Page 53 of The Boyfriend Boycott
“Yes.”
“And this is Carter?” Well, it was working.
“Yes.” One-word answers are all I can manage right now. I’m out of breath. I feel like I ran a marathon in the fifty steps it took to get out here.
“I didn’t know you actually played baseball. Though I did wonder why you seemed so natural coaching.” Spencer runs her finger over the glass of the display case, leaving a little smudge.
“Yup. All through high school,”I grit out.
“Were you any good?”Her eyes stay fixed on the photo of me holding the trophy that now sits beside the framed picture.
“I guess. We won the championship because of my hit. A homer. I got offered a scholarship. A few of us did. I didn’t take it,” I answer in short, clipped sentences.
“Why not?”Now her eyes flick to me, fire behind her green irises, making them glow.
“Jett was really starting to get into skiing. He was good. Like, really good. Everyone knew that Jett was going to be amazing right from day one. But I was the only one who could get him to the mountain.”
“You gave up on your dream so Jett could have his?”
I pause when she asks me this question and ponder what she’s perceiving in me. Spencer has this way of seeing right through me, through my light-hearted façade, and right to the version of me who grew up watching everyone around himstruggle. She sees me for who I am, the little boy who lost his mom and just desperately wanted everything to be okay again. I did it through jokes, and lifting people up, making them laugh, but I also did it through sacrifice.
“I didn’t really think about it like that. But yeah, I guess. Taking the scholarship would have meant being away from my family, not being there for my brothers. So, I turned it down.”
“Did Carter take it?”
“Yeah. He sure did. He ran the bases off my hit and got to take credit for something I did.” Her mouth opens to form a silentahas if she’s realizing that my grudge against Carter doesn’t just stem from this squabble over the Parks’ restaurant, or her. It’s over a decade old. “Why are we still talking about Carter?”
“You’re cute when you’re jealous, by the way,” Spencer says as a way of answering me. “You don’t need to be jealous of Carter. He may have the life you envisioned on the surface, but he’s a dirtbag. You, Grady, are not a dirtbag.”
“No,” I agree.
She’s right, but it doesn’t staunch the sticky, murky feeling in my gut. The fact that he had the balls to hit on Spencer inmybar was just the tip of the iceberg. He’s gotten to live the life I wanted, off my back and at my expense. He took the scholarship, got his business degree, opened a successful restaurant, and now he has his sights set on Spencer. The most frustrating part of all of it is that it’s not his fault. Carter is a dick, but the only person I can be angry with is myself for not fighting back.
“That’s why we came out here, isn’t it?” Spencer asks, inching closer. “Because you were jealous.” She’s close enough now that her sweet floral scent is awakening something carnal within me.
I regard her, cupping her cheek in my hand, and her breath hitches under the firmness of it.
“I just couldn’t bear one more second of you sharing the same space as Carter.” I slide my hand around to the nape of her neck, and twine my fingers in her hair, gripping it in a fistful so I can tilt her head back to look at me. “So yes, Spencer. I am fucking jealous. I hate it when he even so much as looks in your direction. Fuck Carter Bouchard and fuck not getting what I want.”
I bring my lips to hers and kiss her firmly. Without hesitation. Confident. Certain. This is what I want. She is what I want. Everything she touches becomes better just for being in her presence. Including me.
Her lips return my fervour, and she inhales deeply through her nose, as if she’s taking in every aspect of me as she parts my lips with her tongue.
I’m suddenly aware that this is what redemption feels like. I’m finally taking back the kiss that I sacrificed after my prom because I was so used to sacrificing myself for others. Now, I’m getting what I want.
The screech of a microphone interrupts us, causing us to pull our mouths apart, but I don’t take my eyes off Spencer, and she doesn’t take her gorgeous emerald eyes off of me. We stay in this moment as long as possible before we hear Heartwood High’s principal introduce himself, and then start his announcement about the scholarship.
“I think you’re up,” Spencer whispers between us. I don’t want to pull myself away, but the testosterone coursing through my veins makes me more motivated than ever. So, I plant a quick kiss on Spencer’s forehead, and she follows me back to the door of the gymnasium, watching me stride up the steps to the makeshift stage with more confidence than I’ve had in decades.
CHAPTER 22
SPENCER
I am so fucked.Like, royally screwed. One minute you think that you have your shit firmly together, resolute in never dating again. Then suddenly you’re making out with your situationship that is feeling less and less like the casual fling you intended it to be.
It’s like I’m a teenager again, but this time without the constant anxiety and pit in my stomach knowing I have to go home to my mom’s boyfriend’s house after school. Or that I’ll go home to find all of our shit thrown out on the front lawn, or find my mom heartbroken and crying.
Whatever this feeling is that Grady gives me is the opposite of anxiety. I don’t get butterflies when he kisses me; I get quiet, peaceful, calm. Less fluttering and more like the steady whooshing of a river.
