Blaze (12 page)

I pull my shirt on and lean back into Mark’s arms as he lounges against the freshly fogged window. I can feel him around me. I breathe in his scent and marvel that I just bonded with him so completely. We did it. The big “it.” We did
IT
. All of my lusting and hoping for all this time has culminated in this ultimate encounter. No more wondering what sex feels like. Now I know.
What
more
could
I
want?
I feel so close to him, I don’t want this moment to end.

Mark reaches up and presses the outside of his fist to the rear window, making the shape of a tiny foot in the fog we just created. As he adds little toes with his fingertip I am hit with a wave of insecurity and I wonder if the cute gesture is meant to charm me, or if it is rather like a small, wishful step away from me.

I see no clues in his half-lit expression as he shifts our embrace and groans happily. After a moment he invites, “Wanna go watch another movie at my house?” And since it’s too late to drive all the way over to Cinema World, I nod, pull on my lace-enema “lucky” undies and jeans, and get back in the driver’s seat. Mark uses a sweet, smooth voice to tell me that what we just did was amazing and that he can’t believe it was my first time, and that he’s so into me—but every time I glance in my rearview mirror, that tiny, baby footprint chills me.

“Are you sure we’re going in the right direction?” Josh is stressing out in the passenger seat beside me.

We’re on our way to a game and running late because I made a wrong turn earlier. We’re deep in Farm County, where one wrong turn can cost you a half-hour or more and land you in deep manure. With the four players surrounding me, I’m responsible for a crucial portion of the team, and we all feel the pressure of running late. Well, aside from Ajay, who is peacefully playing his DS as usual.

Mark fell asleep on the couch in his den as we watched yet another soccer movie, and I had to wake him to let him know I had to go home. It turns out the flurry of small good-bye kisses all over my face isn’t going to be “our thing” after all, which is fine since Mark drools when he sleeps. He sent me a text this morning letting me know his truck was back on the road and so he wouldn’t need a ride to the game after all. He wrote that he’ll see me there since he has a thing to do afterward. It just makes more sense this way.

His text felt a little formal considering the new level of our relationship, not to mention the fact that it was our first exchange since our *ahem* exchange. But then, he did say he’d see me at the game. Plus, text messages are limited to 160 characters, and anyway, it’s not like people sign texts with, “I’m your new boyfriend now,” so I’m not really all that anxious. It’s just bad luck that Mark’s truck got fixed right after our Superturd hook-up.

“Oh my God, Blaze!” Dylan calls out from the back, “Is this yours?”

I glance in the rearview mirror and nearly crash the minivan in horror. Dylan’s glasses have slid partway down his nose as he holds up my pale-pink “lucky” bra. The other boys turn to see what he’s so worked up about. I shift my focus back and forth from the road to the backseat so fast my head must be a blur. It certainly feels like one.

“Blaze!” Ajay accuses with his thumbs paused over his game system. “What is your over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder doing behind the back seat?”

I swear I can see Dylan vibrating with excitement all the way across the minivan as he holds my bra by the straps and waggles it up and down. The others gape at this physical evidence that, on top of being their soccer mom stand-in, I am, in fact, a girl.

“Um, I, er…” I falter. “I had to go to a thing after school the other day and got changed.” Josh will know it’s a lie, but I have to get Dylan to drop the bra and the subject of how it ended up in the back of the van before I die of embarrassment.

In the rearview mirror, I see Andrew reach back. In one swift motion, he snags the pale-pink lace away from Dylan and cuffs him in the back of his shaved head with the other hand. He leans up and drops the item over my shoulder with a quiet, “Here, Blaze.”

As soon as it lands in my lap, I wad up the bra and wedge it into my bag with a vow to burn it when I get the chance. I can’t bear to look at Josh, but at least Andrew has seen to it that the subject is dropped. Once my shock at seeing Dylan holding my unmentionables has faded, I’m able to put the whole thing into perspective and see that dying of embarrassment would be a complete overreaction. I decide I’ll feel better about the whole thing once I get a chance to see Mark. Maybe he and I will even have a laugh over this later. At least I’ll get to gauge what sort of boyfriend he’s going to be in the light of day. Probably not super-attentive, I expect, but that’s cool and all, since I have a life. I mean, we soccer mom types have pretty full schedules, and I’m fairly sure Terri is still my friend.

