Biggest Flirts (Superlatives #1)(21)
Author: Jennifer Echols

He shut me down. “Nope. So let’s make it official. Will you drive to Atlanta with me for tryouts in November?”

The last thing I wanted was to have a real conversation with Will in which we confronted our issues. But he was watching me with his brows raised behind his shades, which I interpreted as hope in his eyes. Just like Sunday night all over again. I knew he would keep bringing up the idea and I would continue to string him along to avoid either committing to him or disappointing him, unless I went ahead and cut him off. I said, “You think you’ve got me all figured out, but you’re way off the mark. I don’t do stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what?”

“Stuff requiring effort.” As I said this, I turned away from Will. DeMarcus motioned to call the band to order and open practice. It was the drum captain’s job to play a short riff that the rest of the drum line echoed, snapping the whole band to attention. I did the job this time, startling Will.

The entire band went completely still, except for Will, who really had gotten caught off guard. He eased his head forward and slowly folded his sticks on top of his drum in our attention position so he wouldn’t get in trouble for failing to keep his eyes up front.

The whole standing-at-attention thing was just a little game we played for a few seconds at the beginning of band sometimes. It was a tool Ms. Nakamoto used to make us listen to her if she couldn’t convince the trumpets to shut up otherwise. Usually it bored me to death. Today I heard the cars swishing by on the street outside the stadium, the cries of seagulls gliding overhead, a breeze through the palms that definitely didn’t make it down to the bottom of the bowl we were standing in, the tiniest tap as Will finally set his sticks down on his drumhead, and his long sigh. Maybe he sighed with relief that he hadn’t gotten caught. I was afraid he sighed with frustration that I was playing impossible to get.

Most boys who pursued me stopped trying eventually, frustrated. I would miss Will. I hoped he wouldn’t stop trying for a while.

Of course . . . he had already, when he asked out Angelica. Funny, even though I could see her from where I was standing, way up near the home bleachers in the majorette version of standing at attention with her toe pointed and two batons crossed on her hip, I’d forgotten all about her when Will stood so close.

“At ease,” DeMarcus hollered. “At ease” didn’t mean “collapse,” but that’s what happened. The tubas and drums slid their instruments off their shoulders and dumped them on the ground. While Ms. Nakamoto told us through her microphone what we’d be rehearsing for the next hour, Will took off his harness, handed me his hat and shades, then pulled his shirt over his head, just like in every other practice this week.

Much as I wanted to see this, I told him quietly, “You can’t take your shirt off.”

“Yes, I can,” he said through the material. “Watch, it’s stretchy.”

“No, I mean . . .” I said to his naked torso.

I stopped and just watched him. This was the hottest thing I’d ever seen at school. His paleness had mellowed into a gentle tan that would protect him from the sun, and his strong build gave him the look of a proud lifeguard. He took his hat and shades back from me. The lenses reflected the palm trees behind me.

“Not during school hours,” I managed. “It’s against the dress code.”

“Suddenly you care about the rules.” He cracked a lopsided grin at me, twirling his shirt cheekily in one hand.

“Mr. Matthews,” Ms. Nakamoto called through her microphone. “Put your shirt on. We don’t allow students to break the dress code when school is in session.”

I started to taunt him but thought better of it. He really might be upset that he’d gotten in trouble, and for something so silly.

Just as I was thinking this, he roared back at Ms. Nakamoto across the field, “It’s. Three. Thousand. Degrees!”

“Mr. Ma-tthews?” Ms. Nakamoto’s tone had changed to the one I’d heard her use only on me, last year, when I overslept and made all four buses half an hour late leaving for a contest in Miami.

“He’s doing it,” I called to placate her. I held out my hands and snapped my fingers for his hat and shades.

He gave heaven a sour look for a second, then obediently passed me his cap and sunglasses again while he pulled on his shirt. Then he took his hat and shades back. From the side, I could see he’d closed his eyes behind the lenses as he inhaled a long, calming breath through his nose.

With Ms. Nakamoto issuing clipped instructions through her microphone, I whispered to Will, “What are you thinking about? Revenge?”

“Snow.”

Ms. Nakamoto drilled us for most of practice, so we didn’t get to chat. We played and marched through the opening number probably eleven times. In the pauses between, while Ms. Nakamoto stood way up in the stands with DeMarcus and they pointed at the lopsided loops in the formation (not our problem; drums stood in rows), we watched Sawyer working the field in his pelican costume. It was impossible not to watch him.

Sawyer and I were good friends. I knew there was a lot more to him than being the screwed-up son of a felon. But I’d been just as astonished as everybody else when he tried out for school mascot last spring—and made it. He’d told me excitedly about the school paying for him to go to mascot camp a few weeks ago. He’d learned a ton, and he was over the moon the day the school handed him the mascot costume they’d ordered. The new pelican wasn’t especially for him, of course. It was just time for a new one. The old pelican had been shedding faux feathers and looked like it had spent time in an inland pond and caught a disease that caused its beak to disintegrate. When the drum line had been bored in the stands at a lackluster football game last fall and feeling snarky, we’d taken to calling it the Pelican’t.

This was our first time seeing Sawyer the New Pelican in action, and his hold on everyone’s attention had very little to do with the bird’s blinding whiteness. He performed an exaggerated version of the cheerleaders’ chants and dances while standing right behind Kaye, and he wasn’t dissuaded when Kaye frequently spun around and slapped him. His outfit was padded. Eventually he wandered over to bother the majorettes until Ms. Nakamoto called, “Mr. De Luca, remove yourself from the band, and keep your wings to yourself.”

The band and the cheerleaders burst into laughter. Sawyer folded his wings and stomped his huge bird-feet back toward the cheerleaders in a huff. Chuckling, I said, “He’s going to be good.”