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Authors: Playing Hurt Holly Schindler
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lace formal, the moon like an opal 55/262
pendant. When the breeze hits the pines, the black lace sways, as though the sky-woman’s dancing to the yodel of the distant loons. Behind the loons—on the opposite side of the darkness, it seems—water crashes. There can’t be a tide here, but maybe it’s rapids running over rock? Hush, that rushing pulse urges. Hushsshhh …
I close my eyes and listen, no longer thinking about the hourglass that basketball has become, all the sand piled into a pyramid on the bottom. For the first time in months, my mind empties completely. I feel—calm. Of all things.
“Chelse!” Brandon shouts. “Come on. Before you grow roots.”
He and Mom are standing in the entrance of the lodge staring at me. Light skips across the tips of Brandon’s crazy hair and washes across their impatient frowns.
“Sorry,” I mumble, hurrying to follow them inside. As I cross the threshold, though, my phone goes off. Shocked, I scramble to fish it from the pocket of my shorts, the unripe-tomato glow of my screen washing out into the black of night.
The text is from Gabe: miss u already .
I start to go all caramel-goo inside. miss u crazy , I text right back, afraid the phone will quit working again if I take a single step forward or even lean in the wrong direction.
As soon as I send it, Gabe texts back, carlyle 23 days . It makes me feel a little scared—the same way I felt just before having to get up in front of my old speech class.
That’s a girl thing, I try to tell myself, Every girl feels self-con- scious about losing her virginity.
“Enough of the drama, Keyes,” I scold myself.
When I step inside, my eyes rest on a pay phone attached to the wall of the lobby. At least there’s still one solid link to civilization, I catch myself thinking. I take a few steps forward to join my family, who have already clustered around the check-in counter. 56/262
A man who’s definitely playing the part of the stereotypical outdoorsman—khaki fishing vest, hat decorated with lures galore—shouts,
“Earl here, owner of Lake of the Woods fishing resort. Welcome!”
Dad starts shaking the guy’s hand, saying, “Keyes.”
Earl’s eyes light. “Keyes!” he repeats. “ Chelsea Keyes.”
My brain starts spinning. The egotistical part of me starts to wonder how it could be possible for Earl to have heard about my basketball legacy so far from my home. Maybe , I actually catch myself thinking, he remembers USA WEEKEND .
“You’re in luck—Clint’s still here,” Earl announces, darting out from behind the counter and slipping into what looks like a dimly lit dining room, full of rustic bentwood chairs and tables. Clint? I wonder, squinting into the candlelight. It’s not about basketball at all. My legacy’s not even so much as a footnote. The reality stings. Again.
“Here he is,” Earl announces.
The man he ushers into the lobby? Good God.
Okay—here’s the deal. I am not a romance-novel kind of girl. I’m not a giggler. Or a flirt. I’ve never doodled a boyfriend’s name in any of my notebooks, not even Gabe’s. I don’t twirl my hair around my finger and bat my eyelashes. Sure, Gabe can turn my insides into hot caramel, but that started only after we’d been dating awhile. I’m not the sort of girl who has ever, in her entire life, gone all mushy-mushy at the mere sight of anything male.
But this guy? Hair as shiny and black as the feathers of a raven. Skin licked by the sun. And a body sculpted by sheer strength. The width of his chest, the curve of his biceps beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt, the smooth tapering of his hips … he smiles at me, and I recoil. Not from him, but from the way my entire body is responding to him.
57/262
What is wrong with you? I ask myself. In response, I instantly start to make excuses: Everybody notices the opposite sex, no matter how involved they are with someone else. Human nature. My stomach lurches a little when I notice
pendant. When the breeze hits the pines, the black lace sways, as though the sky-woman’s dancing to the yodel of the distant loons. Behind the loons—on the opposite side of the darkness, it seems—water crashes. There can’t be a tide here, but maybe it’s rapids running over rock? Hush, that rushing pulse urges. Hushsshhh …
I close my eyes and listen, no longer thinking about the hourglass that basketball has become, all the sand piled into a pyramid on the bottom. For the first time in months, my mind empties completely. I feel—calm. Of all things.
“Chelse!” Brandon shouts. “Come on. Before you grow roots.”
He and Mom are standing in the entrance of the lodge staring at me. Light skips across the tips of Brandon’s crazy hair and washes across their impatient frowns.
“Sorry,” I mumble, hurrying to follow them inside. As I cross the threshold, though, my phone goes off. Shocked, I scramble to fish it from the pocket of my shorts, the unripe-tomato glow of my screen washing out into the black of night.
The text is from Gabe: miss u already .
I start to go all caramel-goo inside. miss u crazy , I text right back, afraid the phone will quit working again if I take a single step forward or even lean in the wrong direction.
As soon as I send it, Gabe texts back, carlyle 23 days . It makes me feel a little scared—the same way I felt just before having to get up in front of my old speech class.
That’s a girl thing, I try to tell myself, Every girl feels self-con- scious about losing her virginity.
“Enough of the drama, Keyes,” I scold myself.
When I step inside, my eyes rest on a pay phone attached to the wall of the lobby. At least there’s still one solid link to civilization, I catch myself thinking. I take a few steps forward to join my family, who have already clustered around the check-in counter. 56/262
A man who’s definitely playing the part of the stereotypical outdoorsman—khaki fishing vest, hat decorated with lures galore—shouts,
“Earl here, owner of Lake of the Woods fishing resort. Welcome!”
Dad starts shaking the guy’s hand, saying, “Keyes.”
Earl’s eyes light. “Keyes!” he repeats. “ Chelsea Keyes.”
My brain starts spinning. The egotistical part of me starts to wonder how it could be possible for Earl to have heard about my basketball legacy so far from my home. Maybe , I actually catch myself thinking, he remembers USA WEEKEND .
“You’re in luck—Clint’s still here,” Earl announces, darting out from behind the counter and slipping into what looks like a dimly lit dining room, full of rustic bentwood chairs and tables. Clint? I wonder, squinting into the candlelight. It’s not about basketball at all. My legacy’s not even so much as a footnote. The reality stings. Again.
“Here he is,” Earl announces.
The man he ushers into the lobby? Good God.
Okay—here’s the deal. I am not a romance-novel kind of girl. I’m not a giggler. Or a flirt. I’ve never doodled a boyfriend’s name in any of my notebooks, not even Gabe’s. I don’t twirl my hair around my finger and bat my eyelashes. Sure, Gabe can turn my insides into hot caramel, but that started only after we’d been dating awhile. I’m not the sort of girl who has ever, in her entire life, gone all mushy-mushy at the mere sight of anything male.
But this guy? Hair as shiny and black as the feathers of a raven. Skin licked by the sun. And a body sculpted by sheer strength. The width of his chest, the curve of his biceps beneath the short sleeves of his T-shirt, the smooth tapering of his hips … he smiles at me, and I recoil. Not from him, but from the way my entire body is responding to him.
57/262
What is wrong with you? I ask myself. In response, I instantly start to make excuses: Everybody notices the opposite sex, no matter how involved they are with someone else. Human nature. My stomach lurches a little when I notice
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