Offside (15 page)

I glanced over at him and saw that he was looking at me out of the corner of his eye.

“Maybe it was how we collided,” I said with a shrug.

“I thought about that, too,” Jeremy replied, “but he didn’t hit you there, either.”

“You obviously have the eyes of a ref,” I told him as I turned back to the window. “Blind as a fucking bat. The x-ray says I have a broken rib, so you must have missed something.”

Jeremy didn’t respond but turned the wheel sharply to move us from the highway to my driveway. He gunned the engine and took us up the hill and through the trees. When he stopped near the house, I opened the door and jumped out—not thinking. I winced and held my side for a minute until I could breathe right again.

Jeremy came around from the other side of the car to help, but I waved him off.

“Hey, Thomas?”

“Yeah?” I replied as I opened the door.

“I didn’t miss anything,” he said. When I looked over to him, his eyes were focused on mine, and for a moment, we just stood there looking at each other. Jeremy finally inclined his head a little and opened up the car door as I went into the house.

My head was feeling a little wonky after the pain pill Dad let me take. He didn’t say anything about it at all; he just brought one of the pills with a glass of water and a sandwich and told me to eat first. I knew he felt bad about it—he usually did when I actually got hurt. That hadn’t really happened since last year, though.

Dad knocked on my door, and I pulled myself out of bed to go and unlock it.

“You doing all right?” Dad asked.

“Yeah, I’m good,” I told him.

He stood in the doorway while I went and sat down on the black leather couch under the window. He was fidgety, and that could only mean one thing. I didn’t want to hear it. It didn’t matter.

He started saying it anyway.

Babbling…barely understandable.

I knew he was sorry. I knew he didn’t mean it. I didn’t need to hear him say it.

“I never really thought…I mean…when she was here…I never thought I’d have to do this on my own.” He looked back at me. “I get a little carried away sometimes. I know that…but I don’t mean it. You know that, right?”

“Sure, Dad,” I replied. I needed him to just stop and move on. I didn’t want to talk about this. “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been out all night.”

“Right,” he agreed, though I kind of wondered if he even remembered that bit of it. “Yeah…we’ll have to talk about your curfew.”

“Sure,” I said with a nod. I knew he’d never actually come back and talk about it. I’d never had any real rules, not that kind, anyway. Play soccer. That was my only real mandate.

He walked over and sat down next to me, and I tried not to flinch.

“I’m not going to do that again, son,” he said quietly. “I just…I had too much to drink. You know how it is…on that day.”

“I know,” I replied. I didn’t look at him and focused all my energy on being completely still.

“You’re a tough kid, though,” he said. “So…you’re okay, right?”

“Sure, Dad,” I said again. “I’m fine.”

“Good kid,” he said as he patted me on the back and stood up. I didn’t exhale until he left the room, and I could lock the door again.

I crawled into bed, careful not to bump my left side too much. The pain was down to a dull ache at least. As I slipped off into that state of mind where you’re not quite awake and not quite asleep, my brain recaptured the day’s events. I slowed down the images as the morning scrolled by, reveling in the memories for a bit and then tried to ignore the rest of the day as it spun through my mind.

The next day at school was…awful.

It started off okay—I got up and did my run. My time sucked because my side fucking
hurt
, but Dad didn’t say anything about it. I gathered my stuff together, threw on a jersey, and headed off to school.

So far, so good.

As soon as I got out of my Jeep, the comments started.

“Hey, Malone!” Some other senior walked up to me and raised his hand for a high-five. “Nice job!”

“Thanks,” I said, having no idea what he was talking about. I had played a mediocre game at best last Friday.

“You’ve got balls, dude!” Another guy clapped me on the back as he walked into the building. I shook my head a little and headed in.

All morning long, the remarks continued. Random guys coming up repeatedly and making some comment to congratulate me. They were always just rushing past me—people trying to get to their classes and shit, so it wasn’t until lunch that I figured out just what the hell was going on.

“Holy shit, if it isn’t king stud himself!” Mika smacked my shoulder as he walked past me.

“What the fuck, Klosav?”

“You, my man!” he cackled as he plopped down in the chair next to me. “You have to have balls the size of Texas!”

“Are you going to tell me what the fuck you’re talking about?” I asked, “or do I need to beat the living shit out of you first?”

Klosav laughed.

“I’m talking about you, dude!” he yelled. “Who else spent the weekend boning the sheriff’s daughter while he was out of town? In the sheriff’s house, too! Leaving your Jeep right out front and everything? Holy shit!”

Oh no.

Oh, fuck no.

“Who the hell told you that?”

“Clint,” Mika said with a shrug. “He said you were fucking her all night while her dad was out of town. Said he saw you coming out of her house with only half your clothes on, looking like the cat who ate out the pussy.”

“That didn’t make any fucking sense,” I told him. Inside, my head was reeling. I had completely forgotten about Clint, but when I thought about how I must have looked as I walked out of Nicole’s house first thing in the morning—shirt unbuttoned, shoes in my hand—I knew exactly what he had assumed.

And had obviously told everyone else as well.

Shit, shit, shit.

“You gotta tell me.” Klosav leaned over conspiratorially. “Did you fuck her in the sheriff’s bed? Because if you did…holy shit!”

Had Rumple heard any of this?

Oh shit! How could she not have?

“And you were there the whole fucking weekend? ‘Cause Paul said he saw your car there on Saturday afternoon, and Clint saw you…”

Shit, shit, shit.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

What was I going to do?

I looked all around the lunchroom, but I didn’t see Nicole anywhere. I did see Heather Lones.