“Be ready to roll, boys,” I say as we pull into the lot at the exact same moment the game is scheduled to start. At least our late arrival means that the boys will evacuate the van quickly and my “over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder” will be forgotten. Or so I think.

Josh stays in the passenger seat, giving me a parental stare that should be reserved for actual parental figures. Or at least siblings who aren’t four years younger than you. “Is there something you’d like to talk about, Blaze?”

I busy myself putting my keys in my bag and opening my door.

“Blaze,” he says sharply.

I stop, turn toward him and say, “Josh. Mind your business.”

“You are my business, sis,” he says. “I know you like Coach, but there are some things I really should’ve told you.”

I flip my hair at him. “Josh, honestly, everything is totally fine. I know what I’m doing.”

And thankfully, not because he believes me, but because we are so late, Josh relents. “Thanks for the ride,” he says and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “I hope you do know what you’re doing.”

Me
too
, I think as I drag my faded pink chair over toward the sidelines to watch the boys play.
Me
too.

• • •

Mark looks cuter than ever and completely relieved when he sees us, which makes my heart do a little nerdy dance move inside in my chest. But then the game starts before I even manage to get my chair set up. Aside from a small, shy wave that Mark returns with a wide, open palm, we don’t exactly get a chance to communicate before the soccer action is in full swing and sucking up all his attention.

Throughout the game I try to look like I’m focusing everywhere except for Mark’s crotch as I send constant telepathic orders to him to pop over to say hi between plays, or even swoop in with a big embarrassing kiss in front of everybody, or maybe just make eye contact. My lousy telepathy aside, he does look over three separate times, and one of those times he returns my wave despite the ball being in play, which makes me feel pretty good about where we stand. Plus, he gives one raised-chin “hey there” between talking to players during half time.

Thankfully, I manage to resist the urge to prance across the field and throw my arms around him. Most of the sketches I draw during the game have
The
Blazing
Goddess
making out with a new Studly Shark character. In my pictures, though, the Shark guy has his shirt off, and the two of them embrace in outer-space—enjoying the benefits of zero gravity, rather than canoodling in the smelly backseat of a minivan.

I hear a commotion and look up in time to see Josh standing by the bench, lashing out at Mark in fury. Josh is poking Mark in the chest with his finger and gesturing wildly, but they’re too far away for me to hear what he’s yelling.
Did I miss some sort of disagreement over a play, or is this about me?

I stand up when it looks as if Josh may haul off and punch my boyfriend. My brother looks over and sees me wringing my hands on the sideline. Tossing a final remark at Mark he jogs back onto the field. Mark glances my way before snatching his clipboard up from the bench, and I sit back down in relief. I watch more carefully, but Josh avoids his coach for the rest of the game.

The Wolverines do not play very well, which is probably why instead of greeting me when the game ends, Mark dawdles and collects the equipment into his giant mesh bag. Finally, I walk over to him, towing my chair and holding my
(closed!)
sketchbook under my arm.

“Hey there. Guess you win some, lose some,” I say.

Mark shakes his head in response. He glances over toward Josh as he drops the final ball into the sack. “We totally should’ve had those guys.”

His contradiction hangs in the air between us a moment before he finally stands and gives me a sheepish grin that makes my insides mush. I feel my face crack open in a smile as Mark swings his sack of balls over his shoulder. We stroll slowly toward the parking lot together, where I can see the boys are already piling into Superturd.

“So,” he says, “guess I’ll be missing a rousing game of Cows?”

“You know it.” I bump him with my shoulder, and he laughs. I’m gauging the distance remaining between us and the parking lot and wonder if he’s going to give me a kiss good-bye in front of the Soccer Cretins. I don’t necessarily want to deal with being teased the entire way home, especially after the recent boulder-holder incident. Not to mention odds seem good Josh will deck his coach if he catches him kissing me, but I’m still up for a liplock with Mark under any circumstances.

I try to guide our path toward a clump of trees and bushes that could provide a win-win situation—liplock with my new boyfriend without lingering adolescent taunts. Mark still seems distracted by the team’s loss, which is probably why he doesn’t pick up on my plan to get us a little privacy. Instead he guides us directly to the driver-side door of the minivan.

