The Kicker and the New Girl, Book 4

Collette

I’d kill to be the kind of dancer my mom wants me to be, but it’s just not in the cards. I’m sick of dieting. I'll never fit into the perfect ballerina mold and I’m tired of wishing that I could.

I’m over it. I’m done trying.

I’m perfectly content to dance alone in the dark while the rest of the school is sleeping.

Ethan

Coach says our football team needs discipline. That dancing alongside a bunch of prissy prima donnas is how we’ll learn our lesson.

Only problem?

I don’t have time for ballet. Not when I’m busting my butt to be the star quarterback, the dutiful son, and the perfect student…all so I can achieve my father’s dream.

When I meet Collette, I can’t help but take notice. She’s a vision of grace and beauty all wrapped up in snark and sass. And she helps me see that my own dreams aren’t so stupid after all.

I just wish she could see that in herself. But when I try to bring her out into the light, I can feel her slipping away. Her walls are built up so high, I fear they’ll never come down. I want to love her like she deserves—but that’s just the problem.

She doesn’t believe she deserves it.

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So this was what my life had come to, spending Sunday night at an old folks’ home. My life had officially hit an all-time low. 

Music blared from the open doors behind me, but Hazelcrest’s hallways were relatively quiet, and in the off-shoot hallways, the lighting was dim, which was good news for the pounding in my head. Plus, out here, there was no disco ball or flashing bright lights that made my head feel like it was housing a jackhammer. 

I’d stayed up way too late last night--being stuck at a police precinct wasn’t exactly my bed--and I hadn’t crawled under my covers until three in the morning. Dad had me up and at’em at eight with his passive aggressive stares and deep sighs. He told me I was going to work until I figured out my life. 

I snorted. Thing was, I liked my life. It was Dad who didn’t agree with my choices. But I didn’t agree with him. So we’d come to an impasse. Too bad Dad didn’t see it as a draw. He was determined to change me into what he wanted me to be. 

And I was determined not to. I liked where I was. 

I glanced back into the rec room to watch the football team and a bunch of prissy ballerinas laughing and talking as they swayed in time to some old-timey music.

Lame. So incredibly lame.

How much would my dad kill me if I left early? I spotted him talking to one of the walking mummies that lived in this depressing place. Dad had his work face on. Coach Reynolds was on duty. His smile made my stomach churn. The whole ‘I’m such a good role model for these young, impressionable boys’ schtick made me want to barf. 

I watched him, noting that every few seconds, between breaths, he would scan the crowd of teenagers. No doubt he was looking for me. Yeah, he’d definitely notice if I disappeared. 

I sighed and leaned back against the wall beside me. I was stuck here, wasting my life at what the invitation had called ‘a do-over dance’. Whatever that meant.

Two giggling girls walked past me. I recognized them. They were from my school, not the fancy pants ballet academy of uptight divas. I didn’t know their names, but I had a few classes with them.  

“I can’t believe Cooper planned all this just for Eve,” one said with the sort of sappy sigh that made me cringe. 

“I know, right? So romantic,” the other girl said as they headed back into the dance. 

They hadn’t seen me. The lighting really was pretty dim in the corner where I stood. My answering scoff was lost on them as they headed back inside.

Romantic? Please. More like desperate.

I might have been the kicker on the football team, but that didn’t mean I was friends with the team. The only reason I played was because my dad forced the issue. The only way I could play soccer was if I filled in as the football team’s kicker too. 

So no. Not a fan of the oversized goon squad inside. I barely even knew Cooper, the guy who’d planned all this to make up for whatever he’d done wrong at the first dance. The first dance was no doubt just as lame as this one, but in our high school’s gymnasium rather than an old folks’ home. I hadn’t gone to that dance, and I never would have shown my face here if my dad hadn’t threatened to take away everything I had if I didn’t come. 

Cooper’s girl, Eve, was new to Oakwood High, so I’d never even talked to her. The most I knew about her was that she used to go to the ballet academy and her older brother was Cooper’s best friend, Trenton Lawson. Now that dude, I remembered. My dad had a hissy fit when he graduated because he’d lost one of his best players. It was no secret that the team was all my dad actually cared about.

At least, it was all he’d cared about since mom died last year.

My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I ignored it. There was no way I’d admit to Kendall that I was spending my last few precious weekend hours at an assisted living facility with a bunch of mindless jocks from the football team and a bunch of giggling goody-two-shoes who thought a disco ball and fruit punch were a good time.

I was fairly certain that they wouldn’t know a good time if it slapped them in the face. 

Kendall would laugh her butt off if she knew I was here right now. I slipped my hand into my pocket, already caving on my decision not to reply to her latest text. She really should be entertaining me, at the very least. It was partially her fault my dad had me on lockdown. I’d told her we’d get caught sneaking into the school after hours. But did she listen? Nah. The girl was fearless. That was what made her so fun to be with. She helped me relax and forget my sucky life. 

