Page 33 of Scoreless Nights

My legs started bouncing, once again excited for the friends I never thought I would have. “I can’t wait!”

“In the meantime, you can just stay in my room with me. When the lease is up, we can get a bigger place. I’ll even start looking around.”

“I’llcheersto that.” Lifting my cola, I held it up to hers.

She clicked her glass on mine and we fell into conversions about her dad, who was in jail, and her mom who wanted nothing to do with her. It made me thankful for Ivan and Mom in a way I had never considered. I never really knew my birth father, but Ivan had been good to me and treated me as if I was his own. More importantly, he had been good to my mom.

When it was my turn to talk, I did my best to be honest. It was easy since Cruz was rarely around. Plus, I stayed on fairly easy and boring topics, such as the times Ivan would take me to a movie, or Mom would ask me to help her cook dinner. I left out the parts where I struggled, and the days they spent trying to keep me strong and moving forward. And not once did I mention having a step brother.

After a few colas, I decided to cave and let Angel drive me back to Cruz’s. Walking alone that late seemed daunting, and like an all-around bad idea.

Just before we crossed the road back to her car, people started screaming and running. Angel stopped to look at what was happening, but I felt like we should have been running too. The small town girl in me figured if they were running, they had a good reason, and I didn’t want to be the one left behind.

“Probably a celebrity sighting,” Angel shrugged.

“Who?” My first guess, based on the crowd, was Taylor Swift, and I was too curious to see if I was right to stand still. Angel and I both walked closer to where the crowd was gathering, and I peeked around until I spotted the “celeb.”

“Oh geez,” I moaned at the same time Angel squealed.

“It's Cruz Martin and Tripp Maddox. Let's go get a picture with them and make Jackie jealous.”

As fun as that sounded, I was shaking my head no, and walking toward the car as quickly as possible. Angel caught up and grabbed my arm, turning me back around and leading me toward them.

“No,” I whined. “I’m not interested in seeing them again.”

“Again? Girl, seeing them at the game doesn’t count!”

Does it count if one of them handcuffed themselves to you?

“I don’t want to be a fangirl,” I said adamantly.

“I thought you told Jackie you thought Tripp was cute! You two bonded over being fangirls. What if he’s single and sees you in his jersey, then wants to marry you and give you his cute babies and million dollar condos?”

If I hadn’t been trying to retreat so fast, I would have laughed at how quickly she escalated.

“I was just trying to connect with her,” I confessed, skipping the part about having Tripp’s babies. “I just wanted her to like me.”

Angel’s excited face fell, and her shoulders sagged. Her back was to the commotion so she didn’t see a woman throw her arms around Cruz and kiss him. He wrapped an arm around her waist and whispered something in her ear that made her laugh, and turn bright red. Then he escorted that woman into a nearby club.

Wrapping her arms around me, Angel rocked back and forth then pushed back to look in my eyes. “I get it. You’re afraid if we send her pics of us with Cruz, she’ll get jealous and kinda hate us.”

Well, I hadn’t thought of that, but I nodded because it made sense.

“You’re right,” Angel sighed. “She’d probably not want to talk to us for a week.”

“And I don’t want to lose her friendship before I even feel like I have it.”

“You’re a better friend than both of us, because you are the only thing stopping me from saying, ‘screw Jackie,’ and running over there. Especially after we didn’t get a chance to talk to him at all at the game.”

No, I wasn’t a better friend. I was a liar. No better than Jackie using her friend to get to Cruz. We both sucked, just in different ways.

“I don’t feel too well,” I grabbed my stomach. “Maybe too much cola.”Or too much shame.

“I’ll drop you off at home,” Angel smiled softly.

We drove the two miles down toward Cruz’s condo, but I stopped her a few buildings away. “It's this one,” I lied again, as Angel pulled off to the side to let me out.

She grabbed my hand and pulled, forcing me to look at her before I got out of the car, but I could barely look her in the eye. “We are so lucky to have you in our lives. Jackie is hard to get along with sometimes, but you are the kind of friend she needs in her life. Same with me. Love you girl.”

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