The Quarterback's Crush Page 4

  I jogged around the front of the car and pulled my door open, tossed my backpack in the back seat and sat down. I pulled in a deep breath and turned my car on. “You buckled?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great.” I turned the radio off and made sure the AC was off too, because I wanted my car to smell like him. “So, what are you and your dad doing tonight?”

  “There’s a lecture tonight at the community college about the possibility that a new star that was cataloged might actually have collapsed, and it would be the first time we’ve actually seen something like that in real time.” He actually smiled at that. He always smiled when he talked about school stuff. It was like his whole face came to life. “Well, not actual real time, because, of course, you have to take into account the amount of time it takes light to pass through space. But this is really exciting, Dylan.”

  “They’re not sure if it’s actually collapsing?’

  “Well, the images we’re getting are vague, at best, and they have a ton of data they have to go through, but we’ll get to see some live images tonight, and it’s super interesting.”

  “I’ve never seen you this excited.”

  “Well, it’s a pretty exciting thing.” He hadn’t stopped smiling. It was the most enthusiastic I’d ever seen him. I imagined what he would be like when he had all those pictures and diagrams and, whatever else, in front of him. I wondered if it would make him laugh.

  “It sounds like it. Hey, maybe I could come along?” Did I just ask him out? On a date? Is it a date if you invite yourself along? Why did I just invite myself? That’s rude. Dammit. Now I was a pushy jock.

  “Um, sure.” Tommy looked out the window and then me. “I mean, I’d invite you along, but my dad can be kind of, well, he’s really particular. You know?”

  “Sure, Tommy. I understand. It’s cool. I’ve got to study tonight. I really want to make sure I get ahead on my trig. Test next week and all.” I’d really like to think that I’m the kind of guy who thinks before he speaks, but sometimes, I just can’t shut up. “I want my tutor to be proud of me, you know.”

  “Sorry?”

  I almost bit my tongue because I sounded so needy. “I don’t want to disappoint you.” I was really nervous, so I laughed and kept talking. “When you’re mad at me, you frown, and you get this really deep line in your forehead. Plus, you sigh, and use that voice.”

  “That voice? I have a voice?” He looked at me, and I saw that deep line in his forehead.

  “You do.” I smiled at him. “And the sigh. Don’t forget the sigh.” The forehead line got deeper. “Relax, Tommy. It’s… it’s charming.” I kept talking. Why can’t I stop talking? “Besides, you have a different voice you use when you’re happy.”

  “I have more than one voice?” The line in his forehead went away and now he only looked confused.

  “Yep.” I looked over at him while I slowed down for the stop sign. “It’s cool, though. You have the best happy smile.”

  “Happy smile?”

  I looked away and waited for the car on our right to turn. “Yep. You have a happy smile and an annoyed smile and a nervous smile. And your happy smile makes me smile too.” Okay, first I invited myself to a lecture he was going to, and now I was flirting. Was I flirting? Was he flirting with me? Can you flirt with someone who’s not flirting back? He didn’t seem flirty. He seemed to wonder what I was talking about. Was he confused by me? Why was his confusion so sexy to me?

  He hesitated, and I snuck a glance at Tommy and he was looking right at me. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I think he was expecting me to make fun of him. “Oh. Well, don’t worry about that.”

  “Don’t worry about your smile?”

  He shook his head. “I meant you don’t have to try to impress me, Dylan.” I could see he was picking at the knee of his pants. “You work hard. That’s impressive. And you tell me when you’re confused.” He smiled. “I tutored this guy last year in English and sometimes it seemed like he’d never even spoken the language before.” He laughed. It wasn’t mean. It was just funny.

  “Tommy, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure thing, Dylan.”

  “We have a game on Friday night. Do you want to come? It’s gonna be great.” I wasn’t actually sure if it was going to be a great game or not. Our practices were good, but I don’t know that I could call us a great team yet. “I can save you some sideline seats. You could bring your dad.”

  “That’s nice of you, Dylan, but I have some extra ACT prep this weekend. Maybe the next game.”