Plus, she was beautiful and stayed by my side when my mom passed away. She knew me, and despite my dad’s attempt to break us up, she was the only person that kept my feet on the ground. With her, I felt like I could breathe. 

I groaned as a cheesy old fifties song came on in the rec room. My head pounded from the beat and the fact that I was stuck here for another hour before I could even ask my dad if we could leave. I’d stooped to a whole new low. 

I needed a distraction. My phone was in my hand, and I was about to hit reply when the front doors of the facility swung open. 

The sun was just above the tree line, so the girl who walked in was backlit, and it took a few seconds for her to move so I could make out her face. She was squinting as her gaze scanned the hallway. I just barely held back a laugh as she plunged headlong toward the open rec room doors. 

Maybe cheesy old pop music was like a siren song for chicks. 

I pushed off the wall for a better look as she neared. The closer she got, the more I could make out. Red curly hair, a little button nose, and a pointed chin. 

The girl was cute. Not like a smokin’ hottie or anything, but she was definitely cute. And she was new. At least, I’d never seen her around. So either she was one of the ballerina crew or—

“Oof!” The girl ran smack into me.

“Whoa,” I said. I grabbed her by her arms to steady her, all the while trying not to laugh. After all, I was just standing there. I’d stepped out of the shadows and right into her path. At six-foot, I wasn’t exactly easy to miss. Had she honestly not seen me?

Judging by the dazed way she was blinking up at me, the answer was no. She definitely hadn’t seen me.

She cleared her throat, and I could practically see her shock fading into confusion as she glanced past me toward the bizarre scene in the rec room. I mean, it wasn’t every day high schoolers held a fake formal at a home for the elderly. Sure enough…

“What’s going on in there?” she asked.

No ‘hi, my name is…’ No ‘hey, what’s your name?’ This girl was all business. And the fact that she had no clue who the people inside were or why they were currently dancing the electric slide—so unbelievably lame—meant my first guess was on the mark: new girl.

“A dance,” I said.

“A dance?” she repeated. Like I was speaking a foreign language or something.

I rested one shoulder against the wall, my lips tugging up on one side at her obvious confusion. “Yep. Do they not have dances at the local old folks’ home where you come from?” 

“Where I come from?”

“You’re new, right?” I asked.

She cleared her throat again, her gaze not quite meeting mine. “Well, um, yes.”

I wasn’t sure if I pitied this girl or envied her. I mean, I’d never been the new kid. I’d been living in Oakwood my entire life. This place was filled with history for me. Memories of my mom everywhere I looked, and disappointment from my dad every time I turned around. And for a second there, staring into this girl’s bright blue eyes, I felt like my chest was being crushed. It was as if this town and my dad’s judgy glare and all my teammates’ drama and my mom’s dreams for my future…all of it was a boa constrictor around my lungs, squeezing the air out of me and making it impossible to breathe.

I would freakin’ kill to be the new guy somewhere. Anywhere but here.

Her gaze finally flickered over to meet mine, and I felt a jolt of concern. Envy and pity were indistinguishable as I leaned forward, feeling her whole body stiffen as the red curls at her temple brushed my cheek. She was new, but that didn’t mean that this town wouldn’t eventually wrap its fingers around her and she’d end up with the same fate. I felt it was my responsibility to warn her before it got too late. 

“Word of advice? Get out of this town while you still can,” I whispered. 

Her eyes were wide with surprise when I pulled back. Her lips parted like she was going to say something, but that tightness in my chest was still there, threatening to suffocate me. I had to get out of here.

I forced a smile and gave the girl a wink that had her blinking like an owl. 

Someone turned up the volume in the rec room, and my phone buzzed again in my pocket. I needed air, and I needed it now. I headed down the hallway and turned the corner. 

There was a bright red exit sign at the end of this hallway and it was calling my name. I pressed the door release button--half expecting a siren to scream that it had been opened--but there was nothing. So I slipped out into the now dark abyss outside. 

It was freakin’ cold, but the air helped to clear my head. I’d been right. Kendall had been texting me. Mocking me for being grounded. She was lucky, she didn’t have a drill sergeant for a father, and her mother didn’t seem to care what she did. She hadn’t even gotten in trouble when we’d been hauled down to the station for breaking into school property, and she found it hilarious that I’d been grounded while she roamed free. 

I hadn’t told her the best part. My dad thought all the trouble I’d been getting into lately was her fault. “Bad influence,” he kept calling her. She’d think that was hysterical. And if I ever got let out of dad prison long enough to see her again, I’d tell her just to watch her crack up.

