Page 16 of Playmaker

Ever since I went to bed, I’ve tried to convince myself it was a fluke. Maybe he drank too much last night at the party. Maybe that’s why we stayed up until five in the morning eating pizza while we laughed and talked about irrelevant things, avoiding the elephant in the room aboutwhywe put distance between us in the first place. I thought he’d wake up this morning convinced the truce had been a mistake.

But what Ididn’texpect?

Cameron Holden showing up on my doorstep at three in the afternoon with a bike propped against his hip.

I blink at least a dozen times before I finally grasp that this is definitely not a dream. My heart racing a mile a minute is real. My palms slicked with sweat are real. His smile that could rival the sun isreal.

“What are you doing here?” I ask. “Are you looking for Ethan?”

Christ. Cameron must have ridden his bike here. Droplets of sweat trickle down his tanned skin and run into the band of his shorts, disappearing beneath the indented v-line to—

“Ethan’s working a shift at Perry’s. He got called in since the weather is nice today. There’s nothing like a good ice-cream cone when it’s sweltering.” He flicks his eyes over my bare legs, and I don’t notice until now that I’m only wearing a large T-shirt that hardly lands past my upper thighs. “I’m here for you.”

“To what, ridebikes? I haven’t ridden one since—”

“Your fall in the third grade. I know. I was there.” He points to the picnic basket slung around the handlebar. “I wanted to see if you’ll get over your fears and ride with me at Papago Park.” He waits expectantly for my answer, but I can’t seem to get past the fact that he remembered that fall off my bike all those years ago. It was the day my crush on him first developed, and the memory slams into me like a freight train.

“Ethan, you’re going too fast! Wait up!” Cameron pedals frantically ahead of me to catch up to my brother, and I’m working double-time to keep up with both of them. They both had growth spurts this past summer, and nowanywherewe go that involves physical activity is a hard-core workout for me.

The greenery and pavement whip by me in a blur as I pedal faster. Ethan is long gone now, but it isn’t the first time he’s left us in the dust. He makeseverythingbetween us a competition.

Papago Park is my favorite place to ride. It’s the only spot where I don’t feel like I’m surrounded by desert. Here, there’s a pond in the center of trails surrounded by palm trees. I’m used to cactuses and sand that comes with the year round dry heat, but this is the one place where water sometimes kisses my skin when other kids skip rocks a little too hard or the fishermen catch a big one.

When I’m older, I want to live close to the ocean.

Cameron glances over his shoulder a few feet in front of me. “Do you need me to slow down?”

“No, I—”

Before the sentence can leave my lips, my tire catches on a rock and I go flying from my bike. I brace for the impact and hold my breath, which is knocked from my lungs when my elbows connect with scorching hot asphalt.

I don’t know if it’s from the adrenaline or the pain I know I’ll soon feel, but big salty tears stream down my cheeks like an endless river. Cameron, who’s stopped trailing after Ethan, tosses his bike to the side and jogs over to me.

My entire body is shaking, and although the fall wasn’tthatbad, it was still terrifying. I’ve never fallen from my bike before, and I don’t plan on it ever happening again.

“Hey, you’re okay.” He soothes me in a voice akin to honey. He grabs my arm and twists it to inspect the wound on my elbow. Blood is trickling down my forearm and dribbling onto the asphalt below. “Mads, you’re okay. Look at me.”

I lift my gaze to his, and my sobs turn into whimpers at the sympathetic grin on his face. His teeth are all braces, and his glasses are slightly crooked, but the mere presence of him beside me causes my terror to recede.

With our eyes locked, Cameron’s smile fades, and the breath catches in my lungs when he brings a hand up to my face. At this moment, nothing else matters. The kids playing a few yards away don’t exist anymore, and the chirping of the birds is drowned out by the thumping of my heart. My thoughts are jumbled as his thumb strokes my cheek to wipe away the tears, lingering longer than he should before he drops it back down to his side.

“I’ve got you,” he reassures me. “Always.”

Cameron stares at me in that deciphering way of his. I’ve always felt like he could see through every wall I’ve put up around myself, but at this moment I’m convinced he has a telepathic ability to read my thoughts.

His eyes soften as if he’s remembering that moment between us, too, and the lump in my throat becomes practically unbearable.

“If I fall . . .” I warn.

The smile he gives me in return makes my stomach bottom out. It’sdevastatinglyhandsome, and one I’m sure he uses frequently on his conquest of the week.

“You won’t,” he replies. “I’ll make sure of it.”

—

We end up driving my car since the trunk is big and we can stow our bikes in it. My family hasn’t taken a ride together since my crash, so the bikes have been collecting dust and cobwebs in the garage ever since, which also meant we had to stop at a store along the way to buy a pump for the tires because they were flat.

But finally, we made it to Papago Park. March is the best time of year to visit Arizona, as the temperature is nearly perfect. It’s in the low eighties today, foreshadowing the first glimpse of summer, and although the pond and palm trees haven’t changed a bit and look as beautiful as ever, they’re not the sight I’m focused on.

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