Damage - A. M. Jenkins [9]
“What’s the matter?” Brett sneers at Curtis. “You scared you might be the one to get pounded?”
Curtis looks at Brett like he’s a mosquito that’s landed on his arm one too many times. “You really want to help us get to state, Stargill? Stop screwing around at practice.”
Across the table, Dobie winces.
Brett’s eyes narrow. “I don’t screw around at practice.”
“What do you call spitting ice chips at everybody? Mooning Dobie? Yelling at girls walking the track?”
“I call it none of your goddamn business.”
“You’re a distraction,” says Curtis, as if he doesn’t even see the way Brett’s hands are starting to clench. “If anybody needs to have his head poun—”
Click. “I haven’t seen any girls out there lately,” you say, a little too loud. “Have you, Dobie?”
“Mrs. Hoskins,” Dobie answers, shooting a worried glance from Curtis to Brett.
Not very helpful; Mrs. Hoskins is one of the PE teachers. Still, you take it and run with it. “Yeah, wearing those same old flappy shorts she’s had for the past four years. But she sure did something different today,” you add. “She flashed me when I walked past the bleachers.”
It has the desired effect. Curtis, Brett, and Dobie all turn to look at you.
“She did not,” Brett says.
“I swear. The top half, anyway. Just lifted up her blouse and showed me everything.”
“Don’t say that, Austin.” Dobie looks horrified. “She’s old. She could be your grandmother.”
“You were dreaming, Reid.” Brett makes an obscene gesture in his lap.
“Believe me,” you say straight-faced, “it was no dream.”
“Cut it out, Austin,” Dobie insists. “She must be ninety years old.”
Curtis just watches and listens. Doesn’t say a word.
“Hey, I swear,” you tell them. “The closest I can come to describing it is two watermelons bouncing in a rubber hammock.”
Stargill splutters and starts laughing. Dobie’s face is about the color of a tomato.
You grin. The corners of Curtis’s mouth are trying to rise up, but he won’t let them.
“You lie,” he finally says.
“Yeah,” you agree.
Curtis’s smile slips all the way out. He picks up an onion ring, shaking his head like he can’t believe he calls you his best friend.
“Good thing she didn’t flash you,” Brett remarks, swooping a handful of fries in his ketchup. “You’d be scarred for life. Don’t you know everything under there’s got to be hanging like a used-up feed bag.”
“I can’t believe y’all are making fun of some old lady’s private parts,” Dobie says.
“Then why are you laughing?” Curtis asks.
“I didn’t laugh.”
“You smiled,” Brett says through a mouthful of fries. “I saw you.”
Now they’re arguing about whether Dobie smiled or not, and you are no longer needed.
CHAPTER FOUR
Apparently God was trying to tell you something, the other night at the Dairy Queen. Because He says it again—and louder—that very afternoon.
Everybody sees Heather when she shows up at the very end of practice; everybody except Coach and Dobie. Dobie’s got his head down; he’s pounding equipment into a duffel bag at one end of the bleachers. Coach has his back to her as she comes down the hill toward the track; he’s ending the session.
“Four more days till our first game,” he’s saying. Everybody’s gathered in a bunch facing him—and Heather. “I like what I saw this afternoon. You keep it up to this level Friday, we’ll stomp Burlington.”
Heather walks past Dobie, who doesn’t notice at first when she sits down at the other end of the bleachers, on the bottom row. She’s wearing a skirt slit up the middle, and when she crosses her legs you’re not the only player who turns to watch.
“…no distractions,” Coach is saying, while Heather lifts her arms to pull her hair up, away from her neck. She holds it there with one hand, back arched, fanning herself with the other hand. Her skintight sleeveless top pays a proper tribute to those gravity-defying breasts.
“I’m counting on you all to keep your head in it, "Coach says.
Heather lets her hair fall back down around her shoulders, and recrosses her legs in the other direction Both sides of the slit