Adorkable (18 page)

I swallowed. “He’s coming.”

“Does he know what you guys are planning?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, tell him I said hey.”

“Okay, Mom.” She was still looking at me funny. God, I knew I shouldn’t have applied that extra coat of mascara. “Do I look bad or something?”

“No.” Mom shook her head, a small smile on her lips. “You look great. Just make sure Becks keeps his hands to himself. I don’t care how old that hair makes you look. You’re still my baby.”

Mom was obviously not a fan of the sex hair.

“I’m not ready to be a Grandma yet,” she added. “Even if Becks is such a nice boy.”

“Love you, Mom.” I waved as I walked out the door, feeling guilty. Hopefully, she’d still think Becks was a nice boy after we broke up.

We’d decided to meet at Becks’s house and go to the party together. As I pulled into his driveway, I sat in the car a second after turning off the engine. I didn’t know how I was going to break up with Becks, if he had a plan or not. But the day was here. After this party, Becks and I wouldn’t be fake boyfriend and girlfriend. We’d just be friends again. Considering all the stress I’d been feeling, the thought should’ve made me happy, but it didn’t.

Clayton met me at the door.

“Oh my God,” he gasped, smiling, hand to his chest. His eyes were glued to my Stetson, the grin on his face stretched from ear to ear. “I think...I think I’m...having a...heart attack.”

I raised my eyebrows, and he laughed some more.

“Sally, you’ve got to stop coming ‘round here in those get-ups.” Clayton’s face was beet read as he tried to contain himself. “I’m loving that hair, though.”

Becks stepped around Clayton. He got a good look at me and sighed. “That’s because she’s gorgeous, and you’re a perv. Let’s go, Sal.”

I let him lead me to the car, hardly hearing Clayton’s protests. Had Becks really just called me gorgeous? I’d have to start doing my hair like this more often.

We didn’t talk much on the way to Mercedes’s. Becks kept looking at my outfit and shaking his head, but I was still high off that last comment. When we finally got to her street, the house was unmistakable. She’d decorated it in green and white streamers, and the line of cars looped around the block. CHS had won, of course. Even with Becks out, they’d played well, and Ash had led them to a three to one victory.

“Lucky,” Becks called it now, walking up the steps to the giant two-story. The door was gaping, so you could hear music all the way out here. “If Stryker had been paying attention, they would’ve never scored in the first place.”

“I thought you said he did good.”

“Good,” he repeated. “Not great. Now, are you and Hooker really going to do this? Again?”

I stopped, turned to face him. “We haven’t even done it for almost two years.”

“I know, but why?”

“Why not?” I countered. Stepping back, I held out my arms. “How do I look?”

Grinning, he reached up and tugged the Stetson more securely onto my head. “You look great and you know it, Sal.”

Compliment number two. This night was going a whole lot better than I’d predicted.

As we entered, Becks was greeted in the usual way. Everyone wanted to say hi and give him pats on the back. Though he’d had to sit out, everyone knew the team wouldn’t have gotten where they were without Becks—and he’d be back in for the next game.

“Oh my gosh!” Mercedes appeared, long hair waving in an unseen breeze, wearing a tight green dress that looked painted on. “I’m so glad you guys could come. Having Bally here is going to make it so much more epic.”

Having Bally call it quits, I corrected mentally.

Before I could get too down, the music cut off abruptly, and I heard a voice behind me.

“Well,” she drawled, drawing the attention of everyone in the room. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Slowly, I turned, delivering the line like I said it every day.

“I’m your Huckleberry.”

Hooker grimaced, eyes widening comically.

I grinned.

Her reaction was perfect. The dusty black coat, the red sash next to the gun at her hip, the mustache, her accent, everything was flawless. We were in the zone, both of us wanting to knock this last one out of the park. Mercedes had been wrong. Bally wasn’t what was going to make this party epic. Doc Holliday and Johnny Ringo were here to have a duel to the death, and they were about to steal the show.

Hooker had never died better.

As she went down choking and groaning, she made sure to fall at Mercedes’s feet, nearly pulling the other girl down in the process. Our hostess looked as if she might faint. When it was done—after Johnny Ringo (Hooker) had taken his last breath, and Doc Holliday (Me) delivered that last line about him being “no daisy”—there was a moment of silence. Hooker and I didn’t care. We took a bow, and half the room burst into applause, the other half still looking like “What the heck?”
Tombstone
was on TV all the time now, but most of them hadn’t seen it.

