The Quarterback's Crush Read online

  “Hi, Dylan.” She smiled at me and waved. I saw Hannah shoot her a weird look.

  “Hey, Val.” I waved back. Kelly and DeShawn seemed like they were into each other, because neither of them really looked up at all. They were too busy looking at something on his phone.

  Hannah touched my arm. “Thanks for coming over. Do you want something to drink? We have soda or water.”

  I stuck my hands in my pockets and shrugged. “I’m good with whatever.”

  Hannah smiled at me and wrapped her arm in mine, leading me into the kitchen. “C’mon. We’ll take a look at what we have.”

  “Bring me something!” Riley shouted to us from the couch, where he sat down on the other side of Val.

  Hannah dropped her arm from mine and pulled open the refrigerator. “We have beer, actually, if you want.”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I’m cool. I don’t really drink. Especially during the season.”

  She handed me a soda and leaned on the counter.

  “Um, actually, better make it water,” I said, handing the can back to her. “You have white carpet and white furniture.”

  “What does that have to do with it?” Hannah looked at me like I wasn’t making any sense.

  “If I spill something, there’s no way to hide it.”

  She laughed at me. “Okay, Dylan.”

  I shrugged and said the only thing that would make it all easier. “Just superstitious during the season, I guess.” Superstition and season are the two easiest words to combine and let me explain away all my weird behavior.

  She handed me a glass of water. “That’s right. You guys have a game next Friday, right?” She smiled at me.

  “Yeah. Are you going? I mean to the game?” That’s good. Keep it casual. Let her talk all she wants.

  She kept smiling. “I’m not sure. My parents have started setting up college visits, and we might be going next weekend. Have you started looking at schools yet?”

  “No, not really. My dad and I haven’t really talked about it yet.” I don’t mind silence. My dad and I didn’t really talk all that much, but silence with Hannah was uncomfortable and awkward. It always seemed like she wanted me to say stuff, but I never knew exactly what it was she wanted me to say. “Where are you looking at?”

  She shrugged and came toward me. “The usual. Stanford. USC, Berkley, and my dad really wants me to look at Princeton. I’d like to get out of state, but who knows where I’ll end up.”

  “It must be nice. I mean, knowing where you want to go.” I put my weight against the kitchen counter. “Having options and all that. Must be nice.”

  “I guess.” She half leaned her head on my shoulder, and I went totally stiff. “I don’t know if it’s nice. My mom would say it’s necessary. She already thinks I’m behind because I’m not sure what I want to major in.” I didn’t mention the fact that I had no idea where I wanted to go to school, what I wanted to major in, and I sure as hell had absolutely no idea what I’d end up doing with next year, not to mention the rest of my life.

  “Yeah. Parents are like that.”

  “Dylan? I was thinking, if I’m not going on a school visit this weekend, maybe we could go out on Friday. After the game.” She rubbed my arm a little bit, and all I could really think of was what I could say to get out of it. “I’d like to get to know you better. You’re a really nice guy.”

  “Gee, Hannah,” Did I just say gee? Riley was right. I am dumb. “I actually think I’m hanging out with the guys after the game. It’s kind of a tradition.”

  “Dude!” Riley stood in the kitchen doorway. “I thought you were gonna get me something to drink.” He walked toward us, and Hannah pulled away a little bit. “Do me a favor and grab me whatever. We’re gonna watch a movie. DeShawn brought Saw!”

  “Gross,” Hannah said, practically running into the living room, ready to stop DeShawn. “You guys!”

  Riley looked at me. “Did I save you in time?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. Thanks, dude.”

  “If you’re not into it, you should just tell her.”

  “Yeah, I know. It’s, you know, I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

  “You can’t always be the nice guy, Dyl. Sometimes you’ve gotta be the asshole. I know you can be an asshole.” He put his arm around my shoulders. “Let’s watch the movie and then go get something to eat.”

  “Sounds good.”

