Football players are assholes. I know; I'm related to their king. My older, and annoyingly overprotective, brother Jake is the star quarterback at Santa Cruz High School. I love him but hate living in his shadow. Everyone worshiping the air he breat...
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My ringtone woke me up from a second, and pleasant, dream. Alex walked with me across the school parking lot. White cotton ball clouds hung in a clear blue sky, framed by a bright sun. A warm breeze tossed my hair in sexy waves around my face. Every few steps, he stopped and tucked strands behind my ears, then smiled and recited romantic poems.
"I love you not only for what you are but for what I am when I am with you."
"I carry your heart with me. I carry it in my heart."
"When I saw you, I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew."
Elizabeth Barrett Browning, E.E. Cummings, and creepy Shakespeare. He wrapped each sonnet in a kind, sincere voice. I wanted to float away and never wake up.
As my ringtone continued, I mumbled incoherence. Had I gotten any sleep? My eyelids were filled with cement, taking too much effort to open them, and the rest of me screamed that I hadn't slept ten minutes.
I flopped my hand and grasped thin air. My low energy reserves pried open my eyes. Jake had a party, right? "Jake?" I accepted the call and groaned Harper's reminder, "If you had sex tonight, then you're spraying the car with Lysol and Febreeze tomorrow."
"Uhhh... It's morning. And not Jake." a familiar, pleasant male voice answered, then cleared his throat. "Hi, Elle. It's Alex."
"Alex?" I bolted upright and smoothed my hands over my bed hair. "Oh, Alex. Umm, sorry. Hey."
"Hey." His chuckle warmed my cheeks. "I was calling to see if you wanted to hit up the library this weekend for some book club candidates."
"Yeah?" I searched my tired brain for my previous engagements. "I have to work until closing tonight, and Harper-"
"It's alright," he cut in. "How about next weekend, before book club?"
While Harper defended me to her last breath, she came off a bit harsh. Well, all the time. The first time she met Alex, she warned him not to cross her or she'd have his balls strung up the school's flagpole.
Hesitant was an understatement about how Alex felt about my best friend.
"Sure." I pressed my feet onto my bedroom's soft carpet and stretched my legs. "That'd be great."
"Great," he echoed. "Guess I'll see you later? Can I visit you at work sometime?"
My heart flipped at that idea and the politeness in his warm voice. Our food was awful. This was how a boy should talk to girls. Nice. Genuine. Not one ounce of arrogance. "That'd be nice." I smiled, then we said our goodbyes and hung up.
My smile remained while I scrubbed my skin pink in the shower. It widened as the pale yellow walls in my room brightened my mood. I pulled the frayed edges of my quilt under the pillows and traced a white daisy, but I wrinkled my nose at the sight of my uniform laid out. The black pants were itchy and starchy no matter how many times Mom and I washed them. Despite being an extra small size, my short legs required me to roll up the pant cuffs. A most unflattering pleat ballooned my hips.
