RYAN
Ladies and gentlemen, bow your heads and give an amen. Scott Risk’s niece is attending Bullitt County High and the dare is back in play. I weave through the crowded hallway with an extra spring in my step. Defeat is a nasty word. A word I no longer have to accept.
My mood crashes when I spot Chris backing Lacy against a locker. His head angles down as hers inches up. Not a good position to be in with the assistant principal exiting his office. Last year, he lectured the junior class on our hormones, carnal impulses, and the consequences for those who break the body boundary barrier. In plain English: if you’re caught standing close to a person of the opposite sex, then you’ll spend a day in detention. Back-to-back state championships require practice, not detention.
“Backseats of cars work.” I ease to the other side of Chris and Lacy to block the oncoming assistant principal’s view. “Preferably off campus.”
Chris groans when Lacy places her hand on his chest and pushes him until they’re an “acceptable” distance apart. She lets out a frustrated sigh. “Morning, Ry.”
“Go away,” Chris says flatly.
“The assistant principal is on the prowl and we are not moving practice like we did last year because you’re sitting in detention.”
Chris lets out a sigh identical to Lacy’s. “You need a girlfriend.”
“Exactly!” Lacy throws her arms out. “I’ve been saying that for months. Not an evil girlfriend. We are not doing evil again. I was tired of wearing crucifixes. I considered carrying holy water, but then I would have had to sneak into a church and then—”
“Shut it down,” I tell her. There has always been bad blood between Gwen and Lace, but I dated Gwen once. I won’t tolerate anyone disrespecting her.
The first warning bell rings, and the three of us head to English. Standing by himself, oozing perpetual boredom, Logan waits for us at the line between the seniors’ lockers and the juniors’. The four of us take as many classes as we can together. For fun. For camaraderie. For Lacy and Logan to help me and Chris with homework.
Because the boy is smarter than Einstein and most of the kids in this school are dumber than dirt, Logan takes senior courses. Next year, they won’t have any classes advanced enough for him, so odds are they’ll shove him in a dark corner of the library and pretend he doesn’t exist.
I glance around the hallway, trying to spot Beth. “So, about that continuing dare from Friday.”
“You mean the bet you lost on Friday.” Chris enters English and claims our usual seats by the window. Lacy stays in the hallway to do her girl-talk thing.
“No, the bet I’m going to win.”
Chris flashes a disbelieving grin. “Logan, do you hear the smack he’s talking?”
Logan drops into his seat and slouches. “You lost, Ryan. Badly.”
“Badly?” I ask.
“The most fun I’ve had in weeks,” Chris says. “In fact, let’s relive the moment. Hi, I’m Ryan, I want your phone number.” He holds out his hand to Logan.
“Let me think,” Logan says. “She had this elegant way of talking. Oh yeah, I believe her response was ‘Fuck you.’”
“Her name is Beth.”
“Getting her name wasn’t the dare.” Determined to keep Mrs. Rowe from taking into her possession every hat he owns like last year, Chris shoves his cap into his back pocket. “You lost. Be a man. Suck it up. Or let us continue to make fun of you. Either way works.”
“I like making fun of him,” says Logan.
I lower my voice and lean into the aisle so only Logan and Chris can hear. I have a small window of opportunity and the longer people stay in the dark regarding her uncle, the better my odds of scoring her number. Scott is a god at this school, which automatically makes her a demigod. “Her real name is Elisabeth Risk and she’s Scott Risk’s niece.”
“Beth.” Books slam on my desk and the three of us flinch and look up. Black hair, nose ring, and a formfitting white shirt unbuttoned recklessly close to areas where guys stare. Well, at least where I stare. Good God almighty, the girl’s hot.
“I’m going to say this slowly and use little words in the hope you can follow along. If you call me Elisabeth again, I’ll make sure you can never father children. Tell anyone else whose niece I am and you’ll be sucking air out of a tube in your throat.”
Chris laughs and it’s the deep, throaty kind that tells me the shit we’re entering is bad. “It’s nice to meet you. Ryan just told us how badly he wanted to call you, didn’t you, Ry?”
Ding-ding, Chris rang the bell for round two and he’s in direct violation of game play by interfering. Well played, because I would have done the same damn thing. “I tried looking for you this morning, but the secretary said you were in a meeting with Mr. Dwyer.”
Her blue eyes pierce me, and an eyebrow slowly arches toward her hairline. The silence stretching between us becomes excruciating. Chris shifts in his seat and Logan slouches lower by an inch. I will her to leave, but I need her presence to win the dare. I focus on keeping my face relaxed. If I even breathe, Skater Girl will know she has the upper hand.
“Uh-huh,” she finally responds. “I’m sure you did. Suck-ups do that type of thing. Here’s the deal. I avoid you, you avoid me, and when my uncle asks if you helped me today I’ll giggle like one of those pathetic girls standing in the hallway and gush about how poor, defenseless me couldn’t make it in the big, mean school without big, strong Ryan to help me out.”
“You can giggle?” asks Logan.
She glares at him. He shrugs. “You don’t strike me as the giggling type—just saying.”
Damn, Logan entered game play too, which means he’ll want to place money on the dare. Time to salvage. “This is Chris and Logan. They play baseball with me. Chris has a girlfriend who I’m sure you’ll love and if you want, you can sit with us today during lunch.”
“Dear God, you really are brain damaged.”
The bell rings and Skater Girl goes to the opposite side of the room and holes up in the corner. That went well. My friends both wear smiles that make me want to kick their asses.
“Twenty she curses you out by lunch,” says Chris.
“Thirty she kills you by lunch,” adds Logan.
“I’m getting her number.” The two of them laugh, and the muscles in my biceps tighten at the thought of another loss. The paper in my notebook crinkles in my fist. “You don’t think I’ve got game?”
“Not enough game for that,” says Logan.
“I’ll prove you wrong.” Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Beth. With her head down and her long black hair hiding her face, she doodles in a notebook with a pen in her left hand. Huh—a southpaw.
Chris shakes his head. “Sorry, dawg. Beth attending Bullitt High is a rule-changing event. See, phone numbers are for those we will never see again. You have months to work her. You want a win, then the stakes are raised—you have to ask her out and she has to accept.”
“And the date has to be at a public venue for no less than an hour,” adds Logan. “You know, to keep it legit.”
I shouldn’t do it. If I mess this up, I could tick off Scott Risk; but then again, if I work this right, I could have Scott Risk eating out of the palm of my hand. He all but begged me to become friends with the spawn of Satan over there. Plus, if I walk away from this opportunity, it means I lost and I don’t lose.
“Fine,” I say. “Dare accepted.”
Game on, Skater Girl. Game on.