Page 6 of Honey Undone
“What’s she like?” I kicked Van with my sneaker and sat forward on the couch. He pressed his lips to his beer and smiled over at me, it was bright and mischievous, and made me feel like I was being left out of some secret.
“Adeline?” He said, distracted by the way Zoey was stepping over people to get to him.
“God, she would have the prettiest name.” I leaned into the sound of it and if I thought about her long enough I could smell the warm flowery scent of her perfume in my nose. “She plays rugby right, with your sister?”
“Yeah, and she’s out of your league,” Van said, his hand wrapping around Zoey’s tiny throat to gently pull her deeper onto his lap for a kiss. I took his sudden interest in his girlfriend as a cue to leave the issue alone but my mind wouldn’t stop wandering to her.
“Earth to Jenny!” Cael tossed an empty can at me. I swatted it away at the last second and downed the rest of my own before throwing it back. A few people groaned as the can sprayed the foamy bottom around the living room as it flew through the air.
“What?” I ignored them all and slid off the couch to the floor, gagging when my hand hit something sticky. “Do the Delta guys ever clean?” I grumbled and moved closer to Cael.
Clementine handed me another beer with a soft smile.
“Thanks,” I said, cracking it.
“What’s wrong with you?” Cael asked over the intense booming of music, “you won the game today. You’ll be in the highlights for at least a month with that bunt.”
“Hey M-Clem,” I corrected. It was still weird calling her by her real name after we had been addressing her by Mary. She perked up, her brown eyes giving me their full attention. “What do you know about Adeline, she plays for the Hillcats.”
“Adeline Sarah,” she said, ignoring Cael’s protests not to get into it with me. “I don’t know a lot about rugby but her name is in constant circulation. She’s one of the faster wingers on the team.”
“Anything else?” I asked her but she just shook her head.
“That’s all I got, sorry Jensen,” she said, her voice sincere before Cael distracted her with his mouth. I sighed, curling my knee up and looking around the packed living room. Ella had successfully beaten Todd and was on her knees flirting with Arlo. Dean was sunken into an old chair and Josh was perched on the side engaged in hushed conversations.
“Hey you wanna go get wasted and do illegal shit?” Todd asked me in passing but I just shook my head. I wanted company that didn’t smell like day-old beer and sweat.
I wanted Adeline.
SARAH
Kaia chucked a ball at me from my left and I hurled it back to her in a smooth spiral motion. She followed the pattern of our drill, pushing off her right foot and moving in a one eighty behind me to toss the ball from my right.
I stumbled on the grab, and it bounced wildly in my hands before I gained control and threw the ball into the dirt with a frustrated grumble. “I can’t take it from the right,” I ran my hands over the tight braids that held my dark hair in place and squatted down on the balls of my cleats.
“Coach said to run it until our fingers are numb,” Kaia warned but she rolled across the grass in a somersault and flopped on the ground next to me with a smile. “You know that the Bears run wide right with their defense, the pocket is on the right, we throw right. You have to get it down before Friday.”
“Just let me swap with Sunday, she can take right, I’ll take left wide.” I laid back in the grass and stared up at the clouds. Not that I didn’t want to perfect my skills, it was that I was wholeheartedly distracted for the first time in my entire life. And worse, it was by a boy.
“Good luck getting Sunny to agree to that,” Kaia huffed, “unless you’re prepared to get a lesson in karmic intervention and how switching is bad luck…” She rolled her head to the side to look at me. “It’s not the pass bugging you,” she poked at the open wound that festered from my distraction. “It’s theCatcher.”
“Am I that transparent?” I clutched my chest and looked over at her finally.
Kaia smiled brightly, a little lopsided, and her bottom lip jutted out in the sweetest way. I sighed, knowing I wasexactlythat see through.
“Hey Minty.” Rhea came across the field in her gear, the shorts she wore stretched tightly around her strong thighs. “You got that extra tape around?” She asked and I pointed to my duffle by the benches. “Thanks baby,” she smiled at me and jogged in the other direction.
I got the nickname Minty one season after making the highlight reel for hitting a girl so hard the gum she forgot to spit out went flying across the pitch mid-game. It just stuck. I couldn’t complain much, it wasn’t the worst of the nicknames that had been given on the Hillcats over the years. They used to call one girl ‘dumpster’.
“What the fuck is this?” Rhea called out. She was Reaper, and for a good reason. She was like a bullet train of death on the field. Bigandfast.
“Oh, God.” I wanted to disappear into the grass.
“You put it in your practice kit?” Kaia lost it laughing when Rhea held up the white home jersey with Jensen’s number written across the back shoulder. “Stupid, stupid girl with a stupid, stupid crush,” Kaia said with a shake of her head. “No one can save you now.”
“Is this liketheguy?” Rhea chucked the jersey at me and I rolled it up in my hands before looking at the number on the back. I set it in my lap and nodded as she sat down in front of us and threw the roll of tape to Kaia who was already crawling into a knelt position to help.
“Which one of you told her about that?” I asked as Kaia handed me the tape roll. She tore off a piece and started to tape Rhea’s knee to give support. I mindlessly ripped off similar length pieces.