“Hey, Heather,” I called. I shoved myself out of my chair and left Mika still babbling. She stopped and turned around though her expression was not friendly.

“What?” she asked. Her tone was even less friendly.

“Have you seen Nicole?”

Her eyes narrowed.

“She left,” Heather finally said.

“Left? What do you mean she left?”

“She left the school,” Heather said. “Went home, I guess. After having fifteen guys practically jump all over her this morning and then finding out why, she took off.”

“Shit.”

“She’s not like that,” Heather said quietly, “and you made her sound like she was.”

She turned and walked away from me as Mika walked up behind me.

“So, since Nicole’s free game again, I was thinking of asking her—”

My fist hit his face before he could finish his sentence. He went sprawling to the ground.

“Hands OFF!” I screamed at him. “You don’t fucking touch her, you piece of shit!”

As temped as I was to finish beating the shit out of him, I had to find Nicole.

I drove all over fucking town, trying to find her with no luck whatsoever. Where could she hide an ugly-ass car like that? It was obviously running again since it wasn’t in her driveway anymore, so she had to be in it somewhere.

Deciding she had to come home eventually, I parked at her house and sat myself down on the front porch. Everything that had happened over the past few days started running through my head. What could I have done? Even if I had stopped Clint and threatened him, someone else had obviously seen my car at her house on Saturday. I should have thought about it when she drove me to her house. I should have just told her to take me home.

No…I couldn’t bring myself to regret that.

For the first time in a long time, I dug into the bottom of my soccer bag and pulled out a pack of Camels. Unfortunately, smoking a cigarette only agitated me more and didn’t calm me down at all. It made my lungs hurt, too. Smoking also didn’t make her appear.

My side was starting to ache, and I probably needed another one of the prescription pills, but they were at home, and I didn’t want to leave without seeing her. I leaned forward and dropped my head into my hands, closing my eyes and just trying to figure out what the hell I was going to do or say. My mind spun, and I lost track of time. When I heard the crunch of tires on the gravel drive and looked up, it was not the vehicle I wanted to see.

It was a sheriff’s cruiser.

Shit.

Sheriff Skye eyed me as he got out of the car and walked over to the porch.

“Thomas?”

“Um…yeah,” I stammered. “Hi.”

“I didn’t really expect to see you on my porch,” he said.

“Well,” I said, “I didn’t really expect to be here.”

“You want to tell me why?”

“Not really.”

He tilted his head to one side to look at me.

“Why don’t you explain it anyway?” It wasn’t really a question.

I took a deep breath. I had absolutely no idea what to say.

“I was just…looking for Nicole.”

“She doesn’t seem to be here,” he remarked.

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Maybe you should wait to see her at school tomorrow.”

“I’d rather not,” I said.

“What’s going on, Thomas?” Sheriff Skye asked in a very police officer, no-nonsense tone.

“She’s pissed off at me,” I told him. “I just wanted to…talk to her.”

“What did you do?”

I really didn’t like the way he leaned back and put his hand over his gun. I swallowed hard and tried to come up with something I could actually say.

“It was all a misunderstanding,” I started to explain.

“If you touched her…” he said with a snarl, “I don’t care who you are…”

“I didn’t!” I yelled. “That’s just it! I didn’t do anything—I swear! But…well, someone thought I did…and told someone else, and…shit!”

“Don’t swear,” he growled again. “Do you think I don’t know your reputation?”

I was tempted to completely lose it and start screaming. In the back of my mind, I knew he wasn’t going to do anything to me even if I came out and said I’d fucked his daughter on the hood of his patrol car. He couldn’t touch me, and he knew it, too.

But that wasn’t going to help the situation.

At all.

Against my better judgment, I opened my mouth and told him the truth.

“She helped me,” I said quietly. “Last Saturday was…um…the same day as…”

I couldn’t finish. Sheriff Skye’s voice softened.

“I know what day it was.”

I nodded.

“Um…Nicole saw me…at the cemetery.” I put my head back in my hands and pulled at my hair. “I wasn’t doing that well. She…she brought me back here. She made me dinner.”

I didn’t think he needed to know all the gory details.

“And?”

“And…um…someone saw my car here. They just assumed…” I looked back up at him. “I didn’t do anything, Sheriff. I swear I didn’t. But people talk, and Nicole heard it. Now she’s mad, and I just wanted to tell her I didn’t say anything.”

“That explains it,” he said with a bit of a smirk.

“Explains what?” I asked.

“All the Mexican food,” he said. “I couldn’t believe she ate that much of it.”

I chucked a little.

“I hadn’t eaten all day,” I told him.

We both looked up as the rattle of the Hyundai met our ears, got louder, and then was joined by the sight of Nicole pulling into the driveway. I could see her eyes go wide as she took in the scene before her.

I stood up off the porch and took a few steps forward. For a moment, she just stayed in the driver’s seat, looking out over the driveway at the two of us. Sheriff Skye reached up and scratched the back of his neck. A minute later, Nicole’s eyes narrowed as she slowly opened the door of the car and climbed out. Her hands were balled into fists.

“Oh boy,” Sheriff Skye mumbled under his breath. “You just might be on your own here.”

He actually took a couple of steps away from me as she approached, kitten claws out and sharpened.

“You son of a bitch!” she yelled. “What are you doing here? Bragging to my father, too?”

“Nicole, I didn’t—”

“Do you have any idea how many people came up to me today?” she continued. “How many guys came and asked me out? Because suddenly I’m another chick who puts out for Thomas Malone, and now that’s he’s had me, I’m fair game to everyone else!”