Playing the Enemy: The Trouble With Tomboys #1 Page 4

  “Dude, you know I’d do anything for you but…I’m not wearing a wig and stuffing a bra.”

  I laughed at the image. See, here was the thing with this league. We had to have a certain amount of girls to play—and without Allison, we weren’t qualified to play. We needed a new player, and we needed a girl.

  Preferably a girl who could kick butt on the field.

  Oh yeah, and I had less than a week to find this mythical creature.

  I groaned as I lifted the bag full of equipment and headed for Tristan’s car.

  I didn’t just need a new player.

  I needed a freakin’ miracle.

  Chapter Five

  Hannah

  The next day my friends were still at it.

  ALEX: Just say the word, Hannah.

  JORDAN: Seriously. I know a guy.

  ME: I told you, no physical violence.

  I mean, sure, I knew they were joking, and yes, the idea was tempting, but it still needed to be said. Much as I might have liked to see Caleb down on the ground with a bloody nose, I was a bigger person.

  ALEX: Ooh, Jordan and I could come and sabotage the game.

  JORDAN: YES!!!!

  ME: How exactly would you do that?

  ALEX: Not sure yet. Give me a minute.

  JORDAN: I am not above heckling.

  ALEX: I was thinking something a little more obvious like flashing Caleb and the other guys on his team every time they looked our way.

  JORDAN: You want to distract them with boobs?

  ALEX: Actually, I was thinking you could do that part, Jordan.

  JORDAN: Gee, thanks.

  ALEX: It’s not my fault you’ve got the better rack.

  I grinned and shook my head. Their teasing was exactly the sort of distraction I needed today. No more wallowing. I was tired of crying—that’s what I’d done all afternoon yesterday and even into the night with Rose there to hand me tissues and share the Ben and Jerry’s.

  No more tears today, though. He didn’t deserve them.

  Joking I could do, and it seemed like even from afar my camp besties understood that.

  JORDAN: Seriously, Hannah. What can we do to make you feel better?

  ME: You’re doing it.

  ALEX: So you’re down with the flashing plan then?

  ME: I meant, you’re doing it by cheering me up. And by refraining from saying ‘I told you so.’

  Their responses were almost simultaneous.

  JORDAN: Never!

  ALEX: Of course we wouldn’t say that!

  ME: But you could.

  Especially Jordan. For years now she’d been saying that having a relationship with a team member was a mistake.

  For years I’d been saying she was wrong. I mean, look how well Caleb and I managed to juggle a relationship and a team?

  Yeah. And that turned out so well.

  ME: Jordan, you were right. Mixing romance and sports was a huge mistake.

  There was a long pause, and I knew they knew that I was right.

  ALEX: Well, in your defense. It wasn’t like there was much romance involved.

  JORDAN: Alex!

  ALEX: What? It’s true.

  ME: She’s right. We weren’t big on the romance.

  No, I wasn’t big on the romance. I had a vivid memory of Caleb’s face as he looked at his new girlfriend. Apparently, Caleb did romance, just not with me.

  ME: Romance just isn’t my thing, I guess.

  JORDAN: Or you just haven’t met the right guy.

  ALEX: What she said.

  I shook my head, a whole new wave of sadness sweeping over me. It might not have been a whirlwind, passionate romance, but what I’d had with Caleb had been real. I just wasn’t the type of girl to get swept off her feet—or to make a guy light up like Christmas. I wasn’t a femme fatale or the sweetheart girl next door.

  I was just me. And apparently that wasn’t good enough for Caleb.

  ME: Can we talk about something else?

  ALEX: Let’s talk about vengeance.

  I rolled my eyes. Not exactly what I meant.

  JORDAN: I think she wants to talk about something other than her jerkface ex.

  They’d stopped calling him by name hours ago.

  ALEX: No, I know. I don’t want to waste another emoji on that creep. I’m just saying we should focus on how she can get her team back.

  ME: He’s the captain, Alex. If he wants me off the team, I’m off the team.

  JORDAN: I’m sure you could fight it.

  I saw Alex starting to type and swiftly stepped in. I’d spent the better part of last night tossing and turning, thinking about just that. I could probably fight it. He had no good cause to kick me off the team. But when all was said and I done, I didn’t want to fight him on this.

  ME: I don’t want to be where I’m not wanted.

  There was silence on their ends.

  ME: Besides, I don’t want to see his face every day. Not when I don’t have to.

  Sure, I’d have to see him when school started in a little over a week, but even then I could keep my distance. We might have a couple classes together but at school I’d have Rose and my other friends at my side and as a buffer.

  “Hannah, Rose is here!” Bentley bellowed this news moments before my mom poked her head into my room.

  Her expression was so sympathetic, so gentle…it took everything in me to keep from crying all over again. But honestly, my mom’s pretty green cardigan from yesterday was probably still soaking wet from all the tears I’d cried on her.

  I wasn’t sure who’d been more surprised by the amount I’d cried—her or me. I’d never been much of a crier, but yesterday I’d more than made up for it. My mom had withstood the torrential downpour like a champ while my father paced the living room muttering and cursing about that ‘no good useless neighbor kid’ as if he was some stranger and not the boy who’d practically grown up in our backyard.