  I sat down on the couch, and Hannah plopped down next to me. She snuggled up to me every time something scary happened on screen, and I wondered if I could date her. I realized the word that went through my head was “could” and not “should.” I knew that I could. I could ask her out. I knew she’d say yes. It was obvious she was into me and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t notice much longer, especially since she’d just asked me on a date. And I liked her. She was a nice girl. She was smart and funny and pretty. We could date and, who knows, maybe we’d end up as homecoming king and queen. That’d be a real joke. I bet Riley’d laugh his ass off. If he knew the truth. If I dated Hannah, I could get through senior year. If I dated Hannah, I’d say I wasn’t ready for sex and she’d respect that. And when we kissed… I’d just close my eyes and think of someone else. I could think of one of the Patriots or one of the actors on that show, the one about werewolves. Most of those guys were too buff for me, but one or two of them were skinny and seemed short, which I really liked. I closed my eyes for a second and let my mind wander about who I would picture if Hannah and I did kiss. And my eyes shot back open when I realized exactly who I’d be thinking of.

  It hit me. It hit me like that linebacker from Central City High. He was a big dude and he put me down in, like, two seconds.

  I was picturing kissing Tommy Peterson. Oh shit, I thought. I was falling for Tommy Peterson. Tommy Peterson was like that linebacker. He knocked me flat without even trying. I realized I didn’t care anymore about my plan. Screw the plan! Tommy Peterson was right in front of me, well, not right this second, but you know what I mean. And suddenly I smiled—which, by the way, is a really weird thing to do in the middle of Saw—because all I could think of was kissing Tommy Peterson.

  This might sound weird, but if I had to, like gun to my head, pick the first guy I ever had a crush on, it’d probably be Bill Nye, the science guy. I have to admit it; I used to watch his show all the time, and not because I was into science (I wasn’t) or wanted to get some extra credit for school (I didn’t) but because he was smart. And hot. And that’s how I felt about Tommy. He’s got the three Ss. Shy. Smart. Short. And cute. That doesn’t begin with an S, but you get the idea.

  Damn. I was not expecting that. I should have figured it out sooner, but I figured I only thought Tommy was kind of cute and that was the end of it. So what if I wondered what kind of soap he used and what he’d do if I pushed the hair out of his eyes every time it flopped down? I sat there next to Hannah and realized I wanted her to be Tommy.

  HOW I MADE HIM LAUGH

  SINCE TOMMY and I met on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, I took extra time on Sunday to prepare. I didn’t want to look like an idiot, so I did all my regular trig homework, plus all the practice problems he gave me twice. I knew it wasn’t going to be a good week because I got two different answers for most of the questions. I sat at the dining room table with my head in my hands, trying to figure out what was going on.

  “Hi, Dylan,” Dad said when he came in the front door and saw me at the table. “How was your day? What did you do?”

  “Hey, Dad.” He looked at me for a few seconds. “Just studying. How was work?”

  “Fine. Mrs. Amberman came by and asked about you. I told her you were fine.”

  “Cool. Tell her I said hi, okay? Hey, do you know anything about trigonometry?”

  “Sorry, kiddo,” my dad said. “I wish I did. I could help you out with chemistry.”

  “I took chemistry last year, Dad.” I pushed my book away and rubbed my eyes. “Thanks anyway.”

  I w
anted to talk to Dad about everything that was going on, but my dad was different than Riley. My dad and I hadn’t really ever talked. Ever. When I was a kid, Mom was the one who talked to me about drinking and drugs and everything else. She was always funny when she talked about something, no matter how serious it was. She made my dad laugh a lot.

  “Are we having something special for dinner?” My dad hung up his coat and dropped his briefcase by the stairs. I had no idea why he carried a briefcase. It wasn’t like he could take anything from work and bring it home. I mean, I guess he could, but he was a pharmacist, so that’d be illegal.