  “Didn’t you take your ACTs last year?” I was driving more slowly than I usually would have because I wanted to spend as much time with him as possible. “That’s when I took mine.”

  “You know you can take them more than once, right, Dylan?” He looked at me and gave me a smile.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Well,” he said, shifting his backpack on the floor of the car between his feet. “If you didn’t like your score, you can take it again and then use whichever score is better for your college applications. Didn’t the guidance counselor tell you that?”

  “I don’t think I’ve had an appointment with her this year.”

  “Dylan, you have to start prepping for your apps.” He looked mildly horrified. “You are applying to college, right?”

  “Sure,” I said, smiling at him. “I have a few schools actually interested in me for football. None of the big ten schools, but, you know, smaller ones.” I smiled again and tried to make a joke about it. “Small ten maybe?”

  “I think there’s one more chance for you to take the test in December.” He seemed kind of embarrassed at having to tell me that. “I mean, if you wanted.”

  “Tommy,” I said carefully as we stopped at another sign, “I’m not sure it would help. I mean, I do okay, but I’m not going to get into school because of my grades. I have football and that’s about it.”

  We started moving again, and he spoke quickly. “You’re smarter than you think. And you’ve got more going for you than football.” I glanced at him and saw his face move until he was looking out the window. “I don’t think I can come to the game this weekend.”

  “Oh, okay. No problem. I just thought you might enjoy it.” I paused for a second and then kept pushing. “Tell you what, I’ll get them to put two seats aside and you can come if you get done studying early. You’re not going to study all day and all night, right?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” It came out kind of annoyed.

  “Just think about it, okay?” I paused for a second. “Just think about it.”

  “I’m up here on the right. Third house.” I pulled into his driveway. It was a nice house, a little bit bigger than mine. It seemed perfect on the outside. A little cold and boring compared to what I’d thought. I figured it would be this big, old house, like a mad scientist would have. All towers and lightning rods attached. He opened the car door and pulled his backpack out, standing in the driveway for a second, his hand on the side of the open door. “Dylan?” He leaned down to look at me.

  “Yeah, Tommy?”

  “You don’t need to be nice to me, you know. I mean, I’m only your tutor.” I wasn’t sure how to answer that, not without sounding like either a jerk or a whiny teenager, which I probably was. Both, I mean. He didn’t wait for me to respond anyway. He kept talking. “But I appreciate it.”

  He started to close the door, but I reached across and stopped it from shutting. “Tommy?”

  “Yes?” He leaned back down, and I smiled at him.

  “I’m nice to you because I want to be. I like you, Tommy.” That was the closest I could come to telling him how I felt. At least right now.

  He looked like he was about to say something, but he didn’t. Finally, he smiled. “I like you too, Dylan. You’re a really nice guy.” His face got serious. “Nice.” He hesitated for one more second before he smiled again and then shut the door.

  I waited until I wa
s around the corner, on my way home, before I pulled over and banged my head on the steering wheel. I told him I knew about his three smiles. I told him about his sigh. I told him about his tone. Is there any way that I could possibly have come across more like a creepy, insane stalker? I had to talk to someone, but there wasn’t anyone I could call. I sighed, wishing my mom was still here. I knew I could’ve talked to her. I could always talk to her about anything. Mom was always on my side.

  It took me a few minutes, but I realized what I missed most about my mom. I mean, duh, I missed everything, but when Mom had been around, I was never afraid. She always made me feel like I could try anything. Even if I failed, even if I wasn’t the best, she always told me to try. I couldn’t ever lose when Mom was around. I might not succeed, but I never ever felt like a loser. Now Mom was gone and everything that I didn’t want to happen for another couple of years was happening. Why the hell was Tommy Peterson so far inside my head that I couldn’t think?

  LATER THAT night I acted like a twelve-year-old girl, talking about whatever boy band she happened to like and wrote down all the reasons I thought nonstop about Tommy Peterson. Maybe if I put it down on paper, I could get it out of my head and focus for a little bit.