  “Honey?” my mom asked, as though I might still be sleeping—at noon. Sitting up. “Rose is here. Do you want to see her?”

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Rose had been coming over for years and never once had she been announced. My whole family was walking on eggshells around me, and I hated it. I forced a small smile. “Of course, Mom.” I widened my smile for her benefit. “I’m fine today. Much better. No need to worry about me.”

  Her smile was sad, and I knew she didn’t believe me. “That’s nice, sweetheart.”

  She might as well have said, Nice try. I see right through your lies. She gave me one more little smile that seemed to say hang in there, tiger, before stepping back and holding the door open for Rose.

  “Thanks, Mrs. Crowley,” she said.

  My mom closed the door behind her, and Rose opened her gargantuan bag and whipped out a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. She tossed it to me, and I caught it. “I thought you might need reinforcements.”

  I turned it to read the label. “Mmm, Cherry Garcia.”

  She reached in her bag and tossed me a plastic spoon.

  “I shouldn’t eat any more,” I said as I opened the container. “Not after the amount we gorged last night.”

  “Whatever.” She dug out another spoon and sank onto the bed next to me. “Everyone knows that heartbreak deserves unlimited ice cream.” She dug her spoon into the pint before I had a chance. “It’s one of the few perks of being dumped.”

  I eyed her as I scooped up my own spoonful. “Is that right? So what’s your excuse?”

  She grinned. “Sympathetic heartache…obviously.”

  “Oh, obviously.” I laughed. “You must be so traumatized by our breakup.”

  “I am in a weird sort of way,” she said. “You two…” She waved her spoon in my direction. “You and Caleb were like the school’s most solid couple, you know? You gave the rest of us hope.”

  I thought about that—for the first time really thinking about how we were seen by everyone around us. I thought about what Jordan and Alex had just
been saying about how we weren’t romantic. “Were we that couple though?” I asked. “We weren’t exactly the ‘it’ couple.”

  Rose looked thoughtful as she shrugged. “Well, I mean…you guys were together for so long that it wasn’t like you were that gross PDA couple. But you had something even better.”

  I arched my brows, not sure I really wanted to hear how great I had it.

  Rose pursed her lips. “You had a guy to go to dances with, you know? You never had to worry about who was going to sit with you at lunch or who was going to give you roses on Valentine’s Day… You were comfortable together. You were one another’s sure thing.” She shrugged. “I don’t know, I guess everyone just wanted that, you know?”

  I stared at her. “They wanted a sure thing?”

  She grinned. “Exactly.”

  “So, like…I was his safety school,” I said.

  She snort-laughed around her spoon as she swallowed another bite. “Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. Been filling out college applications lately, Hannah?”

  “Guilty.” I stabbed my spoon into my ice cream pint. I hadn’t thought I could feel any worse about the breakup or our relationship, but hearing that I was the girlfriend equivalent of a safety school hurt more than I wanted to admit.

  Rose seemed to notice, though. She nudged my elbow. “Hey, I didn’t mean that as an insult to you—”

  “No, I know,” I said quickly.

  She eyed me oddly as she licked some ice cream off her lips. “He might have seen you that way, but it doesn’t mean that’s who you are. And besides…” She shrugged. “You seemed to think of him the same way. If you were his safety school, then he was most definitely yours, too.”

  I stared down at the ice cream as if the little cherry chunks might hold all the answers in life. Had I thought of him as a safety school?

  No.

  Yes.

  Maybe?

  I didn’t know. He was my first boyfriend—my only boyfriend. I’d always assumed he’d be the last.

  I took a deep breath to wash away the pain. I couldn’t make sense of our entire five-year relationship in one day, so I focused on what had hurt me the most.

  The fact that he’d kicked me off the team. He’d not only ended our relationship, he’d ruined our lifelong friendship. And for what? A girl he’d only just met. “I hate that he took soccer away from me.”

  Rose sighed. “Yeah, that sucks.”

  “I love soccer. He knows that.” Basketball was my competitive sport, but soccer was my love. It was my fun time, my training, my exhilaration. I lived for the camaraderie and my friendships on the team. “He took my team away from me. That’s the worst part of it all.”

  When Rose was quiet for too long, I looked over to see her eyeing me oddly.

  “What?”

  She arched a brow. “That’s the worst part? Getting kicked off the team?”

  “Yeah.”

  She gave her head a little shake, a smile tugging at her lips. “I would have thought the worst part was losing your boyfriend to another girl.”

  I waved my hand in exasperation. “You know what I mean.”

  She shrugged. She didn’t, but that didn’t matter. I wasn’t ready to cry. I was good and pissed. Anger was so much better than pain. “I didn’t deserve to be kicked off the team.”

  “You definitely didn’t.” Rose’s expression grew unbearably smug. “But I think I might have a way for you to get even.”

  “Well? What is it?”

  “Remember Roddy? The guy I’ve been seeing from Fairmont?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “He was telling me that their intramural team is looking for another girl to join their team.”

  I blinked. Fairmont. Our rivals. They hated us. I shook my head even though adrenaline was starting to course through me. “Their captain would never go for it.”

