I try to shrug it off, but the issue still bugs me since I noticed it. “I’m about ninety-nine percent sure my stepmom blocks my phone number when she leaves the house.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Anytime she’s annoyed with me, which is most of the time, I can’t ever get a hold of her. And when she gets home, she’ll show my dad her phone to ‘prove’ she never received my messages, claiming there must just be something wrong with the network. Because God forbid your stepdaughter, who’s under house arrest byyourorder, dare ask you to pick up yogurt from the grocery store you’re already going to.”
Jase appears to mull this over, abruptly taking hold of my waist and directing me to the nearest bench. To say I’m confused would be an understatement, especially when he tells me not to move before quite literally running off. Thankfully, the spot is in the shade, and the foot traffic is minimal here this time of day, so I’m not at risk of being spotted. However, when five minutes go by without any sign of Jase returning, I start to stand.
Just as I’m about to push up off the bench, someone holds a plastic cup in front of me.
One look at its contents has the stupidest grin spreading across my face.
“If she wants to be the evil stepmother, then I will gladly take up the role as your fairy godmother,” Jase declares, planting himself beside me with a cup of his own. “And I’d say I brought you the best kind of yogurt.”
Indeed he did. Not only has Jase just gotten me yogurt, he bought the frozen variety from Elsa’s Ice Cream Parlor & Creamery two blocks over. While his cup contains mint chocolate chips, mine overfloweth with cookies and cream, as well as several Oreos wedged into the top layer. It’s about the most delicious thing my eyes have ever beheld, especially in this heat, and it’s distracting enough that the filter between my brain and mouth glitches long enough for me to blurt, “How did you know this is my favorite flavor?” instead of the customary, “Thank you.”
It doesn’t put Jase off in the least, because he doesn’t miss a beat. “Every time I’ve been behind you in the lunch line at school, you always get vanilla ice cream and then buy a pack of oreos to crush up and mix into the bowl. It seemed like a safe guess.”
Again, the connection between my brain and mouth fails miserably. All I can do is just stare back at him.
“What? Am I not allowed to notice things?”
“I just figured no one noticedanythingabout me,” I admit. “Hell, most of the students in our class couldn’t even tell you my name. I’m just the ‘weird girl with the anxiety disorder’.”
Our school operates by means of clout. You’re only worth knowing if social media finds you worthy. The more followers you have, the higher your popularity ranking. Sure, I have a father who’s a former professional athlete and current TV personality, but I’ve never used that to my advantage. Even if I wanted to, my stepmom would ensure I couldn’t. She won’t even let me have any online accounts under my own name. Everybody easily assumes I’m a nobody and moves on.
And yet Jase continues to recount things like what I did for our middle school science fair or how I won the Hula Hoop contest during Field Day in fifth grade.
The more he talks about the latter, the more convinced he is that he knows where he wants to take me. “How about we have a one-on-one Field Day of our own?”
Since I’m still tryingto stay under the radar, you’d think the crowds would make this a less-than-ideal place to venture, but summer sports programs, vacations, and the perfect weather for swimming have thinned out the herd quitea bit. Most of the people we come across at the mall are middle schoolers, senior citizens, and tourists. With the theater, the arcade, the massive food court, and the laser tag zone, it’s hardly a place where you’ll get bored easily.
I roll my skeeball down the lane, and once again, I sink it into the 100-point bull’s-eye ring.
“Cheater.” Jase gives me a playful elbow to the side as a long, glorious row of arcade tickets is dispensed from the machine.
“A sore loser sayswhat?” I tease, waving it in his face.
In the forty minutes we’ve been here, I’ve already beaten his ass at Pac-Man, horse racing, Frogger, and even ax-throwing.
He thinks he’s found a game he’s sure to win, and I just grin, following him over to the Hoops station. Jase is easily one of—if notthebest—players on the basketball team, so it only makes my upcoming victory all the more sweet.
I have four extra points to my board than Jase, and just as I’m about to release my next shot—
He tugs down on the bill of the Red Sox cap he lent me, shielding my eyes entirely so that I can’t even see the machine. Yes, I know our attempt at a “disguise” for me is Clark Kent-level lame, but it’s not like I can walk around with a fake mustache.
I shriek, yanking the bill back up and slapping the basketball from Jase’s hands. It hits the side netting of the machine, nowhere near the basket. Satisfied, I position myself in front of my own station, but just as I go to shoot, arms wrap around my waist, and I’m quite literally carried away from the game!
Jase swings me around and deposits me far enough back so that he can get enough of a head start to shoot again before I can even reach my station. One thing leads to another, and…let’s just say the following minute gets out of hand. By the time the shot clock on the game sounds off, Jase has stolen my shoe and I’m on top of him, piggy-back style, reaching over his shoulders to try and pin down his arms to prevent any further shots.
When we inevitably wind up sprawled out on the floor, we’re laughing so hard my eyes are tearing up.
“Why the hell are you not on the basketball team?” he asks, chuckling as I snatch back my shoe.
“Sadly, my prowess in the arcade does not transfer to the real world very well,” I admit. “Things tend to go…badlywhen I’ve tried out.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“I’m good at soccer, but by the time I got to the middle school league in sixth grade, the whole thing had turned weirdly political. Certain kids got more playing time because of their parents, and all of the adults acted like every game was the World Cup. The last time I played, a fight broke out between the parents on the sideline. It got so stupid, they had to call the cops.”