“Man, I love
Tombstone
.” Trent Zuckerman was one of the few who had. “It was like the best movie ever. You did great, Lillian.”

“Thanks,” Hooker said, pulling off her ‘stache.

“I mean
really
great,” Trent gushed then tried for a thick Southern accent. “‘I am your Huckleberry.’ Man, that’s awesome. You two are like legends.”

Hooker and I looked at each other. He’d sounded more like a Cali boy on crack, and he hadn’t even gotten the line right.

“I’ve got to go find Cicero,” Hooker laughed, turning to walk away. “Nice job, Doc.”

I smiled. Cicero was Hooker’s latest boy toy, a Greek transfer student. “You too, Ringo.”

Trent moved to follow, calling, “Hey, Lil, hold up!”

It looked like Zuckerman had a crush. I wondered if it was the facial hair or Hooker’s drawl that did it.

“What is it with that movie?” When I looked back, Becks was shaking his head, looking after Trent with a frown. “I don’t get it.”

I patted his shoulder. “That’s okay. I don’t hold that against you.”

“Sal, I know you’ve got a thing for that Kilmer guy, but that movie sucked. That’s why nobody’s seen it.”

“It did not,” I argued, snatching my hand back. “And people haven’t seen it because that’s the definition of a cult classic. Val was freaking awesome as Doc Holliday, and the lines in the movie were amazing.”

“But he’s old,” Becks complained.

“He’s a great actor.”

“Yeah, but he’s like three times your age.”

I shrugged. Val was Val.

“What is it with you and old guys?” He grinned. “First that Lucius guy, then Kilmer? I’m kind of seeing a pattern here, Sal.”

My cheeks filled with heat. I knew I should’ve never told him about my Lucius crush. “It’s not their age.”

“Then what?” he asked.

I threw off my embarrassment and lifted my chin. “Maybe I just have a thing for guys with accents. Nobody does a sexy Southern drawl like Val.”

“So it’s the voice, huh?” Becks raised his eyebrows then grinned. In a pitch perfect imitation of Doc himself, he said, “I’m your Huckleberry.”

I gaped at him.

“How was that?” When I didn’t say anything, he titled his head. “Sal, you okay? It wasn’t that bad was it?”

I was at a loss. He couldn’t have known. It was one of the few things I’d never told anyone, not even him. My voice had disappeared the moment he spoke the words. It was my favorite line of the entire movie, and he’d done it so well,
too
well. Even though it wasn’t used romantically in the movie, the sentiment had always sounded like a promise to my ears.
I’m your Huckleberry.
I’m the one you’re looking for. I. Am. For. You. I’d always dreamed of someone saying it to me. If I hadn’t been in love before, those words coming from his lips would’ve done me in.

“Sal?”

Forcing a laugh, heart in my throat, I said, “Perfect. That was…yeah, perfect.”

“Glad you approve.”

I was afraid if I stuck around he’d see just how much I approved. The glint in his eye said he already did. “I need a drink. You want one?”

I didn’t wait for an answer.

Making a beeline for the snack table, I grabbed a water bottle and drank. Becks had outshined every other guy I’d met, and now he’d even beaten Val at his own game. It was a sad truth, but Doc Holliday had nothing on him. Now whenever I watched the movie, it’d be Becks’s voice I heard, not Kilmer’s. I took another swig of water.

When Pisszilla snuck up behind me, I nearly choked.

“Did he tell you yet?” I whirled to face her, eyes tearing. “We need that story, Spitz. If we can get the dirt first, it’ll put our paper on the map.”

“What?”

She rolled her eyes. “Becks, where’s he going to college? You’re his girlfriend, so he must’ve told you, right?”

I shook my head. “No, I asked, but he refused to say.”

“Well,
make
him tell you.”

“How?”

“Good God, Spitz, are you slow or something?” She poked me in the chest with one of her sharp talons. “Use your feminine wiles to get it out of him.”

I blinked. “Feminine what?”

“Tell him you won’t have sex with him unless he tells you.”

“We don’t…I mean, Becks and I have never…,” I sputtered.