  His eyes. I already talked about them. They were the lightest brown I’d ever seen.

  His smile. It was kind of lopsided and he tried to hide it, but it was like looking at a golden retriever puppy and made me smile.

  His butt. Can’t really talk about that one.

  His hair. It was too long (most of the guys on the football team had buzzed heads, military short, like me.) Tommy’s hair was long and half fell into his face.

  I put the list inside one of my old sports magazines and put it on top of my bookshelf. It wasn’t that I thought my dad would come in and find it. My dad was really good about not snooping through my stuff. But then again, I’d never really given him a reason to snoop. I didn’t think he’d start tomorrow, but I figured it’d be best to keep my head down. The problem with that was that thoughts of Tommy Peterson made me behave like an idiot.

  HOW I LOST MY TEMPER (IT WAS FOR A GOOD REASON)

  WE SAT at one of the tables in the school library, and I’d tried to come up with a good reason for Tommy and me to hang out outside of school. Riley and I sat together at lunch and in between talking to him about his little brother, Aaron, and why his mom liked Aaron better, I didn’t even have a chance to figure out an excuse to turn around and look at Tommy’s table. Was he hanging out with that girl who reads again? I counted the minutes until classes were over, so I could go to practice and then tutoring. Practice was good. We were all in the zone. Things were looking good for the game on Friday night. I ran through the shower and got to the library before Tommy. I moved the chairs so he’d either have to sit all the way across the table or close to me. The chairs weren’t right next to each other because that’d be way too obvious, but close enough so even in his peripheral vision, he couldn’t help but see my body. I deliberately wore this tight T-shirt that made my chest and arms look big. It was pretty obvious I wasn’t going to get Tommy by using my brain, so I figured my body was going to have to work. Even the brainiest guy gets turned on, right? Plus, I was almost 99 percent sure that he was looking at my chest the other day. Okay, 80 percent sure.

  “Hi, Dylan.” Tommy smiled at me when he walked in the room.

  “Hey, Tommy.” I pulled out my books and the practice equations and my regular homework. “How was the thing the other night?” He looked up and I put my elbow on the table, resting my chin in my hand.

  “Really interesting. I hope, one day, I can actually get to see something like that in real time and not just in pictures.” He shrugged and took all my papers. “Of course, a lot of the actual data is still at the observatory. I think it’s going to be released soon.” He smiled at me, the happy smile, and started going over my homework first. Every now and then, when I got the whole trig problem right he’d look up and smile at me.

  I unleashed the big guns, literally. When Tommy would look up, I’d tense my arm just a little, so he could see how big my biceps were. I didn’t want him to think I was a jerk, so I didn’t smile about it. I kept my face focused on the answers I got right and wrong. I was pretty sure he was looking at my arms because when I asked him to go over something else and flexed at the same time, he laughed a little bit. I looked up when he did that and his face was a little bit red, like he was blushing, and I got the same feeling I get when I watch those cat videos online. Yes, I watch them. But only sometimes. Anyway, it was a good feeling, like warm and content and exciting all at once. I thought Tommy looked cute when he blushed. I cut back on the flexing, because I didn’t want to overwhelm him, but I did smile a lot, and when he went over one of my answers, I reached over and put my arm on the back of his chair.

  The hour went by quickly, and he seemed to think I was in pretty decent shape for my test next week. As he grabbed all his books, and I grabbed mine because being with Tommy was the only reason I wanted to be in the library, I took a second and looked at him. “So, do you think, maybe we should have an extra session? Maybe Saturday night? Or Sunday? We could meet on Sunday?”

  He looked up at me and smiled. “Dylan”—his voice was really calm—“you’ll do fine. Just keep practicing and study for a while every day. Think of it like a chess game. You really have to take a deep breath and figure out how you’re going to beat them.” He was so close I could smell his soap. “Nothing is unbeatable. You can figure out anything if you don’t panic.”

  “Like football.” I said it as a sentence, but he took it like a question.