“So, you have that thing, huh?” I linger, looking at his lips and deciding it might be worth all the teasing for one little smoochie-smooch after all. Mark gallantly opens my door for me and offers his hand to help me climb in. With a flourish I accept his hand and climb into the minivan as if Superturd is a chariot. “Why thank you,” I say elegantly.

He closes the door for me, nearly taking my foot off in the process. At my surprised gasp he apologizes through the open window. “Sorry about that. I didn’t get you, did I?”

I dip my head toward his seductively and whisper, “Oh, you got me all right.”

Glancing over my shoulder to where Josh sits glaring at him, Mark understandably hides his grin. He calls back into the van filled with his team members, “That’s okay, guys, you’ll get ’em next year!”

Amid their half-hearted groans, I stutter, “Wait, what?” I’m beyond flustered. “That was a playoff game?”

Mark chuckles. “You really don’t pay much attention to what’s happening on the field, do you?”

“Well, um…”
Busted!
I blush. “So the season’s really over now? I’m sorry.” I mean it.

He gives another glance toward Josh and points his thumb over his shoulder. “Well, I’ve got that thing.” After a grin-and-hanging-palm-combo, he saunters toward his waiting pickup. I watch as he hoists the bag of balls into the truck bed and runs his hand through his dark hair a few times before climbing into the cab. He switches his sunglasses for regular glasses, which surprises me, since I had no idea he needed glasses to drive. They have black frames that look perfect on him. I wait for a final good-bye so I can get the full-frontal view, but first he starts playing with the radio or something inside the car.

“Blaze?” Josh’s gruff voice makes me realize I’ve been staring at his coach for an awkwardly long time. I snap back to the inside of the minivan. Josh looks at me hard.

I reach over to ruffle his sweaty hair. “You okay about losing?”

“I’ll be fine.” He turns and slumps into his seat. I wonder what his fight with Mark was about. And if maybe the team lost because their star player was distracted over his big sister’s bra turning up in the backseat of her minivan.

“Yeah, everything will be fine,” I say under my breath as I start the van.

I can’t believe I’m actually sorry the soccer season is over. As I shove Superturd into reverse, I call out with fake cheer, “Okay, so I’ve got twenty-three in my herd so far, any challengers on the way home?”

But the van stays quiet.

A stop for ice cream at King Cone on the way home helps to cheer up most of the gang, but Josh remains sullen and I still feel a letdown that no chocolate-peanut-butter-crunch waffle-cone can soothe.

• • •

It’s another night of Mom working late as Josh begs me to drive him to Ajay’s house. I keep on insisting that (a) he should’ve asked way back when I was dropping Ajay off (b) I think he’s lying when he claims his fight with Mark had nothing to do with me and (c) he and Ajay are already playing Halo and talking with their headsets through the Xbox. Driving all the way back over to Ajay’s house just so they can smell each other’s farts as they play is a super-waste of my time.

Time I need to spend doing some serious decoding. I have to figure out what Mark and I are to each other. I doubt he’d allow my little brother to just chase him off, but now that we aren’t going to see each other at soccer anymore I’m fairly desperate to go out with him again. He hasn’t called or texted me yet, and I’m pushing away a niggling worry—is Mark honestly busy doing “that thing,” or am I getting the major send-off now that the two of us did
that
thing?

I try to distract myself by cyber-whining to the girls as I wait to hear from him.

Blazefire22
: He’s so great when it’s just the two of us.

Blazefire22
: They had just lost their playoff game so the season’s over early and that totally explains why he’s acting weird.

Blazefire22
: I don’t even know if he’s acting weird, I just expected different is all… This waiting to hang out with him is killing me!!!!

Blazefire22
: I’m obsessively checking email.

Blazefire22
: Nothing but silence.

Blazefire22
: Hello?

Blazefire22
: You guys there?

TerriAngel445
: Sure, just letting you get it all out.

AmandaSweetie68
: he shldve called u by now

Blazefire22
: I’m starting to regret hooking up with him

AmandaSweetie68
: well, there is a diff btween hav sex with a guy youve bn c-ing and hooking up with a guy on the first date.