“Well now, that doesn’t sound fair.” Ash reached between us and grabbed a bottle of his own. Looking at my face, he added, “Spitz isn’t the kind of girl to hold something like that over a guy’s head.”

“There’s nothing to hold,” I said through gritted teeth.

“In that case—” He turned to our evil editor. “—Priscilla, I think you’re going to have to come up with a new plan. Sounds like she and Becks have yet to do the deed.”

Cheeks hot, I glared at them both. “That’s none of your business.”

“I don’t care how you do it,” Priscilla sneered. “Just get the info. I want it before anyone else, got it?”

She flipped her blond mane over her shoulder and strutted away, heels clicking sharply against the hardwood floor.

“Sounds like she really wants that story,” Ash said.

I looked at him. “Well, I do, too. Becks just won’t tell me.”

“Hasn’t told any of us on the team either. I think Crenshaw might be pulling for Penn.”

“Hmm,” I said, noncommittally.

“Know where you’re going to school?”

“No, not yet. You?”

Ash smiled. “I’ve still got another year to think it over.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot,” I said, grinning. “You’re still a junior. Enjoy this time while you can, young one. You’ll be a grown-up soon enough.”

He shook his head, keeping his eyes on mine. “I’m not that young.”

“Yeah right,” I teased. “Compared to me, you’re practically a baby.”

“You know, I’ve always had a thing for older women.”

It wasn’t what he said, but the look he gave me that made me blush.

Ash just smiled. “You’re so easy, Spitz.”

I laughed at myself. Of course, he was just joking. Guys didn’t see me like that, and the only one I wanted to was currently over on the other side of the room, sitting on the couch, getting his scruffy cheeks rubbed by a line of people that’d formed sometime after I’d left. It was like they were at a petting zoo, and Becks was the main attraction.

Ash followed my gaze. “Does he really think that works? The non-shaving thing?”

“Guess so.” I shrugged as one guy took it a step farther and placed a passionate kiss on his cheek. If Becks swung that way, I might’ve been worried. He was a very pretty guy. As it was, I smiled as Becks tried not to look too uncomfortable. “He’s a great player, but he’s also superstitious. Three days before a game means no more shaving.”

“That’s just stupid.”

I shifted my eyes to his. “You guys won yesterday, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Ash said, “because we’re good, not because of some stupid lucky beard.”

“I tried to tell him that.”

“Guess you and me are the only ones who think that way.” He gestured to where Becks sat. “Everyone else seems to buy it.”

I looked over and saw Mercedes sitting in Becks’s lap. She was running a hand through his hair and staring deeply into his eyes, pressing against his chest in her too-tight dress. The sight made me furious. Who did that skank think she was?

“Looks like someone’s trying to steal your man, Spitz. Better run on over there, and claim what’s yours.”

The anger in my chest withered away, settling in my stomach like a dead weight. Becks wasn’t mine, not really, just for pretend. At some point tonight, after our break up, he wouldn’t even be that.

“He’s not my man,” I said sadly.

Ash looked unconvinced. “Isn’t he?”

I shook my head.

“Well, he’s looking at you like he is.”

Snapping to attention, I saw Ash was right. Becks
was
staring at me from across the room, his face unreadable. As he went to stand, Mercedes caught his neck, and I made a break for it.

“Later, Ash,” I said, speed walking through the crush of people and entering the first door I saw.

It was a bathroom, the perfect hiding place.

Flipping the lock, I took in my surroundings.

It looked like one of those fancy schmancy bathrooms you’d find in a high price restaurant. Seriously, there was a small chaise, two chairs, toilet, shower, jet tub, mints, perfumes, hand soaps, gels and lotions, anything you’d need. A person could live in Mercedes’s bathroom, and I was going to do just that, at least for a while.

I’d already splashed my face, used some silky soft lotion, and eaten five mints when the first knock came at the door.

“It’s occupied,” I called, popping another mint into my mouth.

“Sal, it’s me. Can I come in?”

Eyes wide, I spit the mint back out, dropped it in the trash. When I opened the door, Becks was standing there, leaning against the jamb.

“Yes?” I said.

“What were you doing in there?” Peering past me, Becks’s eyes widened. “Whoa, that is one mighty fine bathroom.”

I crossed my arms. “Did you want something? Towel, hand sanitizer, mint?”

He looked at me. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You rushed in here pretty quick.”