  “You know him?” she asked. Her eyes were twinkling with mischief, and I knew that she knew who their captain was. Well, she didn’t know him—I barely knew the guy—but we both knew what he was to Caleb.

  His worst enemy.

  His fiercest rival.

  The guy he absolutely despised.

  “Caleb would hate it,” I said.

  She grinned. “Exactly.”

  I wished I could say I wasn’t so petty that the idea of getting payback didn’t appeal to me. It did. But so did the idea of playing soccer again, of getting up and fighting for what I loved.

  I loved soccer.

  And if Caleb didn’t want me, maybe somebody else would.

  Except that somebody was River Owens. I’d met him a few times way back in the day, back when we all played together for fun. We were all just kids then, and that was before Caleb had taken such an active dislike to him. I barely remembered him, and once Caleb and him became enemies, I made sure to steer clear.

  “He’d never go for it,” I said. But even as I said it, I was wondering… If they really did need a girl… and if he still hated Caleb as much as he always had…

  “I don’t know,” Rose said slowly. “This could be a win for both of you. He’d get a new player and you’d get—”

  “Revenge.”

  She snagged the pint out of my hands with a triumphant smile. “Exactly.”

  Chapter Six

  River

  I saw her coming from a mile away.

  Hannah Crowley.

  No. It couldn’t be.

  I turned to Nate, our backup goalie. “Who’s that?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. We’ve all been spreading the word about needing a new girl on the team. Maybe she’s our miracle.”

  She was halfway down the field now, walking at a quick pace and straight toward me. There was no doubting it now. It was Hannah.

  I shook my head. “No way she’s here to help us.”

  I wasn’t even sure if Nate was listening, or if he was even still at my side. I couldn’t drag my eyes away from what I was seeing.

  Hannah Crowley. Caleb’s girl. Here, on my turf.

  It was definitely her. I recognized her long brown ponytail and the cute, upturned nose. Even with her head tilted down, I could make out those impossibly big brown eyes and the lips…those lips. She had a killer smile. Of course, I hadn’t seen it directed at me since we were kids, but I’d seen it plenty of times. It gave her dimples and made her whole face light up.

  It made her freakin’ gorgeous.

  No, not gorgeous. No one would call Hannah Crowley gorgeous. She wasn’t a hottie, by any means. If anything, she was cute. She had that whole girl-next-door thing going on right now with the big boxy T-shirt, the workout leggings, and the ever-present ponytail.

  So no, the girl wasn’t gorgeous.

  But the sight of her nearly knocked me off my feet, all the same.

  Did I have a thing for her? No. Not anymore. She wasn’t even my type. Once upon a time maybe I’d had a crush—a stupid childish infatuation. But that was ancient history. I hadn’t talked to her in years, but I’d know her anywhere. Our intramural team played hers every season, and I’d seen her at every single game against Lakeview’s guys’ teams, standing on the sidelines, cheering on Caleb…her boyfriend.

  The reminder of her connection had my hands clenching in fists at my sides. An indescribable mix of anger, jealousy, and age-old resentment had my jaw muscle twitching as I watched her. She hadn’t looked up, didn’t even seem to notice

  What was she even doing on this side of town, let alone on a rival team’s field?

  Others were starting to take notice of the new girl, and I had to bite my tongue to keep from shouting at them to keep practicing. I’d be damned if I’d let Caleb’s little girlfriend distract them from a much-needed practice.

  I headed toward her, ready to cut her off before she could get any closer and cause even more of a distraction. “Hey!” I called out when she was only a few feet away.

  Her head jerked up and her big eyes widened in surprise.

  Apparently
, she’d just now noticed me.

  Big surprise. She never had seen me. She’d only ever had eyes for Caleb.

  “What, did you miss a turnoff somewhere?”

  She stopped walking, her brows drawing together in confusion.

  I slowed my walk to a more leisurely pace as I drew near, making a point of looking around us at the chain-link fence of our run-down, poorly cared for field. Instead of grass, it was mainly dirt, and the only reason it wasn’t covered in trash was because I forced my team to come early and clean up before we set foot on the field.

  Hannah was looking around us too, and for a second, I saw it through her eyes. I pressed my lips together and took a deep breath through my nose. I wasn’t going to feel bad about the fact that we didn’t live in the nice part of town, and I wasn’t about to let this rich chick look down on us.

  “What are you doing here, Crowley?”

  Her brows shot up, and her eyes darted back to meet mine.

  Oof. Making eye contact with her was a punch in the gut. She still knew how to look at a guy. Everything about her screamed straightforward and honest, and her look said she was challenging you to be the same.

  She was always nice to me when we were kids playing on the same teams, but when she looked at me like that—she scared the crap out of me.

  Like I said, I was a kid.

  She studied me for a second before meeting my eyes again—this time I was ready for it. “I heard you guys need a new player.”

  Her voice was low, husky.

  Sexy.

  It took me a minute to register more than her voice. I stared at her for a long moment as I tried to make sense of the words. New player. Her?

  Nope. No way.

  I narrowed my eyes as I studied her. “What are you up to, Crowley? Did your boyfriend send you over here to mess with us?”