The One That I Want(24)
Author: Jennifer Echols

“It’s probably hard for you, too,” I said. What I wanted to say was, This is the sweetest thing I ever heard, and it is making me fall in love with you, but I managed to hold back.

He shrugged. “It was fine in June and July. It’s hard now that school and football practice have started, but it will be over the weekend of our first football game.”

“The weekend Gemma’s team will crush us,” Carter said.

I stabbed a tomato rather than look at him, because I was afraid the expression on my face would give away how little I liked him at that moment. If Carter was really so concerned about Max being superstitious and losing his mojo for their game, why was he the one bringing it up again? And if he really liked me, why was he going out of his way to embarrass me?

Addison jumped up. “Gemma, come with me to the bathroom.”

I arched my eyebrows, by which I meant to convey to her that my mouth was full, and that she was a big girl who could go to the bathroom all by herself.

She did not get the message. She grabbed my arm and hauled me up so fast that I hardly had time to snatch my purse.

In the bathroom she pushed me against the wall and put her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to move in on my date?”

My heart raced. I wasn’t trying to move in on Max. I had not thought it was possible. But if I had thought it was possible, yeah. I would have been totally busted.

I put on the most perplexed face I could muster as I chewed my tomato very slowly and swallowed. “You mean Max?”

“No, I mean my butt!” she shouted at me. “Stop being funny, Gemma! He is my date, and I am the only one who’s allowed to be funny.”

“I’m not being funny for Max’s sake,” I reasoned. “I’m being funny and flirting with Carter.”

“Carter isn’t laughing!” She flounced into a stall and slammed the door.

True enough. I glanced at my watch. The concert would start in half an hour. It would probably last two hours. Driving back to Carter’s truck would take thirty minutes, which meant a total of three more hours saddled with this behemoth named Carter. I didn’t know how I would get through it if I wasn’t even allowed to pretend to be extroverted. It would be torture, sitting there silently while listening to Max crack jokes and not being allowed to respond. I wasn’t sure yet how I would get out of it, but I would not go on a date with these people again.

I didn’t wait for Addison. After a quick coat of lip gloss, I left the restroom and sashayed around the tables, back to the boys. Hunched over in conversation, they didn’t notice me coming. I caught the tail end of what Carter was saying: “. . . if she doesn’t even know you like her.”

This made me a little mad. They were talking about Max liking Addison. Of course she knew. He might not be hanging on her, but he’d asked her out, hadn’t he? That was more than anybody had done for me.

But I didn’t dwell on it, because I’d noticed something else as Carter spoke. Sliding into my seat, I said, “You are from Russia! I heard your accent that time.”

Carter’s expression sent daggers across the table at Max.

Max held up his hands. “This is a secret all of a sudden?”

“It was nice to go out with girls from a different school,” Carter said acidly, “because they didn’t know about that. Just like they didn’t know you make girls mad.”

“Oh, I think you spilled that in the first five minutes,” Max said.

Carter said, “Gemma found out anyway when we walked up here. I’m surprised Addison hasn’t slapped you yet.”

I glanced at Max across the table, looking so fun and sweet . . . but yeah, the goatee reminded me of his devilish side. I asked him, “Have you gotten slapped before?”

“Yes,” he and Carter said in chorus.

“I was twelve, though,” Max defended himself.

I could only imagine what a twelve-year-old girl had thought when Max had filleted her psyche and laid it out on a butcher block for her to see. Actually I was intrigued by this and wanted to know more about twelve-year-old Max. This guy had quite a bit of experience not getting along with girls.

But as Addison had reminded me, Max was not my date. I took my curiosity and warm feelings for Max and simply turned my head, directing all that emotion at Carter.

“I like your accent,” I said. “It’s sexy.”

Carter turned to me, too. This shouldn’t have been weird, but it was. Usually when he talked to me, he faced straight ahead and made a comment, and I knew from context that his words were meant for me. The most he’d ever bothered to do was tilt his head at me. This time he turned his whole body to face me full-on as he said, “БОлЬшОе cПacИбо.”

I was so shocked to hear Russian come out of his mouth that I grinned with a lot more emotion than I actually felt. If I acted like I felt it, maybe I really would feel it. I would start having a better time, and the night would not drag. I could not have Max. Carter was handsome. I was his date. I would give it a try.

He grinned at me. I slid my hand onto his knee and smiled back. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Max signal the waiter. He called, “Check, please.”

9

I kept up my act during the walk to the concert and the wait to get inside. I touched Carter periodically. That prompted him to say a little more to me, and it was easier for me to think of things to say back to him.

Mrs. Baxter had told the majorette line that the glamour grin was important. We looked better smiling, and we also felt better, as if our bodies assumed there was something to smile about. I had never really felt this way about the majorette grin. It felt like I was gritting my teeth and waiting to drop a baton. But I did feel this way about smiling up at Carter. I made an effort to like him a little better, and then I did.

The concert was easy to get through because it was too loud to talk and too dark to see much. The Dolly Paranoids were chicks who wore leather and beehive hairdos and rocked their guitars, putting on a great show. As long as I watched the stage or glanced over at Max, who clearly was as big a fan as I was, I felt happy to be there. If this was what being a teenager was supposed to be like, I had a lot to look forward to.

It was only when the roving spotlight caught Addison that my mood slipped. She frowned at the stage and even sat down in her seat at one point, which nobody else was doing at this show.

Then the spotlight caught Carter. The light glinted in the blond stubble on his chin and danced in his short blond hair. He really was handsome like a model. I only wished he wasn’t scowling at the stage—not as if he was bored, like Addison, but as if he disapproved.