Page 40 of Third and Ten

“He’s trying to make her jealous, too?” She nods appreciatively. “I didn’t think JD had it in him, but I guess I shouldn’t have underestimated him after the sexy lawn-service stunt.”

I furrow my brow and turn to Ethan. “What’s she talking about?”

“Oh, would you look at the time? Gotta get to school…” He trails off, grabbing his backpack off the table and darting to the door.

“You’re not going anywhere without me yet,” I grumble, ignoring the way my stomach immediately flutters at the notion of JD colluding with my friends and family to get my attention. My mom is still chuckling to herself when I angry-pack my things and stomp out of the kitchen after Ethan.

He slumps in his seat as we pull out of the driveway a minute later. “This discussion isn’t over, you know,” I warn him.

“Can’t I get a free pass on my birthday?”

“Nope.”

“Fine,” he says with a sigh. “But it’s your fault that he’s had to resort to tricking you into giving him the time of day. And you can’t convince me you don’t really know what’s going on when he’s walking around shirtless and getting other women to grope his arms in front of you.”

My breath catches in my throat at the same time a range of emotions hits me; fear being the foremost. But I’m silent as I continue driving, afraid to incriminate myself or imply that my mom could be right.

“Can you just try being nicer to him, for me? I don’t like it when things are weird between all of us,” Ethan adds. Some of my anger subsides, but only because Ethan’s piling on more guilt.

Still, I can’t take JD seriously if he’s only been plotting and scheming this whole time. I don’t like how he equated jealousy to attraction, not to mention the way he used Loren in the process.

It’s a good thing it didn’t work, anyway.

Although, a small part of me is relieved to hear that JD doesn’t seem to be interested in Loren, after all. Maybe petite brunettes aren’t his thing.

But, no—I don’t care what JD likes. In fact, I’m upset, because he was probably leading Loren on and using her to trick me into feeling something for him.

Hmm. I wonder if he prefers curvy blondes…

I shake my head to rid myself of the rogue thoughts.

“At least, tell me you didn’t let the air out of my tire,” I finally manage out loud.

“Of course not. The flat was just dumb luck.” He smirks. “All I did was stall you for a while. And to be honest, I’m pretty sure Coach Blake’s been coming up with most of these ideas, anyway. JD loses all his rizz around you.”

I glare at him, a reminder that I’m clueless when it comes to teenager terminology. Ethan rolls his eyes. “He has no game. You make him nervous.”

“Oh.”

I ignore the way my stomach flips and attempt to focus on the important stuff. It does seem more likely that Blake would come up with some of these schemes before JD would. And to be honest, Ethan’s attachment to JD and his commitment to shipping us, though misguided, are sort of endearing.

“No more,” I say after a while. “Promise me you’ll stop with all the conspiring?”

He sighs. “I’m sorry. I’ll quit trying to push the two of you together.”

“Thank you,” I reply, a bit surprised by his confession.

“And you’ll apologize again and invite him over for dinner tonight?” he asks hopefully. I groan, realizing he’s already set the next trap, and I’m walking right into it.

I agree anyway.

We drive up to the school, and I reach over to squeeze his shoulder. “I hope you have a great birthday, and good luck at the DMV later. I’ll see you and your fancy new Louisiana driver’s license tonight.”

“Thanks,” he returns with a smile, his green eyes shining. Then he uses the front-facing camera on his phone to ruffle his hair before stepping out of the car, making me laugh to myself.

I feel a little lighter by the time I get to work a few minutes later, until I remember that I still have to uphold my end of our deal by talking to JD. But when I pull out my phone, there’s a welcomed distraction in the form of a text from a random number.

Unknown

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