  “I grilled some chicken after lunch, and I’m boiling water for spaghetti.” Next, he’d sit down in his chair and take off his shoes. That’s how he did things. First, he asked about my day; then it was the coat and briefcase. The shoes came next, and then he’d ask me about school and football. In that order. Days with my dad were pretty typical.

  “And do we have any vegetables?” Dad was big on nutrition. He sat down in his chair and untied his shoes one at a time. He grabbed them and then stood back up and walked them back out into the hall, putting them underneath the coatrack.

  “Some salad from last night.”

  “Thanks, Dylan. I’m really proud of you stepping up and doing the cooking.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” I didn’t want to mention the fact that if I didn’t cook, we’d either starve or go bankrupt from takeout. “Maybe twenty minutes and then dinner will be ready.”

  He’s going to tell me he’ll be right back, go upstairs, use the bathroom and change into his after-hours clothes. They were pretty much his work clothes, only the shirts mostly had short sleeves instead of long. “I’ll be right back. I’m going to go upstairs, run to the bathroom, and change.”

  “Sure thing.” It would give me time to set the table and look at my homework one more time and hope I could finally figure it out. I wondered if I could get away with calling Tommy and telling him that I didn’t have any idea what was going on. It would give me a reason to call him. On the other hand, I’d see him tomorrow at school and for tutoring.

  I could text him, but he almost never answered my texts. I think he would write down all the questions I asked and then answer them the next time he saw me. He answered a text once, telling me he couldn’t figure out what I was actually asking. I sent him a text back asking how he was. He never answered. The thing was, when we were working on trig, we’d lean close together. I could smell him because he was so close. His breath was minty from the gum he always had in his right front shirt pocket and his body smelled like some kind of soap that I couldn’t figure out yet. When I went to the grocery store yesterday, I sniffed ten different kinds of soap, but I couldn’t figure out which one was his. I thought I had it narrowed down to two choices, but then one of the guys in the store kept looking at me funny and I left. Sometime this week after practice, I was going to the drugstore across town where we never shopped and see if they had other smells. Maybe it wasn’t soap. What if it was a body spray? Definitely not one of the ones the guys on the team wore. Maybe I could google ‘soap for smart people’ and see what I came up with. Was that weird? I thought that might be a little weird. I wrote a note to myself to get Tommy’s address and find a store near him that might carry different brands.

  My mind was wandering, and I had to concentrate on the book because all I could think of at that second was Tommy leaning up against me, his arm on mine while he was teaching me. I could practically smell him, and I was having a really, really hard time focusing on my trig book. I had no reason to think Tommy was like me. Gay. And even less reason to think he’d be interested in me. He could have anyone he wanted. He was so smart. And I could tell from hanging out with him for a couple of days that he was funny. I didn’t have much to offer a guy like that. I dropped the book back on the couch and went into the kitchen. On the other hand, Tommy was smiling at me more, and he wasn’t making everything sound like a question. The other day, I caught him looking at my chest. Okay, so he’s shorter than me, but he’s not that much shorter that he’s face-to-face with my chest. I realized I was flexing and relaxing my pecs because I pictured Tommy standing in front of me, and I felt my whole face flush hot.

  Fortunately, Dad flushing the toilet brought the reality of my life came crashing back. Dad came down in his after-hours clothes—khakis and short-sleeved shirt—just as I was draining the spaghetti. Like usual, we didn’t talk much while we were eating, the typical stuff about school, and sports, and his work.

  Dad did the dishes while I went back to my homework. I finished my science and history first and went back to my trig book. I wanted to get the same answers twice. I wanted to, but I started to fall asleep. I wondered what he’d say if I didn’t get these answers right. I had a test week after next. If I didn’t pass this one with an A, I was done. Would Tommy start to yell? Would he think I failed him? Let him down? Okay, seriously, now I was just being weird. If this was happening after only a week of knowing him, what was I going to be like if he actually went on a date with me? I smiled, probably looking like an idiot, and went upstairs to sleep.

