Page 35 of Spite

We talked a little about mindless things during the short drive to the school. The parking lot was already full, and on the side lot, the busses from the opposing team were parked, painted in their school’s colors of blue and yellow. Not sure which combination of colors were worse.

We got out and headed inside. Alec paid for my ticket in, in spite of my protesting. We weren’t dating; he didn’t have to pay for me. And even if we were dating, I wasn’t the kind of girl who just assumed her boyfriend would pay for everything I wanted.

Moving to the doors to the gym, we peered inside and found the bleachers were pulled out, full of parents and other students. The two teams were on the court, doing practice shots. Loud music thumped in the speakers overhead; it would get turned off as soon as the game began. Off to the side, the cheerleaders were huddled in a circle, talking to each other. Through the crowd, Jessie locked eyes with me.

“Where do you want to sit?” Alec asked, oblivious to it all.

“Over there,” I said, pointing. Near the cheerleaders, pretty close to where our team would be during timeouts and huddles. Jessie knew I was here; it was time for Christian to see me.

I followed Alec along, heading up into the stands right behind the cheerleaders. As I turned to sit down and view the entire gym before me, I surveyed the half of the court where our team was. Our uniforms were mostly white with brown and orange highlights, and all ugly. The soles of their shoes squeaked on the floor, high-pitched and annoying.

“So, are you going to want food? During half time, the concession stand will be packed, so it’s better to get what you want now,” Alec started, but I had zoned out, staring at Christian on the field.

Christian was…something else when he was in the zone. Focused, his expression determined. Slightly coated in sweat, just from practicing. He looked hot, and I meant hot in the sexy way unfortunately. With his jersey, I could see the muscles on his arms tensing every time he made a shot or caught a ball thrown at him. He wasn’t the tallest one on the team, but he was easily over six foot.

Christian was up. One last practice shot as the court was cleared because it was game time. It took him two seconds to judge the distance between him and the net, and he threw the ball. The basketball swished into the net effortlessly. He made it look easy, and I knew it wasn’t. I sucked at basketball, if gym class had been any indication.

As the teams huddled up and the music overhead stopped, Christian glanced up, and even though he wasn’t directly staring at me, I knew he’d seen me, mostly because his expression darkened considerably.

I grinned as I finally told Alec, “I could go for some nachos.”

“I’ll be right back,” Alec said, hopping up and heading down the stands, to presumably buy me some nachos. I watched him go, mostly watching his backside as he went, but when I returned my attention to the court, I saw Christian was glaring at me.

He was glaring at me, not looking at his girlfriend who was cheering him on, and Jessie noticed.

Alec was back within minutes, and he had to climb through the stands while balancing two trays of nachos in his hands. I took one from him, leaning against him as I said, “Thank you.”

He nodded. The game had started, and we’d already scored. It was a while before he said, “I know you probably just wanted to come here to watch Christian, but I like spending time with you, El.”

“I didn’t come here for…”

Alec’s come on expression caused me to trail off. “I’m not stupid. I know you have something up your sleeves. I’m just hoping you’ll take it easy on me when it’s my turn.” His turn to, what? Be on the receiving end of my revenge?

Holding the nacho tray in one hand, I set my other on his knee, squeezing it as I said, “I like spending time with you too, Alec. If I’m honest, I didn’t think I would.”

“Ouch,” he said, grinning. He popped a cheese-dipped nacho into his mouth, chewing loudly.

“You and Xander are not what I was expecting,” I said, shooting him a look, watching his reaction to Xander’s name. Christian had disowned Xander, but why did Alec side with the head Dick on this? Why pretend Xander didn’t exist? It didn’t add up, not completely.

Alec coughed. “What do you know about Xander?”

I shrugged, saying, “Enough, I think. I know what happened to him, what he did. He told me Christian turned everyone against him when he came back. I can’t believe you weren’t there for him.”

“I was,” Alec spoke, a little too quickly. “I was there for him, but I…there were other extenuating circumstances.” A muscle in his jaw tightened, and I knew that was that. He was done talking about it, for whatever reason.

Extenuating circumstances. I had no idea what the hell Alec meant, and I didn’t want to know. My mood soured immediately. No matter what other circumstances there were, it wasn’t an excuse. Alec had abandoned Xander just like everyone else, and for some reason, I was feeling fiercely protective of Xander, now that I knew his secrets.

I shook my head, turning to watch the game. Alec could be nice to me all he wanted, but if he wasn’t nice to other people…maybe he hadn’t changed as much as I thought. People didn’t have to have a suicide attempt under their belt to merit kindness.

“You’re upset,” Alec said, green eyes lingering on me. It was as if there was no one else in the entire gymnasium, no game going on, not another girl around. I was the only thing he saw. Five minutes ago it would have made me happy. Now it didn’t.

“I’m fine,” I said, aware that it was the most typical, clichéd line I could’ve said. No one was ever fine when they said they were fine. It was impossible.

Alec mutely ate the rest of his nachos, and I took my time with mine, setting it on the empty space beside me as I watched the game. Christian was doing his best, but every so often, he’d miss a pass while looking up at the stands to me. Directly below me, Jessie saw it all.

I waited until halftime. Until our team of cheerleaders had done their performance and the opposite team was up, getting in formation to cheer-slash-dance with the music their squad had chosen. Alec had been silent for the last hour, so he said nothing when I got up. My phone was in my back pocket, and as I headed down, I made sure it was on. With any luck, this would be ugly.

I was on the floor of the gym, moving through the cheerleaders to Jessie. The basketball team, Christian included, had left the floor, probably to go back to the locker room to regroup. We were winning, but barely.

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