sports bra underneath. But I was very aware of Will’s bare chest in particular, and the way he’d set my skin on fire last night, as he whispered, “You let me beat you, didn’t you?”

I gazed at him, neither confirming nor denying, and hoped that, behind my sunglasses, my eyes were as unreadable as his. I didn’t like to lie, but I wasn’t willing to admit this either.

He whispered again, “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

Ms. Nakamoto was calling to us again: Everybody up. Back to our places. The drum captain had to provide a beat while the whole band marched through the first formation of halftime. Drummers scrambled toward us from all corners of the field. But Will and I sat watching each other. We understood each other better than either of us was comfortable with.

The moment passed. He stood and pulled me up after him. We marched elbow to elbow through the first thirty-two measures of the song, then stopped to let DeMarcus shift people a few steps up or back according to what Ms. Nakamoto hollered.

“So, this school’s mascot is the pelican?” Will asked.

I was relieved that he’d dropped the serious conversation. Or maybe he just didn’t care to have one while the third- and fourth-chair snares, Jimmy and Travis, and all the cymbal players could hear us. As long as he wanted to be jocular, I didn’t care why.

“You’ve come to this realization only gradually?” I asked. “How did you interpret the large sign at the entrance to campus that says HOME OF THE PELICANS?”

“I thought it was a home for pelicans.” He gestured to five of them flying in formation overhead, on their way from one inlet to another.

“You did not.”

“School mascots are supposed to be fierce,” he explained. “Cardinals and ducks and pelicans are poor choices. If you’re going to pick a bird, pick one that hunts prey or eats carrion, at least.”

“Right. Let me guess. You transferred here from Uptight Northern High School, Home of the Vultures.”

“We aren’t vultures.” With mock self-righteousness, he said, “Our mascot is the Wrath of God.”

I snorted with laughter I didn’t quite feel. Granted, he’d been in town only two days. But I wished he’d referred to his other team as “they” rather than “we,” and in the past tense. He still identified himself as a member of his old school, not this new one. If he had his way, he probably would make it back to Minnesota before he got used to the heat. I watched a bead of sweat crawl down the side of his neck.

And I felt a fresh pang of guilt that I was part of the reason he didn’t like it here. I certainly hadn’t helped matters by taking him home and then brushing him off. But I wasn’t about to change my no-boyfriend policy just to make a cute stranger feel more welcome.