  “Not exactly, Dylan.” He sat back and smiled, but it wasn’t mean. He didn’t talk down to me. “Football’s a game of instinct. You practice how to throw and how to run until your body knows how to do it without thinking. Chess is the opposite. You have to always stop and think. That’s what math is like.”

  “Football isn’t all instinct. Some of it is, sure, but you have to think on your feet. You’re expecting a long toss, but the quarterback fakes you out and you have to adjust right away. You can’t just move without thinking. You’ve got to think. Just fast.”

  Tommy nodded slowly. “That makes sense. I guess I don’t know much about football after all.”

  “I can teach you,” I said without thinking.

  He nodded again. “Maybe another time. Once my ACTs are over.”

  “Hey, Tommy,” I reached out and carefully touched his shoulder. I let my hand rest there, and I could feel him tense up. And because he tensed up, I tensed up and moved my hand away, just when I felt his shoulder relax. He smiled like he was embarrassed, and I wanted to put my hand back, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do it without seeming like an idiot. Damn. How many of the jocks in this school had picked on him? And why didn’t I know about it? Was I that selfish that I never paid attention to anyone else? “I know you said you had some studying to do, and, no pressure, but I just wanted to let you know, in case, I did put two tickets aside for you. You could bring your dad. Or that girl? Allie? Only if you want to. I’ll text you about it Friday after school. Like I said, no big.”

  He didn’t sigh, exactly. Just kind of an exhale. “Sure, Dylan. Send me a text.”

  I smiled down at him. “Awesome.”

  He was smiling, which made me smile, and then he stopped smiling and looked at me. He licked his lips and then bit his bottom one and I swallowed the lump in my throat because I was sure he was going to tell me that 1) he knew I was gay, 2) he knew I was hitting on him and, 3) cut it out because even if, if, he was gay, which he wasn’t, he would never be interested in someone like me.

  “Hey, Dylan,” he said. “I wanted to say something to you. Two things actually.”

  It didn’t sound like a question, so maybe it wasn’t bad news. I put a smile on my face that I tried to make welcoming but probably looked fake. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “First, I just wanted to say that I�
��m sorry.”

  Okay, now I was panicking. “Oh, man. Did you talk to Mr. Simons? Did he tell you I was going to fail no matter what? I’m never going to play football again.” I sat back down and put my head in my hands. “I was really hoping I’d get a partial football scholarship to college. I know I’m not NFL material, but, Tommy, I’m a really good player. And I love the game. I really do.”

  “Dylan,” he said, bending down and looking me in the eyes. “Dylan, remember how we just talked about calming down and thinking things through? Would you calm down please?”

  “Sorry.” I looked up, and he was still smiling at me. “Right. Sorry.”

  “What I actually wanted to say was that I’m sorry because I was judging you before I knew you.” He shrugged and put his backpack on. “You’re a good guy. I’m really glad that I’ve gotten to know you. And the second thing is, you’ve got this. You can do this. You’re really smart. Honest.”

  We looked at each other for what seemed like a long time, but it was probably only a few seconds. “Thanks, Tommy.”

  “Sure.” We walked side by side to the library door. “Sure.”

  “Hey,” I said as I held the library door open for him. “Do you want a ride home?”

  “If you don’t mind.” He looked up at me. “I just need to stop at my locker for a second.”

  “Cool,” I said. I followed him down the corridor. He opened up his locker, and I leaned on the one next to him. I had to smile because it was the first time I didn’t feel awkward not talking around Tommy. It felt like getting a touchdown when silence with Tommy wasn’t weird or uncomfortable. It was really nice.

  Tommy’s relaxed face tensed up when he looked behind me, and I heard him mumble under his breath.

  “Hey, Peterson.” I knew that voice. Russell Travers. He was the biggest jerk in school and the captain of the baseball team. I looked down at Tommy and saw his fist wrapped tight around the strap of his backpack and it all clicked into place. Russell was the one who was making life hard for Tommy and for one split second, all I could see was white and red, and I had to stop myself from beating Russell within an inch of his life. “Hey, Porter. What’s the quarterback of our big, bad football team doing hanging out with a loser?”