  PRACTICE RAN long, so I couldn’t shower after because I had to get to the library to meet Tommy, and I felt bad that I was all sweaty and gross. I was still having some trouble understanding (legit trouble! I wasn’t faking it) how to figure out sine and cosine, so Tommy and I spent a lot of time leaning next to each other. He showed me why I was getting two different sets of answers. I asked him if he’d answer my texts in an emergency. He told me that trig was not an emergency. Oh, and I had a little trouble paying attention because he was actually smiling when he said it and I realized it was a joke. And it took a while, but I think I figured out sine and cosine. It seemed like he was happy with me learning, and I was happy that he was smiling at me.

  The problem started when he asked if he could go over the essay I’d started writing for The Scarlet Letter. He wasn’t technically tutoring me in English, but he told Coach he’d double-check on me because, if I was doing bad in trig, the truth was I was borderline in English. It was actually pretty cool. He liked my ideas on how Pearl was actually like a version of Tarzan. You know, because of how’s he uncivilized and all because he was raised outside of regular society. I was thinking how Pearl is kind of like that, because her mom, Hester, is shut off from her society on account of being an outcast and how Pearl just needs her mom and dad to create, like, a minisociety where she can become civilized. Tommy seemed to really like the idea behind it. He called me comparing Scarlet Letter and Tarzan “unorthodox” which I had to look up once I got home. It actually brought a smile to my face that he liked it. And then we moved on to the grammar portion of the essay. It got a little rocky during that.

  “No,” Tommy said, for the third time in a row, while he circled another word on my printout. I could tell he was getting annoyed with me, and I really wasn’t trying to piss him off. “Do you even know the difference between plural and possessive?”

  “Yes?” Damn. That sounded like a question. “Plural is more than one and possessive is belonging to someone.” Like I belong to you and those beautiful sand-colored eyes of yours.

  “So, which one do you use the apostrophe for?” I thought for a second. It was barely a second. Maybe only a microsecond. Not any longer, but he jumped right in. “Do you actually not know?”

  “Apostrophe is for possessive!” I shouted it out like I was on a game show. “They both have three syllables.”

  He rolled his eyes at me. “Apostrophe has four syllables.”

  I counted them out on my fingers. “Oh, yeah. But I was right about the apostrophe.” Just like I’m right that I’m crazy about you.

  “Just rewrite these sections I circled and go over all your grammar before you pass it in, okay?” He handed me back the paper and my trig work and started stuffing all his books into his backpack. “If you have it ready tomorrow, I can look it over before you have to pass it in. I’ve got to leave a
few minutes early today. My dad is taking me to an astronomy lecture tonight.”

  “Oh.” I started grabbing my stuff too. “Is he picking you up here?”

  “No,” Tommy said as he headed toward the door. “I’m meeting him at home.”

  “I can give you a ride.” I smiled at him and walked fast to catch up.

  “That’s okay,” he said as we walked side by side down the hall. “I don’t mind walking. I don’t live too far.” He looked at me, like he was wondering why I was following him.

  “Dude, seriously. It’s not a problem,” I said while I was walking. He was walking fast, but my legs were longer, so it was pretty easy for me to keep up.

  Tommy hesitated, but he didn’t sigh. No sigh was always a good sign. “Well, if you don’t mind.” He actually smiled!

  “Nope. Happy to.” I jingled the keys in my pocket and fell one step behind him to see if I was right about something. I was right. His ass was really adorable. I had to pick the pace back up before I grabbed it. Maybe I should ask if he was gay. You can ask that question these days, right? We could date and keep it quiet. Provided he didn’t tell everyone I was smelling soap and make the whole school think I was a freak.

  “I’m just past Creedon St. on Van Reekum Road.” He pushed the school door open and held it for me. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  “Dude,” I said as I pointed to where my car was in the parking lot, “I wouldn’t have offered if it wasn’t cool.”

  “Thanks, Dylan.”

  “Sure thing.” When we got to the car, I opened the door and held it for him. He looked at me funny when I stepped back and waited for him to settle in before I closed the door.