After a couple texts shot off to Kendall to let her know I’m still in jail and a few deep breaths, I was ready to head back inside. Not that I wanted to rejoin this do-over dance from hell, but I wasn’t up for another round of lectures from my dad either. And he wasn’t going to let me off the hook if I waited much longer. 

The door I’d escaped through was locked, so I had to trudge through the snow to the front door. The second I walked into the rec room, my dad spotted me and came over in a rush. I winced, anticipating the backlash that was coming. 

“There he is,” he called out way too loudly. My dad was a football coach. Everything he said came out way too loud. “Austin, over here.” 

It wasn’t a request, and if I didn’t hurry, he’d get more demanding. I headed over, and as I drew close, I realized he wasn’t talking to the old lady anymore. He was with a middle-aged couple and...that girl.

I almost stopped walking as I recognized the redhead from the hallway. The older couple looked like her parents—her mom had the same red curls.

It wasn’t until I’d drawn close that my dad gave me the fakest smile I’d ever seen. It was the smile of a proud parent. It made me sick.

He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “This is Austin.” He turned to face them. “Austin, meet your mom’s best friend in the whole world—”

Jessica. Jessica Lansing.

“Jessica Lansing,” my dad finished. The air rushed out of my lungs as he continued, telling me her husband’s name, as if I didn’t already know it. He reached out a hand to shake mine.

I was moving on autopilot as I reached out and shook it. My mind had totally switched off as shock rippled through me. 

Crap. I should never have come back inside. I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready for her. 

I turned back to Jessica. My mom’s best friend. “Kindergarten bosom buddies,” my mom would say as she pointed to their picture. Jessica looked the same, just older. She was smiling at me, but the smile was soft. Sad. 

She was looking at me like she knew. It was what we all knew. 

My mom was never coming back. 

My heart pounded in my chest, and all I could think about was how my mom was no longer here, but her friend was. She was standing in front of me. Jessica. Jess. My mom called her Jess when they talked on the phone. I always knew it was her on the other line because she was the only person who made my mom laugh until she cried. 

“You look just like her,” Jessica said, her eyes were warm and so full of sympathy that it made my chest collapse. There was no longer space for my lungs to expand. I was going to die here, deprived of oxygen.

I tried to swallow. I tried to speak. All I could manage was a nod. I mean, I’d heard it before. I heard it all the time, actually. I’d definitely gotten my mom’s looks with the dark hair and the green eyes. I got the height from my dad, but everything else about me came from my mom’s side. With her gone, it made it harder to hear.

But coming from Jessica? There was something different about the words. The sound they made on her lips. She added something. Sympathy. The look in her eyes that said she missed my mom as much as I did.

Which was ridiculous. No one missed my mom as much as me. No one knew the pain I experienced when I watched her slip away. And it angered me that she acted like she did. I tore my gaze away from that torturous look of understanding to focus on something else.

Cora. 

I knew her name even before my dad officially introduced her. I’d been hearing this girl’s name my whole life. 

“She’ll be attending the ballet academy. Isn’t that great? Maybe you can show her around. Introduce her to some of your teammates.” My dad kept talking, but all I could hear was my mom’s voice in my head just as surely as if she was standing right next to me. Oh, did I tell you? Cora got the lead role in The Nutcracker.

Good for her, I said with a roll of my eyes. 

Cora says hello, my mom said when we picked her up from the airport after her last visit to Dallas. It was the last time she’d traveled. Right after that she’d found out that her cancer was back. Five years in remission and then we were back at square one.

I’d never gone with her on those trips to Dallas. Dad used to joke that they were her girls’ weekends. And I’d never been forced to go along to visit Cora’s family when they’d come to town to visit either.

Mom was cool like that.

But now here she was. The famous Cora. In person. She had her mom’s red hair, but that was where the similarities ended. Cora gave me a little wave as I stared at her. She pressed her lips together in a sort of smile-slash-wince that seemed to acknowledge that we’d already met.

Sort of.

But even if we hadn’t run into one another out in the hallway, I had no doubt she recognized me too. My name, at least. I bet she’d heard all about me. I had no doubt she’d seen her mom laughing on their end whenever they talked—which was all the time. 

I knew without a doubt that she’d watched her mom cry her eyes out when she got the news about my mom. That it was over. That the fight was done, as my dad would say. 

The battle with cancer had ended, and my mom had lost.

The flood of memories made my stomach turn and my head started to swim.

Air. I needed air. 

Cora’s gaze was still on me, her polite smile firmly in place. I could see what she was thinking. How she felt about me. I could see her pity, and it angered me until I couldn’t take this meet-cute anymore. My feet backed away before I’d even made the decision to go.

“I, uh…” I was mumbling as my dad turned to me with a frown. “I’ve got homework to do.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond before I bolted. I wasn’t even sure where I was going. I couldn’t go home, and I couldn’t stay here.

I just needed to go somewhere I could breathe.

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